Michel Fich
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1
(519) 888-4567 x32725,
fich at uwaterloo.ca
Research Topics:
Interstellar medium; star formation; galactic structure; chemistry;
dust; radio, submillimeter, and infrared astronomy; space astronomy;
image analysis techniques.
last update: 8 January, 2013
Recent talks:
Present Research Activities:
A large part of my time is spent in developing new instruments for astronomy
research.
Currently nearing the end of its life, one facility that has ben central to my life over the past decade is
the Herschel Space Observatory
. Most of my efforts for Herschel are on
behalf of the HIFI instrument through the
Canadian Herschel/HIFI Consortium.
Herschel will run out of helium, a coolant needed for the instruments to function, in the Spring of 2013.
I am the Canadian Project Leader in an
instrument called
SCUBA-2 , a sub-millimeter camera for the
JCMT.
I am the Canadian co-Lead for
the CCAT Telescope, a proposed
very large sub-millimeter wavelength telescope to be built in northern
Chile. I am the Canadian Lead for a proposed Far-Infrared Interferometer
(FIRI) in space (see this
paper describing this project). I am also the Canadian point-of-contact
for the "under-development" project at NASA known as
SPIRIT .
I am also the chair of the Canadian Space Agency Discipline Working Group
in Far-Infrared Astronomy.
I am studying the formation of stars and planets and the properties of
the interstellar medium,
especially as it relates to the structure
of the Milky Way. This includes the study of
the large scale distribution of
various components of the Galactic disk: HII regions, molecular
clouds, supernova remnants, dust,
and metals.
Current projects include:
-
Large field imaging at submillimeter wavelengths
of nearby Galactic star forming areas (e.g. Orion, Taurus, rho Oph);
-
modeling the radiative transfer, especially of water lines, in
circumstellar disks
-
A study of the Initial Luminosity Function and the Initial Mass
Function in the outer Galaxy.
-
A study of a spectacular molecular bipolar outflow;
-
A long term program of observations of cold dust in elliptical galaxies;
-
Theoretical models of continuum emission in the infrared and submillimeter
from dust grains, especially those in or near HII regions;
-
A program that
combines millimeter, submillimeter, and near-infrared
observations in an attempt to decouple the effects of various environmental
properties on the progress of star formation in
dense molecular cloud cores;
-
Measurements of the abundances of various elements in HII
regions in the outer Galaxy;
-
A candidate Luminous Blue Variable in the outer parts
of the Galaxy;
Most of the data for these projects are being obtained at the
James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT),
the best submillimeter telescope in the world
(jointly owned and
operated by Canada, Britain, the Netherlands, and Hawaii). Other
facilities in use in these investigations include those at
the
Owens Valley Radio Observatory,
the
Berkeley Illinois Maryland Array (BIMA),
(which have now been combined to form
CARMA)
and the
(US) National Radio
Observatory's Very Large Array (VLA) .
Recent Teaching
Note: as of Fall 2006 all teaching web sites have been moved to password
protected sites under the structure provided by a Content Management System, currently: UW-LEARN
video downloads
data downloads
Personal stuff.......
my house - outside
and
my house - inside
