Collected Astrophysical Pictures


Welcome to the Astrophysics and Cosmology home page at The Ohio State University.

Summary of Our Research

Astrophysics is the application of physics, and more broadly the physical sciences, to questions concerning the nature, workings, origin, and evolution of the universe. At Ohio State, we have built a first-class astrophysics group, relying heavily on a strong rapport between the physics and astronomy departments.

Numerous advances in astrophysics have been made recently. We now understand the expansion of the universe in terms of the Big Bang. That model explains the three-degree background radiation as well as the measured cosmic abundances of helium and other light elements.

Numerous other problems remain unsolved but appear tantalizingly close to solution. for example, can we understand how galaxies could have formed as the universe expanded and cooled? Is the magnitude of this cosmic 'lumpiness' consistent with the anisotropy in the background radiation observed by the COBE satellite? And what consitutues the 'missing mass,' the unssen matter that appears to pervade the universe? Indeed, how old is the universe?

To understand the origin and nature of the universe, we need to understand how it was at its beginning. This necessarily involves states of matter and energy vastly different from anything that can be replicated today, on Earth or in space. Of necessity, the field of astrophysics has brought together physics and physicists from a broad range of subfields, involving particle physics, nuclear physics, general relativity, observational astronomy, and statistical mechanics.

Present areas of research include studies of elemental abundances produced in the Big Bang nucleosynthesis, of the viability and consequences of possible candidates for the missing mass, of the origins and evolution of structure in the universe, of the relationship between stellar evolution and the age of the universe, and of constraints on particle physics from cosmology.