Claudia Maraston

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Claudia Maraston
Alma mater University of Bologna
Scientific career
Institutions University of Portsmouth
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics

Claudia Maraston is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth. She designs models for the calculation of spectro-photometric evolution of stellar populations. She is the winner of the 2018 Royal Astronomical Society Eddington Medal.

Contents

Education and early career

Maraston completed her postdoctoral studies at the University of Bologna in 1998. [1] She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich as well as the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. In 2005 she was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship, which allowed her to join the University of Oxford.

Research

She won a Marie Curie Excellence Team Grant in 2005. In 2007 she was awarded a €1.4 million European Commission grant for UNIMASS. [2] UNIMASS looked at how stellar population models informed galaxy formation. [3] Maraston is interested in calculating the physical properties of galaxies (age, mass, history, epoch of formation) from observational data and galaxy formation simulation. Her Stellar Population Models are available for the public. [4] [5] She looks to calculate how much dark matter is present in a galaxy. She establishes the galaxy photometric redshifts (k-) and their corrections (e). She has studied single and composite stellar populations. [6]

She has been part of several large grants from the Science and Technology Facilities Council. [7] She was the architect of the SDSS-III/ Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) project. In 2016 she used this to calculate stellar masses for 400,000 luminous galaxies. [8] BOSS is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and is designed to measure the baryon acoustic oscillations. [9] [10] They use her stellar population models. [11] She modelled the UV spectrum of the SDSS-III/ Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey galaxies. [12] In January 2018 she was awarded the Royal Astronomical Society Eddington Medal for her investigations into theoretical astrophysics. [13] She is the second woman to win the award since it began in 1953. [14]

Maraston is a popular science communicator, and has taken part in Café Scientifique and written for popular science magazine Astronomy Now. [15] [16] She serves on the editorial board of the journal the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. [17]

Related Research Articles

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Sloan Digital Sky Survey Multi-spectral imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey

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Redshift survey

In astronomy, a redshift survey is a survey of a section of the sky to measure the redshift of astronomical objects: usually galaxies, but sometimes other objects such as galaxy clusters or quasars. Using Hubble's law, the redshift can be used to estimate the distance of an object from Earth. By combining redshift with angular position data, a redshift survey maps the 3D distribution of matter within a field of the sky. These observations are used to measure detailed statistical properties of the large-scale structure of the universe. In conjunction with observations of early structure in the cosmic microwave background, these results can place strong constraints on cosmological parameters such as the average matter density and the Hubble constant.

Ultraluminous X-ray source

An ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) is an astronomical source of X-rays that is less luminous than an active galactic nucleus but is more consistently luminous than any known stellar process (over 1039 erg/s, or 1032 watts), assuming that it radiates isotropically (the same in all directions). Typically there is about one ULX per galaxy in galaxies which host them, but some galaxies contain many. The Milky Way has not been shown to contain a ULX, although SS 433 may be a possible source. The main interest in ULXs stems from their luminosity exceeding the Eddington luminosity of neutron stars and even stellar black holes. It is not known what powers ULXs; models include beamed emission of stellar mass objects, accreting intermediate-mass black holes, and super-Eddington emission.

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Baryon acoustic oscillations

In cosmology, baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) are fluctuations in the density of the visible baryonic matter of the universe, caused by acoustic density waves in the primordial plasma of the early universe. In the same way that supernovae provide a "standard candle" for astronomical observations, BAO matter clustering provides a "standard ruler" for length scale in cosmology. The length of this standard ruler is given by the maximum distance the acoustic waves could travel in the primordial plasma before the plasma cooled to the point where it became neutral atoms, which stopped the expansion of the plasma density waves, "freezing" them into place. The length of this standard ruler can be measured by looking at the large scale structure of matter using astronomical surveys. BAO measurements help cosmologists understand more about the nature of dark energy by constraining cosmological parameters.

6dF Galaxy Survey

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BOSS Great Wall

The BOSS Great Wall is a supercluster complex that was identified, using the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), in early 2016. It was discovered by a research team from several institutions, consisting of: Hiedi Lietzen, Elmo Tempel, Lauri Juhan Liivamägi, Antonio Montero-Dorta, Maret Einasto, Alina Streblyanska, Claudia Maraston, Jose Alberto Rubiño-Martín and Enn Saar. The BOSS Great Wall is one of the largest superstructures in the observable universe, though there are even larger structures known.

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References

  1. ↑ "Claudia Maraston - Portsmouth Research Portal". researchportal.port.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-17.
  2. ↑ "UNIMASS - Portsmouth Research Portal". researchportal.port.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-18.
  3. ↑ "UniMass | Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation". research.icg.port.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-18.
  4. ↑ "Claudia Maraston". www.maraston.eu. Retrieved 2018-10-17.
  5. ↑ "Claudia's Stellar Population Models". www.icg.port.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-17.
  6. ↑ "Claudia's Stellar Population Models". www-astro.physics.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-18.
  7. ↑ "Cosmology and Astrophysics at Portsmouth - Portsmouth Research Portal". researchportal.port.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-18.
  8. ↑ Maraston, Claudia; Pforr, Janine; Henriques, Bruno M.; Thomas, Daniel; Wake, David; Brownstein, Joel R.; Capozzi, Diego; Tinker, Jeremy; Bundy, Kevin (2013-09-20). "Stellar masses of SDSS-III/BOSS galaxies at z ~ 0.5 and constraints to galaxy formation models". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 435 (4): 2764–2792. arXiv: 1207.6114 . doi:10.1093/mnras/stt1424. ISSN   1365-2966.
  9. ↑ Dawson, Kyle S.; Schlegel, David J.; Ahn, Christopher P.; Anderson, Scott F.; Aubourg, Éric; Bailey, Stephen; Barkhouser, Robert H.; Bautista, Julian E.; Beifiori, Alessandra (2013-01-01). "The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey of SDSS-III". The Astronomical Journal. 145 (1): 10. arXiv: 1208.0022 . doi:10.1088/0004-6256/145/1/10. ISSN   0004-6256.
  10. ↑ Dawson, Kyle S.; Schlegel, David J.; Ahn, Christopher P.; Anderson, Scott F.; Aubourg, Éric; Stephen Bailey; Barkhouser, Robert H.; Bautista, Julian E.; Beifiori, Alessandra (2013). "The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey of SDSS-III". The Astronomical Journal. 145 (1): 10. arXiv: 1208.0022 . doi:10.1088/0004-6256/145/1/10. ISSN   1538-3881.
  11. ↑ "Stellar Population Models | SDSS". www.sdss.org. Retrieved 2018-10-18.
  12. ↑ Cras, Claire Le; Maraston, Claudia; Thomas, Daniel; York, Donald G. (2016-09-01). "Modelling the UV spectrum of SDSS-III/BOSS galaxies: hints towards the detection of the UV upturn at high-z". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 461 (1): 766–793. arXiv: 1802.10114 . doi:10.1093/mnras/stw1024. ISSN   0035-8711.
  13. ↑ "Portsmouth university professor honoured for work on stars and galaxies" . Retrieved 2018-10-18.
  14. ↑ "RAS Eddington Prize awarded to Prof Claudia Maraston". www.icg.port.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-17.
  15. ↑ "Professor Claudia Maraston on Evolution of galaxies - Isle of Wight Cafe Scientifique". Isle of Wight Cafe Scientifique. 2017-04-05. Retrieved 2018-10-18.
  16. ↑ "Proof that some galaxies are LIERs – Astronomy Now". astronomynow.com. Retrieved 2018-10-18.
  17. ↑ "Prof. Claudia Maraston | The Royal Astronomical Society". ras.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-10-18.
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