NEWS

By DAVID WILLIAMSON
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- Dr. Daniel E. Reichart, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been selected to receive one of the nation’s most prestigious astronomy honors, the Robert J. Trumpler Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

"This award is made to a recent Ph.D. degree recipient whose research is considered unusually important to astronomy," said Dr. Mary Kay Hemenway, secretary of the society and a University of Texas in Austin professor, in a letter to Reichart. "We wish to recognize your outstanding thesis titled ‘The GRB-Supernova Connection,’ which significantly enhanced knowledge in the field of gamma ray bursts and opened up important new areas of research."

The UNC scientist will pick up the Trumpler award, which includes a cash prize and travel expenses, at the society’s annual meeting in Berkeley, Calif., on Oct. 11.

Reichart’s chief research interests are cosmic explosions known as gamma ray bursts, the early universe, interstellar extinction, galaxy clusters, Bayesian interference and archaeoastronomy. When he learned of the award, he was coordinating a global gamma ray burst observing campaign.

"I know competition for this award is very, very keen because I served on the awards committee for eight years," said Dr. Bruce Carney, Baron professor and chair of physics and astronomy at UNC. "It’s pretty rare for someone as young as Dr. Reichart to win one.

"We lured Dan to Chapel Hill in part because of the SOAR Telescope," Carney said. "We wanted him here because of SOAR and the energizing effect he'd have on undergraduate and graduate students. We felt we all could learn a lot from him, and we have been delighted with his successes."

Reichart, who earned his Ph..D. in astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago in 2000, joined the UNC faculty last year. Earlier, he received three bachelor of science degrees in mathematics, physics and astronomy, and astrophysics from Pennsylvania State University and a master’s from Chicago.

From 2000 to 2002, he was a Hubble fellow at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Reichart already as published five major papers and has won the Carl Sagan Outstanding Teacher Award at the University of Chicago for his influential thesis.

His thesis research examined the connection between supernovae and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). In 1999, he showed that a GRB that occurred in 1997 coincided with what appeared to be a supernova.

The combination of optical and near-infrared observations made the event the best case at the time for a GRB-supernova connection at cosmological distances. The GRB-supernova connection, which has been confirmed by a relatively nearby GRB-supernova in April 2003, has led astronomers to the current consensus that most GRBs result from the explosive death of massive stars.

Dr. Michael Turner of the University of Chicago said in his nomination letter that Reichart’s thesis "attracted the attention of the most talented astrophysicists." Reichart also showed that the variability in gamma-ray burst light curves can be used as an estimate of the bursts’ intrinsic luminosity, and therefore give an estimate of their distance.

The Astronomical Society of the Pacific is an international non-profit organization founded in 1889 and headquartered in San Francisco. Its mission is to promote scientific research and disseminate research findings to schools and the public. Carney served as president of the society for two years and a board member for six.

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Note: Reichart can be reached at (919) 962-5310 or reichart@physics.unc.edu.

Contact: David Williamson, (919) 962-8596