Mark Giampapa received his PhD in Astronomy from the Steward Observatory,
University of Arizona followed by postdoctoral research at the Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics from 1980 – 1982. Dr. Giampapa then joined the staff of the
NSO/NOAO where he has been a tenured Astronomer, as well as an Adjunct Astronomer
and Lecturer in Astronomy at the University of Arizona. A recipient of the George van
Biesbroeck award for observational and theoretical studies of late-type stars, Dr.
Giampapa’s recent research interests have focused on stellar magnetic activity, star-
planet interactions and the characterization of exoplanet host stars with over 155
publications in peer-reviewed journals and other professional publications. Dr. Giampapa
has so far served on five PhD thesis committees and mentored approximately 20 students
in research projects, with most going on to positions in astronomy or physics as faculty,
staff at national labs, and director or department head at major research institutions.
NRES and the New Era for Astrophysics
February 6, 2018
When: February 6, 2018 11:00AM
Mark Giampapa
We are entering a New Era in Astrophysics distinguished by the implementation of
transformative facilities, both on the ground and in space. Together these facilities
form a network of advanced capabilities for time-domain investigations and large-
scale surveys, in addition to focused studies extending from star-planet interactions
to cosmology, among other forefront applications. The advent of the Network
Robotic Echelle Spectrograph (NRES) at LCO will enable all-sky, efficient time
domain and survey programs that will be essential to the characterization of
candidate exoplanet systems. In particular, long-term NRES investigations will
identify new Jovian-mass systems that will be candidates for eventual direct
imaging spectroscopy by WFIRST with its technology demonstration coronagraphic
instrument. An overlooked class of objects, specifically, subgiants and giant stars,
that are also accessible to NRES, will be high-priority targets for future imaging
applications, both space-based as well as ground-based in the era of Extremely
Large Telescopes such as TMT. In addition, NRES will contribute to the
characterization of TESS candidate systems at the sub-Neptune mass range while
also carrying out the essential work of separating astrophysical false positives from
true exoplanet systems. Accurate characterization of the host star is critical to
understanding the nature and evolution of exoplanet systems while specific
elemental abundance ratio anomalies may delineate between distinct classes of
exoplanet architectures. In addition, time domain studies of key spectral
diagnostics in transiting systems can yield insights on stellar properties as well as
exoplanet magnetospheric properties. Recent discoveries further reveal that time-
domain spectroscopic observations of strong emission features in classical pre-main
sequence stars can indicate the presence of massive protoplanets in the inner
regions of protoplanetary disks. Through these combined investigations, new
insights will emerge on the evolution of exoplanet system architectures extending
from the pre-main sequence to the post-main sequence phase. Finally, NRES will
enable time-domain studies of spectroscopic variability covering a wide range of
frontier investigations in stellar astrophysics. These topics along with preliminary
results from current research will be discussed.
Mark Giampapa