Although at the present time there is no separate graduate program in astronomy, physics graduate students may participate in the ongoing research in astronomy. Members of the Astronomy group include Professors Werner Dappen, and Edward Rhodes.
Professor Werner Dappen is interested in theoretical helioseismology, the diagnosis of the sun's interior based on the large number of accurately determined solar oscillation frequencies. In this subject there are issues which are purely astrophysical (regarding the structure, evolution, and possible variability of the sun) and others which are related to the physics of the solar matter (such as opacity or the equation of state). While conventionally, astrophysicists often rely on results from physical theories that enter their models, some branches (and helioseismology is one of them) have the potential to provide `experiments' that cannot be performed on earth. One of Werner Dappen's particular interests is to establish such a two-way link between helioseismology and the statistical physics of the plasma of the solar interior.
Professor Edward Rhodes is a helioseismologist, a relatively young branch of solar physics which compares observations of the global velocity and intensity oscillations of the sun with theoretically-computed oscillation frequencies, amplitudes, and lifetimes to infer the spatial variation of the sound speed and angular velocity of the solar interior. Professor Rhodes leads a group which operates the 60-Foot Solar Tower Telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory, where high-spatial resolution solar observations are obtained on a daily basis. He is a Co-investigator on the Solar Oscillation Imager Investigation which is currently being developed for NASA for the late-1995 launch of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Space Mission. His group employs digital image processing techniques which are run on numerous supercomputers.