Brian Connolly

Postdoctoral Researcher in the University of Pennsylvania
I can be contacted at:
University of Pennsylvania
Department of Physics
209 S. 33rd Street - DRL Building
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Phone: (215) 471-3044
Fax: (215) 898-2010

Current Research: Supernova Cosmology

I've been working on developing methods to type supernova using only photometric data with Natalia Connolly from Hamilton College (formally at LBL).  You can find our preprint (astro-ph/0609637) describing the method here.  I'm currently a member of the SNAP collaboration, and my focus is researching how to implement such advanced analysis techniques in future dark energy experiments.

Anyway, here's my favorite supernova animation showing a supernova light curve next to a picture of the corresponding explosion.

Also, we have four very good Hamilton College undergraduates this summer working on:
- Developing a Type Ia supernova trigger for Dark Energy Experiments
- Developing a Bayesian approach to fitting cosmological parameters and doing model selection with supernovae, similiar to that
  found in M. Kunz et al.
- Developing a method to compare spectra including systematic and statistical uncertainties in all their forms, thereby creating
  a scheme to sub-type Ia's

Old Research: Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays

In my previous postdoc, I did experimental work on the HiRes detector at the Dugway Proving grounds, located in Utah.
The HiRes experiment looks at particle showers resulting from very high energy sub-atomic particles entering
our atmosphere from outer space.

I also do some work on the Pierre Auger LIDAR.  You can see our publication (astro-ph/0609063) submitted to NIM here.

I am also involved in many outreach activities.  Some of these activities include visits to schools
where I give talks about cosmic rays (please feel free to e-mail me if you are interested!).  One such
talk about cosmic rays in Power Point format can be found here.

Also, check out what the Columbia HiRes (Auger) group is doing!


Curriculum Vitae

Recent Publications

"Sequential Analysis Techniques for Correlation Studies in Particle Astronomy, " (2007) S.Y. BenZvi, B.M. Connolly, S. Westerhoff

"A New Determination of the High Redshift Type Ia Supernova Rates with the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys," (2007) N. V. Kuznetsova, K. Barbary, B. Connolly, et al.

"A Probabilistic Approach to Classifying Supernovae Using Photometric Information," (2006) N.V. Kuznetsova and B.M. Connolly

Outreach

Interesting People

Interesting Stuff

Favorite Spots

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The base URL for this page is http://web-facstaff.sas.upenn.edu/~brianco