A Photodiode/CsI Phoswich Detector

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478

Isotopic Yields of Intermediate-Mass Fragments Emitted in E/A = 50 MeV 4-He + 116,124-Sn Reactions

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478

Calculations of Isotopic IMF Yields in the 4-He + 116,124-Sn Reaction

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478

Complex Fragment Emission in Coincidence with Angle-Correlated Fission Fragments in the 270 MeV 3-He + 232-Th System

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478

Emission of Intermediate Mass Fragments Normal to the Fission Axis in Hot Heavy Nuclei

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478

ISiS: The Indiana Silicon Sphere

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478

Nonequilibrium Slope Temperatures for IMF Emission in the E/A = 20-100 MeV 14-N + 197-Au Reactions

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478

Probing Reflection from Aerosols with the Near-infrared Dayside Spectrum of WASP-80b

The presence of aerosols is intimately linked to the global energy budget and the composition of a planet's atmosphere. Their ability to reflect incoming light prevents energy from being deposited into the atmosphere, and they shape the spectra of exoplanets. We observed five near-infrared secondary eclipses of WASP-80b with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope to provide constraints on the presence and properties of atmospheric aerosols. We detect a broadband eclipse depth of 34 ± 10 ppm for WASP-80b. We detect a higher planetary flux than expected from thermal emission alone at 1.6σ, which hints toward the presence of reflecting aerosols on this planet's dayside, indicating a geometric albedo of Ag < 0.33 at 3σ. We paired the WFC3 data with Spitzer data and explored multiple atmospheric models with and without aerosols to interpret this spectrum. Albeit consistent with a clear dayside atmosphere, we found a slight preference for near-solar metallicities and for dayside clouds over hazes. We exclude soot haze formation rates higher than 10−10.7 g cm−2s−1 and tholin formation rates higher than 10−12.0 g cm−2s−1 at 3σ. We applied the same atmospheric models to a previously published WFC3/Spitzer transmission spectrum for this planet and found weak haze formation. A single soot haze formation rate best fits both the dayside and the transmission spectra simultaneously. However, we emphasize that no models provide satisfactory fits in terms of the chi-square of both spectra simultaneously, indicating longitudinal dissimilarity in the atmosphere's aerosol composition

Time Scales and Dynamics of 3-He-Induced Multifragmentation

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478

Multifragmentation in the 1.8 - 4.8 GeV 3-He + nat-Ag, 197-Au Reactions

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478