Martha P. Haynes

Prof. Martha P. Haynes
Martha Haynes
Born	Martha Patricia Haynes (1951-01-01) 1 January 1951 Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Nationality	American
Fields	Astrophysics
Alma mater	Welesley (BSc), Indiana (PhD)
Doctoral advisor	Morton Roberts
Known for	Work mapping the universe with radio telescopes
Notable awards	Henry Draper Medal (1989)

Martha Patricia Haynes (born 1951) is an American astronomer who specializes in radio astronomy and extragalactic astronomy. In 1989 she won the Henry Draper Medal for her work with collaborator Riccardo Giovanelli using radio telescopes to map the distribution of galaxies in the Universe. She is the Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University ^[1] She has been on a number of high-level committees within the US and International Astronomical Community, including Advisory Committee for the Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences of the National Academies (2003-2008) and Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Review (in 2010). She was a Vice-President of the Executive Committee of the International Astronomical Union from 2006-2012.,^[2] and has been on the Board of Trustees of Associated Universities Inc since 1994.

Academic career

Haynes graduated from Wellesley College in 1973 with a B.A. in physics and astronomy. She went to Indiana University for graduate school. There she received her M.A. in 1975 and her Ph.D. in 1978. From 1978 until 1981 she worked at the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center when she left to become the assistant director for the Green Bank Telescope. She joined the faculty at Cornell in 1983.^[3] In 1989, Haynes received together with her collaborator Riccardo Giovanelli the Henry Draper Medal for the first three-dimensional view of some of the remarkable large-scale filamentary structures of our visible universe.^[4] In 1999 she was elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2000 she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Personal life

Haynes is married to long time collaborator Riccardo Giovanelli. They live in Ithaca, NY.

ALFALFA

The ALFALFA research project is located at the Arecibo Observatory and started on February 4th 2005. It is still ongoing (April 2013).^[5] The name is the abbreviation of Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA. ALFA is the abbreviation of Arecibo L-Band Feed Array.^[6]

The ALFA is a seven pixel detector and thus seven times faster than the previously used one pixel detectors. It is utilized in combination with the Arecibo Observatory telescope, a 305 meter radio telescope, which is currently (March 2009) the largest single dish telescope in the world and therefore offers better resolution and sensitivity.^[7][8]

The speed of the ALFA permits it to survey large areas of the sky quickly, while the telescope provides unequalled sensitivity. With the seven feeds it is also possible to detect structures which are too big to be seen with radio interferometers or single-pixel detectors.^[7][8]

The ALFALFA survey is a blind extragalactic survey in neutral atomic hydrogen (HI) utilizing the ALFA at Arecibo Observatory. The telescope is not directed at preselected targets, but at one location for one night, allowing the sky to pass. This is called drift-scan. The goal is to find up to 25,000 galaxies in the course of 6–7 years. Some of the detected objects should be dark galaxies, consisting largely of dark matter and in this case hydrogen gas, but no or very few stars. These galaxies are not visible with optical telescopes and yet (March 2009) undiscovered.^[7][9]

Similar projects are HIPASS and HIJASS.^[6]

Selected publications

Haynes, M. P., and R. Giovanelli. "Large-Scale Structure in the Local Universe: The Pisces-Perseus Supercluster." In Large-Scale Motions in the Universe, V. C. Rubin and G. F. Coyne, eds. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 45.

Haynes, M. P. "Evidence for Gas Deficiency in Cluster Galaxies." In Clusters of Galaxies, W. R. Oegerle, M. J. Fitchett, and L. Danly, eds. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 177.

Vogt, N. P., T. Herter, M. P. Haynes, and S. Courteau. "The Rotation Curves of Galaxies at Intermediate Redshift." Ap. J. Letters 415 (1993).

Roberts, M. S., and M. P. Haynes. "Variation of Physical Properties along the Hubble Sequence." Ann. Rev. Astron. Ap. 32, 115 (1994).

Haynes, M. P., and A. H. Broeils. "Cool HI Disks in Galaxies." In Gas Disks in Galaxies, J. M. van der Hulst, ed. (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1995), to appear.^[1]

References

External links

• Martha P. Haynes Personal Page
• ALFALFA Page
• ALFALFA Blog
• Cornell University: Department of Astronomy
• National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center: Arecibo Observatory