Dheeraj R. Pasham (DJ)

Transcription

1 Dheeraj R. Pasham (DJ) Research Interests Time Domain Astronomy: Multi-wavelength analysis of tidal disruption flares X-ray Astrophysics: Periodic and quasi-periodic phenomena from compact X-ray sources X-ray and Optical timing of Ultraluminous X-ray sources and black hole binaries Education Curriculum vitae 2010, College Park, MD, USA. Ph.D., Astronomy, August Thesis Title: X-ray Time and Spectral Variability as Probes of Ultraluminous X-ray Sources , College Park, MD, USA. M.S., Astronomy, December Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India. B. Tech, Aerospace Engineering, May 2008 Research Experience Sept. Present 2010 Sept. Sept May 2010 May 2008 May July 2007 May July Postdoctoral research associate, NASA Goddard space flight center. Multi-wavelength time and energy spectral analysis of tidal disruption events Advisors: Dr. Brad S. Cenko Graduate research assistant, & NASA/GSFC. Timing and spectral analysis of ultraluminous X-ray sources Advisors: Dr. Tod E. Strohmayer, Dr. M. Coleman Miller & Dr. Richard F. Mushotzky Graduate research assistant,. Near-field cosmological N-body simulations Advisors: Dr. Ed Shaya & Dr. Massimo Ricotti Research assistant, Ecole Polytechnique (EPFL), Laussane, Switzerland. Search for quasar lenses in the SDSS sky survey Advisors: Dr. Frederic Courbin & Dr. George Meylan Undergraduate research assistant, University of Swinburne, Australia. Chemical modeling of proto-planetary disks Advisors: Dr. Sarah Madison

2 Awards & Prizes Spring Ann G. Wyile dissertation fellowship, merit-based fellowships awarded at the University of Maryland to doctoral students, stipend of $10,000 plus expenses. April 2012 Won 1 st prize of $500, best oral presentation at the Graduate Research Interaction Day (GRID). October 2011 Won best poster award of $50, CRESST retreat Dean s award of $1000, graduate school support at the. Refereed First Author Publications August 1) A 400 solar mass black hole in the M82 galaxy. Nature,, Richard F. Mushotzky September 5) Can the 62 Day X-Ray Period of ULX M82 X-1 Be Due to a Precessing Accretion Disk?. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 774, L16 July 4) Discovery of a 7 mhz X-Ray Quasi-periodic Oscillation from the most Massive Stellarmass Black Hole IC 10 X-1. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 771, L44, Richard F. Mushotzky July 3) On the Nature of the mhz X-Ray Quasi-periodic Oscillations from Ultraluminous X-Ray Source M82 X-1: Search for Timing-Spectral Correlations. The Astrophysical Journal, 771, 101 February 2) Evidence for Quasi-periodic X-Ray Dips from an Ultraluminous X-Ray Source: Implications for the Binary Motion. The Astrophysical Journal, 764, 93 July ) A Multi-epoch Timing and Spectral Study of the Ultraluminous X-Ray Source NGC 5408 X-1 with XMM-Newton. The Astrophysical Journal, 753, 139 Refereed Co-Authored Publications April ) Three quasi-stellar objects acting as strong gravitational lenses. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 540, A36, 2012 April Courbin, F.; Faure, C.; Djorgovski, S. G.; Rerat, F.; Tewes, M.; Meylan, G.; Stern, D.; Mahabal, A.; Boroson, T.; Dheeraj, R. ; Sluse, D.

3 First Author Papers in Preparation September October November 3) X-ray Optical Reverberation Mapping of an Ultraluminous X-ray source., Sylvain Veilleux, Rob Olling, Margaret L. Trippe, Richard F. Mushotzky, Poshak Gandhi 2) A 14 sec stable pulsation from NGC 4051 s field: a background pulsar?. Dheeraj R. Pasham, Diego Altamirano, Tod E. Strohmayer, Richard F. Mushotzky 1) Serendipitous Discovery of a Mysterious X-ray Transient., Brad Cenko, Margaret L. Trippe, Richard F. Mushotzky Grants & Accepted Proposals Time (Grant) Proposal description. 150 ks (pending) Chandra cycle 15. Confronting IC 10 X-1: Does the most massive stellar black hole also have the most extreme spin? James Steiner et al., Dheeraj R. Pasham (co-i) 1.25 ks 30 Swift ToO (Target of Opportunity). Confirming the 625 day X-ray period in ULX Holmberg IX X-1 Dheeraj R. Pasham (PI) 33 ks 2 ($65,700) Joint XMM-Newton & VLT/FORS2, XMM-Newton cycle 12. A search for X-ray reverberation in the ultraluminous X-ray source NGC 5408 X-1 Tod E. Strohmayer, Dheeraj R. Pasham (co-i), Margaret L. Trippe, Poshak Gandhi, Richard F. Mushotzky 1 Night Goodman SOAR spectrograph, NOAO A cycle. Optical spectroscopy of a mysterious periodic X-ray source Margaret L. Trippe, Dheeraj R. Pasham (co-i) 2 ks 15 Swift ToO (Target of Opportunity). Search for X-ray dips in the ULX NGC 5408 X-1 Dheeraj R. Pasham (PI) 127 ks ($65,734) XMM-Newton cycle 11. X-ray timing and eclipse mapping of the massive black hole binary IC 10 X-1 Tod E. Strohmayer, Dheeraj R. Pasham (co-i), Richard F. Mushotzky

4 Conference Talks & Seminars Sept. Stanford University, CA. A stable, 3:2 frequency ratio quasi-periodic oscillation from ULX M82 X-1 Stanford tea Talk Aug. University of Berkeley, Berkeley, CA. A near-eddington 400 solar mass black hole in M82 Space sciences lab colloquium Aug. Caltech, Pasadena, CA. A near-eddington 400 solar mass black hole in M82 Space radiation lab Sack lunch Talk Jan. 223rd AAS Meeting, Washington D.C.. X-ray Timing of Ultraluminous X-ray Sources Dissertation Talk Sept. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. News from long-term (3-7 years) X-ray monitoring of a sample of ultraluminous X-ray sources: orbital and super-orbital periodicities June DC/MD/VA astrophysics summer meeting for graduate students, College park, MD. The precessing accretion disk of the intermediate-mass black hole candidate ULX M82 X-1 Quasi-periodic X-ray dips from ULX NGC 5408 X-1: Implications for accretion geometry 2012 Aug. IUCAA, Pune, India. A study of the long X-ray periods of ultraluminous X-ray sources: Clues on accretion geometry 2012 Aug. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, India. Nature of the long X-ray periods from ultraluminous X-ray sources: Orbital or super-orbital? 2012 July 39 th COSPAR Scientific Assembly, Mysore, India. Probing the accretion geometry of ultraluminous X-ray sources: News from 3.5 yr Swift monitoring of NGC 5408 X June Energetic Astronomy: Richard Mushotzky at 65, Annapolis, MD, USA. Evidence for Quasi-periodic X-ray Dips from an ULX: Implications for the Binary Motion and the Orbital period 2011 June The X-ray Universe 2011, Berlin, Germany. ULX, NGC 5408 X-1 : A deep search for correlated timing & spectral behavior

5 Posters August 14 th Meeting of The High-Energy Astrophysics Division, Chicago, IL. Discovery of 3:2 Ratio High-Frequency QPOs from a ULX: Evidence for a 400 solar mass black hole The nature of the mhz QPOs of ULX M82 X-1: Search for timing-spectral correlations The 62 day X-ray period of the ultraluminous X-ray source M82 X-1 is likely super-orbital 2011 Sept. 12 th Meeting of The High-Energy Astrophysics Division, Newport, RI. ULX NGC 5408 X-1: Coupled spectral-timing behavior similar to StMBHs and AGN? 2011 Aug. The 2 nd ASTRO-H summer school, Tokyo, Japan. Ultraluminous X-ray source NGC 5408 X-1: A scaled-up stellar-mass black hole? Research Skills Programming: IDL, UNIX shell scripting, Perl, Matlab, HTML. Tools: XSPEC, ftools, ds9, XMMSAS, ciao. Data: XMM-Newton, Swift, Chandra, RXTE, SDSS, Spitzer, Suzaku. June Present Students Jake Georon (High school student). Supervising research project: Tracking the mhz QPO in the ULX M82 X-1 Press Releases 2012 Mar. 15 Astronomers using NASA s Hubble discover quasars acting as gravitational lenses. NASA press release References Tod E. Strohmayer Astrophysicist NASA/GSFC tod.e.strohmayer@nasa.gov Richard F. Mushotzky richard@astro.umd.edu M. Coleman Miller miller@astro.umd.edu Sylvain Veilleux veilleux@astro.umd.edu