Astronomy
Chair of the Department: You-Hua Chu103 Astronomy Building
1002 West Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801
(217) 333-3090
E-mail: astronomy@uiuc.edu
Graduate Degree Programs
The Department of Astronomy offers graduate programs leading to the master’s of science and doctor of philosophy degrees. The goal of the graduate program in astronomy is to provide broadly based training in modern astrophysics and astronomy for a small and carefully selected student body. Individually designed programs involving close contact with faculty members are encouraged, and an understanding of fundamental principles and techniques and their applications to research problems of current interest is emphasized. Students are expected to acquire a solid knowledge of modem physics as well as of general astronomy. A major objective is to maintain an exciting intellectual environment in which students can develop their scientific creativity and their enthusiasm for astronomy.
Admission
Admission decisions are made once a year in the spring. Applications for admission and financial assistance must be received by January 15. Normal entrance requirements are a bachelor’s degree in astronomy, physics, physical chemistry, or mathematics, and a one-year course in descriptive astronomy. A minimum grade point average of 3.0 (A = 4.0) and satisfactory scores on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) (verbal, quantitative, and advanced physics portions) are required for admission. Financial assistance is usually provided to graduate students.
Graduate Teaching Experience
Although teaching is not a general Graduate College requirement, experience in teaching is considered an important part of the graduate experience in this program.
Master of Science
32 credit hours of study in graduate courses are required. There are no thesis or foreign language requirements. The 32 credit hours of coursework may not include any research units (such as 590 and 599), except 1 unit of 590 (summer research), and may be distributed as follows: At least 24 credit hours must be in astronomy 500-level courses, 16 of which will be in ASTR-502, ASTR-503, ASTR-504, and ASTR-590 (summer research project). The remaining 8 credit hours must be selected from the list of approved courses for the Ph.D degree.
Doctor of Philosophy
The Ph.D. degree requires completion of 92 graduate hours in courses in astronomy and related fields (at least 32 of which involve individual study and research), satisfactory performance on a general qualifying examination no later than the beginning of the third year of study, and completion of an original research project culminating in a thesis publishable in whole or in part. Further information on exact degree requirements may be obtained from the department.
Faculty Research Interests
Research activity includes astrophysical fluid dynamics; magnetohydrodynamics and radiation hydrodynamics; and observational and theoretical investigations of a wide array of astronomical objects: comets (chemistry), stars (formation, structure and evolution, atmospheres, nucleosynthesis, novae, supernovae, pulsars, and stellar statistics), the interstellar medium (multiple phases, molecular clouds, HII regions, bubbles and superbubbles, planetary nebulae, supernova remnants, magnetic fields, and galactic structure), extragalactic systems (galaxy structure and evolution, interacting galaxies, active galaxies, jets, and quasars), and large-scale structure of the universe (galaxy clusters, cosmic nucleosynthesis, cosmic microwave background, and cosmology).
Astrophysics is also a strong research interest of several faculty members in the Department of Physics. Current activity there centers on the physics of dense stellar matter, accretion phenomena, and high energy and relativistic astrophysics, with broad interests in the application of modern physics to astronomy. Students in astronomy may select thesis supervisors from faculty members in the Department of Physics as well as in the Department of Astronomy.
Research Facilities
The department is a partner in a millimeter-wavelength radio telescope array CARMA (Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy), located at Cedar Flat in the Inyo Mountains east of California's Owens Valley. CARMA is operated jointly with Caltech, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Maryland, and consists of 15 antennas operating at 3 and 1 mm wavelengths. A 1-m reflecting telescope equipped with optical and infrared CCDs, located on Mt. Laguna in Southern California, is operated jointly with San Diego State University. Transportation costs are normally provided. Optical and radio astronomers may also obtain observing time at national observatories at Kitt Peak, Cerro Tololo, Green Bank, and Socorro. Observations at UV, X-ray, and IR wavelengths can also be made with Hubble Space Telescope, Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer, Chandra X-ray Observatory, XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory, and Spitzer Space Telescope. Computational facilities include a departmental network of Sun and Linux workstations and fileservers, with interactive image processing capability and access to the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) on campus. NCSA operates Silicon Graphics, IBM, and Linux cluster supercomputers with a total capacity exceeding 40 teraflops. They are used for both production data processing (radio synthesis imaging) and theoretical modeling.
Financial Aid
University fellowships are available and may be combined with part-time teaching assistantships. Most resident students are supported for their first two or three years by half-time teaching assistantships. The typical teaching assistant takes three graduate courses per semester and spends twenty hours per week handling quiz sections in elementary astronomy courses. Teaching assistantships are responsible positions, and the concomitant duties are considered to be a valuable part of the student’s educational experience. Advanced students may compete for research assistantships offered by faculty members whose research is partially supported by federal grants.