WKU physics students presented at the American Astronomical Society Meeting

WKU physics students, Kyle Cook and Jacob Baxley, presented at the American Astronomical Society's 213th Meeting in Long Beach, CA in January of 2009.

Jacob Baxley presented a poster titled "A Generalized Cosmological Reduced Void Probability Distribution Function and Levy Index." His co-authors are Louis-Gregory Strolger, Keith Andrew, Armin Smailhodzic, Brett Bolen, James Gary, and Lisa Taylor. The abstract of his presentation: We use data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the DEEP2 survey and numerical runs of the Gadget II code to analyze the distribution of cosmological voids in the universe similar to the model proposed by Mekjian. The general form of the Void Probability Function focuses on a scaling model inspired from percolation theory that gives an analytical form for the distribution function. For large redshifts the early universe was smooth and the probability function has a simple mathematical form that mimics the two point correlation results leading to a Zipf's Law probability distribution indication an ever decreasing probability of larger and larger voids, we determine Zipf form of the scaling power law for void counts in the associated volume, the number density of these regions is such that the universe has a large scale "sponge-like" apperance with voids of all scales permeating the field of observation, hinting at the existence of an underlying scaling law. For these data sets we examine the range of critical void probability function parameters that give rise to the best fit to the numerical and observational data. The resulting void probablility functions are then used to determine the Levy index and the Fisher critical exponet within the context of a grand canonical ensemble analysis viewed as a percolation effect. We wish to thank the Kentucky Space Grant Consortium for providing the NASA grant funding this research.

Kyle Cook presented the poster titled "Optical Observations of Fermi LAT Monitored Blazars". The abstract of his presentation: For the past 8 years the Bell Observatory at Western Kentucky University has been conducting R band monitoring of the variability of approximately 50 Blazars. A subset of these objects are being routinely observed with the LAT instrument on-board the Fermi Space Telescope. Adding the Robotically Controlled Telescope (RCT) at Kitt Peak National Observatory and observations with the AZT-11 telescope at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory (CRAO), we are intensively monitoring the Blazars on the Lat monitoring list. We present the results of our long term monitoring of the LAT monitored Blazars, as well as the recent contemporaneous optical R band observations we have obtained of the LAT Blazars. Kyle received an honorable mention from the Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Awards for his undergraduate research of Optical Observations of Fermi LAT Monitored Blazers. Kyle is currently at senior in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. He has been working with Dr. Michael Carini for the past year and a half as a student researcher and telescope operator. He is originally from Louisville, KY and has had an interest in astronomy from a young age.

• Kyle Cook presented at the American Astronomical Society's 213th Meeting in Long Beach, CA January 2009. His poster is titled "Optical Observations of Fermi LAT Monitored Blazars". On the photo: Kyle Cook (on the right) and Dr. Mike Carini (on the left).

• Jacob Baxley presented at the American Astronomical Society's 213th Meeting in Long Beach, CA in January of 2009. His poster is titled "A Generalized Cosmological Reduced Void Probability Distribution Function and Levy Index."

For further information, contact Department of Physics and Astronomy at 270-745-4357 or info@physics.wku.edu.