Stacy McGaugh

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Stacy McGaugh is an American astronomer and professor in the Department of Astronomy at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. His fields of specialty include low surface brightness galaxies,[1] galaxy formation and evolution,[2] tests of dark matter[3] and alternative hypotheses,[4][5] and measurements of cosmological parameters.[6]

Stacy McGaugh was an undergraduate student at MIT (S.B. 1985) and a graduate student at Princeton and the University of Michigan (Ph.D. 1992). He held postdoctoral appointments at Cambridge University, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and Rutgers University before joining the faculty of the University of Maryland in 1998. He moved to Case Western in 2012. He is married with two children. During his tenure at the University of Maryland he was an example of the academic two body problem, commuting between Maryland and Cleveland on a weekly basis for over a decade. He is a Distinguished Alumnus of Flint (Michigan) Northern High School (2001) and of the Astronomy Department of the University of Michigan (2013).

Known in the field of extragalactic astronomy for his early work on Low Surface Brightness Galaxies[7] and the elemental abundances in HII Regions,[8] McGaugh has also contributed to the study of the kinematics of galaxies, being among the first to point out that low surface brightness galaxies are dark matter dominated and that they pose the cuspy halo problem.[9] He also coined the expression "baryonic Tully–Fisher relation.[10]" He is the only scientist to correctly predict a priori the first to second peak amplitude ratio of the acoustic power spectrum of the Cosmic microwave background radiation.[11][12] McGaugh found surprising support for the Modified Newtonian dynamics proposed by Mordehai Milgrom as an alternative to Dark matter in his work on Low Surface Brightness Galaxies.[13][14] This has proven to be very controversial since it implies the non-existence of the non-baryonic dark matter that is central to physical cosmology. Nevertheless, his predictions for the mass distribution of the Milky Way[15] and the velocity dispersions of the dwarf Spheroidal satellites of the Andromeda spiral galaxy[16] have largely been confirmed by subsequent observations.[17][18]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bothun, G., Impey, C., & McGaugh, S. 1997, PASP, 109, 745 "Low-Surface-Brightness Galaxies: Hidden Galaxies Revealed".
  2. ↑ McGaugh, S.S. (1998) "How Galaxies Don't Form"
  3. ↑ McGaugh, S.S., & de Blok, W.J.G. 1998, ApJ, 499, 41 "Testing the Dark Matter Hypothesis with Low Surface Brightness Galaxies and Other Evidence"
  4. ↑ Sanders, Robert H.; McGaugh, Stacy S. (2002). "Modified Newtonian Dynamics as an Alternative to Dark Matter". Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 40, 263-317.
  5. ↑ Famaey, B., & McGaugh, S.S. 2012, Living Reviews in Relativity, 15, 10. "Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND): Observational Phenomenology and Relativistic Extensions"
  6. ↑ McGaugh, Stacy S. (1999). "Distinguishing between Cold Dark Matter and Modified Newtonian Dynamics: Predictions for the Microwave Background". The Astrophysical Journal, 523, L99-L102.
  7. ↑ McGaugh, S.S. 1994, ApJ, 426, 135 "Oxygen abundances in low surface brightness disk galaxies"
  8. ↑ McGaugh, S.S. 1991, ApJ, 380, 140. "H II region abundances - Model oxygen line ratios"
  9. ↑ de Blok, W.J.G., McGaugh, S.S., & van der Hulst, J.M. 1996, MNRAS, 283, 18. "HI Observations of Low Surface Brightness Galaxies: Probing Low Density Galaxies"
  10. ↑ McGaugh, S.S., Schombert, J.M., Bothun, G.D., & de Blok, W.J.G. 2000, ApJ, 533, L99 "The Baryonic Tully-Fisher Relation"
  11. ↑ McGaugh, S.S. 1999, ApJ, 523, L99 "Distinguishing Between CDM and MOND: Predictions for the Microwave Background"
  12. ↑ McGaugh, S.S. 2000, ApJ, 541, L33 "BOOMERanG Data Suggest a Purely Baryonic Universe"
  13. ↑ McGaugh, S.S., & de Blok, W.J.G. 1998, ApJ, 499, 66 "Testing the Hypothesis of Modified Dynamics with Low Surface Brightness Galaxies and Other Evidence"
  14. ↑ McGaugh, S.S. 2011, Phys. Rev. Lett., 106, 121303 "A Novel Test of the Modified Newtonian Dynamics with Gas Rich Galaxies"
  15. ↑ 2008, ApJ, 683, 137 "Milky Way Mass Models and MOND"
  16. ↑ McGaugh, S.S., & Milgrom, M. 2013, ApJ, 766, 22 "Andromeda Dwarfs in Light of Modified Newtonian Dynamics"
  17. ↑ Bovy, J., & Rix, H.-W. 2013, arXiv:1309.0809 "A direct dynamical measurement of the Milky Way's disk surface density profile, disk scale length, and dark matter profile at 4 kpc < R < 9 kpc"
  18. ↑ McGaugh, S.S., & Milgrom, M. 2013, ApJ, 775, 139 "Andromeda Dwarfs in Light of MOND. II. Testing Prior Predictions"

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