Adam J. Burgasser, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Physics

UC San Diego Department of Physics
Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences

What's New?

[publication]	Radio Emission Detected from a Hyperactive L Dwarf Observations conducted by our team at the Australian Telescope Compact Array have revealed that the "hyperactive" L dwarf 2MASS J1315-2649 is also a radio source, only the 4th radio L dwarf identified to date. It is also the only L dwarf known to have both strong radio and Halpha emission, continuing the mystery as to what powers the nonthermal emission from this cool object. (November 2012)
[video]	Project Planetaria opens first installation: Solar Variations Project Planetaria, a collaborative project between Adam Burgasser (Physics), Tara Knight (Theatre Arts) and Michael Trigilio (Visual Arts), opened its first installation, "Solar Variations" in the new Experimental Media Lab. See the video... (September 2012)
[publication]	Kids Measure Distance to Sun The Hetu'u Global Network, co-organized by group graduate Jacqueline Faherty, recruited 19 school groups on 6 continents and 10 countries to measure the distance to the Sun during the recent Venus transit. Utilizing a technique developed by French astronomer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, we measured a distance of 158+/-20 million km only 3% off the known value. Over 100 students participated in the experiment. Read more... (August 2012)
[publication]	A Very Low Mass Trio We've found the lowest-mass triple "star" system SDSS J0006-0852AB/LP 704-48, a hierarchical system composed of two late M dwarfs and a T dwarf, all with a total mass less than 30% that of the Sun. The M/T pair was discovered using the spectral binary technique developed by the Burgasser Group, and follow-up monitoring revealed radial velocity variations that map that system's orbit. This old, inactive system is a benchmark for evolutionary studies, and its existence a challenge for star formation models Read more... (August 2012)
[video]	UCSD hosts Keck Science Meeting 2012 Adam Burgasser served as the chair of a multi-institutional Science Organizing Committee that organized a two-day meeting on science from the Keck Observatory. Talks from graduate students, postdocs, research staff and faculty highlighted the many exciting science results coming from Keck. . Watch the talks on YouTube (September 2012)
	Benjamin Dean lecture at the California Academy of the Sciences Adam Burgasser gave the Benjamin Dean Lecture at the California Academy of the Sciences in San Francisco, CA, presenting "Planets or Stars? The Dark Universe of Brown Dwarfs" on the 75-foot screen in the Morrison Planetarium. . (August 2012)
	Daniella Bardalez Gagliuffi wins Cool Stars Poster Award Graduate researcher Daniella Bardalez Gagliuffi earned a a 3rd place Poster Prize award at the 17th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems and the Sun conference in Barcelona, Spain, for her poster reporting the discovery of a very low mass triple system comprised of two M dwarfs and a T dwarf. She shared her award with Kay Hiranaka from Hunter College. . Abstract of poster (July 2012)
	Amelia Christensen wins AAS Poster Award UCSD undergraduate Amy Christensen was awarded a Chambliss Award Honorable Mention at the 220th American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, for her poster on variable L dwarfs in the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey. Amy's poster drew a crowd in part for its creative xkcd-style format, a popular comic among scientists . Abstract of Amelia's poster (June 2012)
o PRIOR NEWS STORIES o

Research

Background on my research can be found in this Physics Today review article. You can also check out some of my recent research publications and presentations.

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Teaching

• Physics 1A: Mechanics (Fall); You can watch and listen to the course podcast
• Physics 13: Life in the Universe (Winter) - a new course at UCSD, examining the physics, biology, astronomy, history, philosophy and ethics about searches for life on other worlds
• Theatre TBD: Project Planetaria (Spring) - another new course with my colleagues Tara Knight (Theatre Arts) and Michael Trigilio (Visual Arts) aimed at exploring astronomical measurement and interpretation from scientific and aesthetic perspectives; this course is supported by an Open Classroom grant from the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts.

Prior courses I have taught are available through the UCSD Podcast Service, MIT TechTV and MIT OpenCourseWare. Course evaluations are available through CAPE.

In Fall 2008 I conducted an experiment of bringing interactive learning to the 8.012 lectures. If you are interested, please read the report and check out some of the concept questions developed for the class.

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Diversity and Inclusion

I chair the Outreach/Diversity committee in the UCSD Physics department and am a Diversity Coordinator at UCSD. I am the faculty contact of the new undergraduate Women in Physics group. I am also a member of the California Professoriate for Access to Physics Careers (CPAPC), a group that aims to identify and support underrepresented minority physics majors in the CSU/UC system.

I have participated in National Society of Black Physicists and SACNAS meetings, and the 2003 and 2009 Women in Astronomy meetings (see our survey on perception of appropriate behavior between students and advisors for the 2009 meeting).

Want to learn more about diversity in Astronomy? Read the Astro2010 Decadal Survey State of the Profession Position Papers, led by Dara Norman, on increasing the number of underrepresented minorities in astronomy at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels (additional detail is provided in Papers I and II).

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Other goodies

• My vast collection of links.
• There are lots of dwarfs, some in pairs.
• Need a good science writer?

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