ARL E131
I am the lead graduate student for the Colorado High-resolution Echelle聽Stellar Spectrograph (CHESS), a rocket-bourne experiment designed to look at聽the atomic-to-molecular transition of translucent cloud material in聽star-forming regions interacting with the winds of hot, O-B stars in the far聽ultraviolet (FUV: 100 - 160 nm) at very high resolution (R > 100,000). In May聽2014, CHESS-1 launched and successfully observes Spica, one of the brightest聽FUV point sources in the sky. In February 2016, CHESS-2 launches and will聽observe epsilon Persei, an pre-main sequence star (age ~ 5 Myr) still聽semi-embedded in the molecular cloud material it formed from. The sight line聽to epsilon Persei is expected to provide interesting diagnostics about the聽material in local interstellar medium and the material from which recent star聽formation took place.
I also study molecular hydrogen (H2) in protoplanetary disks. Instead of聽studying molecular lines in the near-infrared and longer wavelengths, we have聽access to hundreds of H2 emission and absorption lines in the FUV with聽HST-COS and STIS. Following the modeling techniques used to understand the聽behavior of molecules at longer wavelength, I have created 2D radiative聽transfer models to understand the behavior of the warm, inner H2 gas disk of聽protoplanetary disks at various evolutionary stages. I am actively working on聽identifying and modeling the absorption features of H2 against the strongest聽stellar atomic lines that excited them, most prominently in HI-Lyman alpha聽(121.567 nm) to understand whether the inner disk H2 is in a state of聽equilibrium and if this changes as the disks evolve to a gas-free stage.
ALSO, I was featured on STARtorialist!
Selected Recent Publications:
Hoadley, K.; France, K.; Alexander, R.D.; McJunkin, M.; Schneider, P.C.;聽2015. "聽The Evolution of Inner Disk Gas in Transition Disks", ApJ, 812, 16 pp.
France, K.; Hoadley, K.; Fleming, B.T.; Kane, R.; Nell, N.; Beasley, M.;聽Green, J.C.; 2015. "The SLICE, CHESS, and SISTINE Ultraviolet Spectrographs:聽Rocket-borne Instrumentation Supporting Future Astrophysics Missions",聽Accepted to the Journal of Astrophysical Instrumentation.
Hoadley, K.; France, K.; Nell, N.; Kane, R.; Schultz, T.; Beasley, M.; Green,聽J.; Kulow, J.; Kersgaard, E.; Fleming, B.; 2014. "The assembly, calibration,聽and preliminary results from the Colorado high-resolution Echelle stellar聽spectrograph (CHESS)", Proc. SPIE 9144, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation聽2014: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 914406