Rolf-Peter Kudritzki (Director)Bob Joseph (Faculty Chair)

Update to the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy 2001 Self-Study Report

October 2003

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction 3

2. Research 3

2.1 Progress with new larger projects 32.2 Publications 62.3 Observing time allocations 9

3. Budget 10

4. Teaching program 11

4.1 Undergraduate teaching 114.2 Graduate teaching 12

5. Staffing 13

6. Outreach and community relations 13

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1 Introduction

This document was produced quickly as a response to a request from the Board of RegentsOffice to provide documentation about the Institute for Astronomy for a BOR visit to IfA’s Hilofacility on October 16, 2003. As usual, this request came in far too late, practically at the sameday as the deadline for the response. Although the deadline was then extended for a few days,this was certainly not the appropriate procedure to obtain information about one of the leadingresearch institutes of the State and its University. In any case, we have tried to be helpful onvery short notice.

At the end of Year 2001 the Institute for Astronomy was reviewed by an external reviewcommittee consisting of leading astronomers in the U.S., including members of the NationalAcademy of Sciences. The report of this committee was presented to the President and to theRegents. In preparation for this review the IfA produced a Self-Study Report, which gives acomprehensive description of the IfA. It contains detailed information about the mission of theInstitute, its organizational structure, research operation, teaching program, budget and – mostimportantly – about the strategies and goals for the future.

We provide this Self-Study Report of November 2001 as the basic document of information.However, since there has been significant progress since the completion of the 2001 report, wehave decided to augment it with a brief update describing the recent developments. This is thedocument presented here. It reports the progress with the larger projects identified as milestonesfor the future of the IfA and for astronomy in the state of Hawaii. It provides an update on theIfA’s budget and staffing and describes the remarkable development of the Institute’sengagement in teaching. A final section concentrates on outreach and community relations.

2 Research

2.1 Progress with new projects

Three major projects were identified in the 2001 Self-Study Report as the most importantscientific goals for the IfA and for the future of astronomy in Hawaii: a) participation in thedevelopment, operation and scientific use of the next-generation largest telescope in the world tobe built on Mauna Kea; b) participation in the development, operation and scientific use of theworld’s largest telescope for observations of the Sun to be built on Haleakala, and c) the design,development, and operation of a completely new type of extremely powerful survey telescopewhich will allow one to detect the threatening near-Earth “Killer Asteroids” many years beforeimpact.

For all three projects significant progress has been accomplished over the last two years.

a) Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope

The Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (GSMT) will be the largest telescope ever built. It willhave a reflecting primary mirror of about 30m diameter with a light collecting power a factor often larger than the largest telescopes in the world at present, the Keck I and II telescopes on

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Mauna Kea. The costs for design and construction of this telescope are presently estimated at$700M. Operating costs over the next twenty years will amount to $1,000M. The NationalScience Foundation and private foundations are the possible sources of funding.

The Director of the IfA has been selected by the National Science Foundation to chair a nationalcommittee (the GSMT Science Working Group) which has the charge to provide a compellingscientific justification for the project as the basis for federal funding and to serve as an advocateof the community of astronomers in the U.S. for the development of this most ambitious project.In intensive work over the last year a first White Paper (“Frontier Science Enabled by a GiantSegmented Mirror Telescope”) has been written and was presented to the National ScienceFoundation by the IfA Director in August this year. A copy of this document is attached to thepackage provided to the BOR. In popular language it gives an overview about the most excitingscience which will be possible with this telescope.

The GSMT is the most important project of modern ground-based astronomy worldwide, and itis clear that bringing it to Mauna Kea must be of highest priority in order to maintain theleadership position of Hawaii in astronomy for the coming decades. The IfA, working closelywith Caltech, the University of California, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, andpossible partners in Canada, Japan, Europe and Australia, is in an excellent position to bring thisproject to Hawaii, particularly since we have an outstanding track record of science operation onMauna Kea. However, concentrated and coherent support by the University, the Regents, and theState will be needed if we are finally to succeed.

The economic prospects of bringing the GSMT to the island of Hawaii are huge. Already theeconomic impact of the existing observatories amounts to 500 jobs and $150M per year. TheGSMT as a billion dollar project will easily double these numbers.

b) The Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST)

The ATST will be the largest telescope ever built in the world for observations of the Sun. Theastronomical investigation of the physics of the Sun is of fundamental importance for mankind,since the development of the Earth’s climate is directly related to the variability of solarmagnetic fields. The observational techniques to study the Sun, which is extremely brightcompared to stars and galaxies observed in the night sky, are vastly different from night-timeastronomy. So far the largest solar telescopes built have mirrors only a little larger than 1m. TheATST will have a new technology off-axis primary mirror of 4m diameter, a similar concept forwhich has been developed by IfA astronomer Dr. Jeff Kuhn, together with a prototype which ispresently in operation on Haleakala. Equipped with the new technology of Adaptive Optics thistelescope will reveal physical details of the Sun and its magnetic fields with unprecedentedquality.

The ATST is a joint project between the National Solar Observatory (NSO), the IfA and manyresearch institutions on the mainland. A Phase A engineering study is presently funded by theNational Science Foundation with $10M. The IfA is Co-Investigator in the project and theInstitute’s mirror concept has been adopted. The total costs for design and construction arepresently estimated as $160M.

Six sites are being tested worldwide as a possible location for the ATST. Haleakala, which withthe IfA’s Mees Observatory has one of the major solar observatories on its summit, is among

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those sites and regarded to be among the very best. By the end of the year a science committeewill make a down-select to two sites, based on the evaluation of the site-testing data. We areconfident that Haleakala will be among the final sites. The final decision for the site will be madeby the end of 2004, again based on site-testing criteria, but also based on the infrastructure acooperating university is capable and willing to offer to the National Solar Observatory forcollaboration with the ATST.

The IfA has initiated the discussion of this collaboration with NSO. The director of NSO visitedthe IfA in August and also met with the Manoa Chancellor to discuss possible modes ofcollaboration. Now, after the plans to build the new IfA Maui Technology Center have beenapproved by the BOR, the chances of attracting ATST, and with it the whole NSO, lookexcellent. It is clear that attracting this project to Maui will have a very positive impact on thatisland’s economy and infrastructure.

c) Pan-STARRS

PAN-STARRS is an innovative survey telescope project to search for asteroids whose orbits atsome future time could intersect with the Earth. These are the so-called “killer asteroids,” one ofwhich is thought responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Impactcraters on the Earth and the Moon demonstrate that such impacts do occur. In 2002 an asteroid ofmore than 1km size passed between the Moon and the Earth. It was detected only very shortlybefore it passed by. There is a mandate by Congress to investigate the risk posed by killerasteroids.

The concept of the project has been created and developed by IfA astronomer Dr. NicholasKaiser. It builds upon innovative new technologies that have been developed within the IfA. It isa collaboration between the IfA and the Maui High-Performance Computer Center (MHPCC),Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and the M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory. TheIfA is leading the project. The aim is to build four smaller telescopes (1.8m mirror diameter) ofnovel design with an extremely wide field of view to carry out all-sky surveys on a time-scale ofa week and to repeat these over several years. In addition to finding the killer asteroids therepeated surveys of the sky each week can be added up to build up exposure time and achieve thedeepest digital image of the entire sky ever taken and to generate a very high sensitivity catalogof the entire sky, which will be unique and invaluable for many other kinds of astronomy. Thereare two critical technologies required. One is to build CCD cameras for these telescopes whichare 10 times larger than any such previous camera, and to do it for one-tenth the cost. We havesome of the world’s experts in large format cameras for astronomy and a prototype cameraincorporating new technology required for these cameras is already working on the UH 2.2 mtelescope. A second major technological requirement is massive rapid computer processing ofthe data. The projected data rate for Pan-STARRS is several thousand billion (10x1012) bits perday (10 Terabyte/day). The IfA has enormous experience in dealing with large data volumes andis now working with MHPCC on this aspect of the project. Pan-STARRS has a total budget ofabout $60 million. The funding for FY 2002, 2003 and 2004 has been approved by Congress.

Pan-STARRS is an enormous scientific step forward for the IfA. Not only will it be a majortechnological and scientific contribution in the modern competitive world of astronomy, it willalso provide a milestone of risk assessment of mankind’s existence in the solar system.

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d) Astrobiology

One of the important new directions of research at the IfA is astrobiology, which is theinvestigation of the evolution of life in the universe. Astrobiology deals with the search forplanetary systems around other stars and their birth out of proto-planetary disks of gas and dustsurrounding young stars. It investigates the formation of complex organic molecules in the harshenvironment of interstellar space based on a new description of thermodynamics. NASA hasunderstood the tremendous importance of this new scientific field and supports the formation oflead institutes for astrobiology. Very recently in 2003, there was a nationwide competition forfunding of a few such institutes. We are very pleased to report that the IfA with astronomer Dr.Karen Meech as the Principal Investigator has won the NASA award for an astrobiology leadinstitute. The project is an interdisciplinary effort and involves collaboration with faculty in UH-Manoa’s Hawaii Institute of Geophysics & Planetology, the Department of Information andComputer Science, the Department of Chemistry, and the Department of Oceanography. Thetheme of this most timely investigation is to trace the history of water from its formation in theinterstellar medium to incorporation in the solar system, how it reaches the terrestrial planets,and its role in life. The project has a five-year budget of over $5 million.

2.2 Publications

The mission of an Organized Research Unit is to do research, and the best single indicator of thateffort is publications of research discoveries in scientific journals. The IfA’s publication rate hascontinued to grow in the past few years, as shown in Fig. 1 below. Note that these statistics arelimited to refereed papers and invited reviews for conferences; the total number of publicationswe produce in each year is typically about 80% larger. Refereed papers are reviewed by expertsin the research field of the publication and only papers up to the highest scientific standards areaccepted. Invited reviews are papers presented at international conferences by widely-acknowledged leaders in the field.

Refereed & Invited Review Publications

0

50

100

150

200

250

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Year

Pu

blica

tio

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Figure 1. Number of refereed papers and invited review paperspublished by IfA staff for the calendar years indicated.

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Another measure of the quality of research is the number of citations of IfA scientific papers byother astronomers in their scientific papers. This is often regarded as a more reliable index of thequality of research since it indicates how a given scientific paper has influenced other researchers.The Self-Study Report shows that the IfA is particularly outstanding by this measure. Our percapita citation counts for various fields of astronomical research are either at the top or in the topthree among the top-20 astronomy departments (as ranked by the National Research Council). InFig. 2 we show the total number of citations for the IfA among the top-20 astronomy departmentsin the U.S.A. The IfA continues to realize a high level of citations by other researchers. In Fig. 3we show the IfA citation record for the past few years. Clearly the IfA is maintaining a record ofhigh achievement in research as measured by citations by other astronomers. These Figures give aclear indication about the quality of research pursued at the IfA.

The publishers of Science Citation Index, the organization which measures and publishesscientific citations, have named four IfA astronomers, Drs. Len Cowie, Patrick Henry, DavidSanders, and Brent Tully, as "highly cited authors." They are listed (cf. ISIHighlyCited.com)among 249 of the world's most cited and influential researchers in the space sciences, the topone-half of one percent of all publishing researchers in this field. There are seven such highly-cited scientists in the entire University of Hawaii; four are on the IfA faculty.

Perhaps even more significantly, the number of high-impact papers produced by IfA facultycontinues to grow. High-impact papers are publications which have extremely high citationrates. They are regarded as the major contributions to the advancement of modern science.

Figure 2. Citations of scientific papers for faculty in the top-20 astronomy departments as ratedby the National Research Council. (N.B. Self-citations are excluded in these tabulations.)

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IfA Total Citations

0

500

1000

1500

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2500

3000

3500

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1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Year

Nu

mb

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Figure 3. The total number of IfA citations, excluding self-citations,for tenured and tenure-track faculty and senior research faculty.

IfA High-Impact Papers

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15

20

25

30

35

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Year

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mb

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Figure 4. The number of high-impact papers produced by IfA faculty forthe years 1995-2002. “High impact” papers are identified as those withmore than 20 citations per year.

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2.3 Observing Time Allocation

The IfA allocates observing time on all the telescopes to which it has access based on peer-review of applications submitted by faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate students.Applications are submitted twice a year (1st October & 1st April) and reviewed by a TimeAllocation Committee (TAC). The TAC has representation for the major specializations inastronomy (planetary, stellar, extragalactic, etc.), and is made up of eight faculty, one post-doctoral fellow, and one graduate student. The graduate student is a non-voting member butparticipates in the discussion of each application. TAC appointments are for staggered three-year terms, except for the post-doc, which is a one-year term. The graduate students elect theirrepresentative, and a different graduate student joins the TAC each semester. (We consider thisvaluable professional experience for our graduate students.) One member of the TAC is fromHilo. The TAC elects its own chair. In Table 1 we present the allocations of observing time forthe most recent two semesters, in 2003, for Manoa and Hilo (Maui staff specialize in solarastronomy and do not generally apply for observing time on these telescopes.) The Table givesthe percentage fraction of nights awarded by the TAC relative to the amount requested for eachtelescope, broken down separately for both Manoa and Hilo staff.

Table 1. Allocation of telescope observing time by island site for 2003. (Telescope time awarded relative to time requested).

Telescope Manoa HiloKeck I 45% 0 requestedKeck II 50% 29%UKIRT 75% 60%CFHT 42% 100%JCMT 46% 33%CSO 100% 0 requestedUH 2.2 m 71% 94%UH 0.6 m 100%* 100%*Gemini 46% 61%Subaru 58% 52%

*This time amounted to 19 nights for Manoa and 165 nights for Hilo.

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IfA Funding

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5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

FY99 FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03

Year

$ (

mil

lio

ns)

Total G+R+S funds

ExtramuralFunding

Figure 5. IfA funding awarded for the past five years.

3 Budget and Finance

In Fig. 5 we show the IfA budget and extramural funding received for the past fiveyears. It is evident that the IfA has consistently brought in a significant amount ofextramural funding. The recent steep rise in extramural funding in FY 2003 results fromthe new projects.

In Table 2 we show the breakdown of the IfA G-Fund budget for FY2004, including allGeneral-, Tuition-, and Return-of-Overhead Funds, as well as funds from privatesources or from collaboration with partner institutions.

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Table 2. IfA Budget for FY 2004.

$KResearch ActivitiesFaculty Salaries 3,620UH 2.2 m telescope 924CFHT support 699Research support 745

Haleakala development 180

Base OperationsManoa 157Hilo 351Maui 172Public information & outreach 330

Administrative & other servicesCentral administration (including director’s salary) 710Distributed services (ARS) 721Computing/networking (CSRS) 341

Contingency 20

Total = 8,970

4 Teaching program

4.1 Undergraduate teaching

Because the IfA is an Organized Research Unit many do not realize how much undergraduateteaching is done by IfA faculty. In fact, the IfA does considerable undergraduate teaching, andour teaching contribution is rising markedly. In Table 3 we show the number of semester hourstaught and the number of separate course sections taught.

The IfA is teaching well over 2200 semester hours of astronomy to UH-Manoa undergraduates,and the trend is increasing. We have introduced four new general education courses, includingArcheo-astronomy, Astronomical Origins, and Astrobiology. Perhaps most significantly wehave introduced an astronomy laboratory course, and this has become very popular. Weoriginally introduced one section in Spring 2003, which was oversubscribed (25 students mayregister). Then, we offered two sections in Fall 2003, and these were oversubscribed veryquickly, so we are offering three sections in the Spring 2004. (N.B. The University was unableto provide a budget for the equipment for this new course—telescopes, etc.— but through theefforts of our fund-raiser a generous donor provided about $10,000 for equipment to make this

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course possible.) In addition we have introduced a number of other upper division courses inastrophysics, and as Table 3 shows, we will be offering 20 sections of various undergraduatecourses in the current academic year, an increase from the Year 98/99 of almost 70%. This is theresult of a new policy introduced by the IfA Director, which gives education and teaching a veryhigh priority, comparable to research. Some of our Hilo faculty also contribute to the UH Hiloteaching program.

Table 3. IfA Undergraduate Teaching

Academic Year 98/99 99/00 00/01 01/02 02/03 03/04

Student semester hours taught 2250 1884 1968 2022 2258 N/ANumber of class sections offered 12 11 12 14 16 20

We have operated a Research Experiences for Undergraduates program the past three summers,with the support of a 5-year grant from the NSF. Six or seven undergraduate students fromuniversities across the U.S.A. are selected to carry out research in astronomy under thesupervision of an IfA faculty member. This past summer virtually every student expressedeagerness to return to the IfA for graduate study.

4.2 Graduate teaching

The IfA graduate program in astronomy is continuing to prosper, and it is clear that the strengthof our program is becoming apparent nationally and abroad. The number of applications foradmission to graduate study at the IfA has doubled (to 112) in the past five years, and we nowhave the largest graduate student body ever, with 32 graduate students currently enrolled. Wecurrently have graduate students from Japan, China, Taiwan, Canada, France, and Portugal, andthe undergraduate origins of our U.S. students include Caltech, Harvard, Yale, Michigan,Cornell, Northwestern, Vassar, Boston University, Colgate, Ohio State, U.C. Riverside, U.C.Santa Barbara, and Case Western Reserve, among others. We also have local graduate students.

Our graduate teaching program has also grown. We have introduced a variety of new graduatecourses and increased the number of graduate courses offered each year by about 30%. In thecurrent academic year we are offering 13 graduate courses.

Last term we experimented with having one of our graduate courses taught by an IfA-Hilofaculty member using the video-conferencing equipment we have set up to facilitatecommunication among our three island sites. This worked well, making it possible for neighborisland faculty to teach and interact with graduate students without the overheads and expense ofinter-island flying.

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5 Staffing

Over the past five years the total IfA staff has grown about 20% from its 1998/99 level. Thedistribution of categories of staff and their location among the three island sites effective 1st

October 2003 is shown in Table 4. Most of this growth has been in technical and support staff;most of the remainder has been in graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. Table 4 alsoshows the percentage change since the 2001 Self-Study report. It may be seen that, while therehas been an increase at all three island facilities, the largest has been on the Big Island, where thepercentage change in the past five years is about 35%.

Table 4. IfA Staffing effective 1st October 2003.

Type of Personnel Manoa Hawaii Maui TotalFaculty: tenure-track 35 3 1 39Faculty: non ten-track 8 4 0 12Postdoctoral fellows 11 2 0 13Graduate students 30 2 0 32Technical support 20 51 13 84Administrative support 28 8 3 39

Total staff = 132 70 17 219Change 2001-2003 9% 35% 0% 15%

6 Outreach and community relations

Over the past three years the IfA has put major effort into developing public education andoutreach and community relations. Our outreach efforts are summarized herewith.

a) Mr. Mike Maberry specializes in community relations on Maui.b) We have just hired Mr. Gary Fujihara fulltime to work in outreach and community

relations on the Big Island. He will place emphasis on working with the public schools.c) IfA faculty member Dr. Paul Coleman has worked 50% time since January 03 for the

Mauna Kea Astronomy Education Center on the astronomy content for the exhibits.d) We are considering advertising for a new full-time outreach coordinator to oversee the

entire IfA outreach program.e) We have hired a retired teacher from McKinley School, Ms. Mary Kadooka (winner of a

Presidential Award for Science Teachers) to work in curriculum development andoutreach with schools.

f) Our “TOPS” program (“Toward Other Planetary Systems”) has been running for 5 yearsand has trained about 20 teachers and a similar number of students from Hawaii and thePacific Rim each summer. This has been supported by a grant from NSF for about $1million, supplemented by $100 k of private local funding.

g) We have agreed with the private Faulkes Foundation from the U.K. to locate the $10MFaulkes Telescope, a 2.0 meter telescope dedicated to astronomy education, onHaleakala. The telescope has recently been installed in the dome and will soon be readyto use. We are developing an outreach program for schools in Hawaii to use this

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telescope from their classrooms through the internet, and have already trained somemaster teachers for this program in this past summer’s TOPS program.

h) The IfA Friends of Astronomy program has been introduced and is growing. This hasincluded a Public Lectures series, an IfA calendar, and other benefits for Friends. SomeFriends attend the weekly IfA Colloquia.

i) We have been publishing an IfA newsletter 3-4 times a year, and the mailing list is nowabout 1,400.

j) We have held an annual Open House at the IfA in Manoa for the past three years, and thisis especially popular with families.

k) We have supported the AstroDays held in Hilo for the past two years, both financiallyand with events produced by faculty and students from both Hilo and Manoa.

While it may seem odd that an Organized Research Unit of the University would put this mucheffort into public education and outreach, we consider this is a very important part of ourmission. Virtually everyone is fascinated by the night sky and the mysteries of the Universe. Itis our privilege to work professionally in this exciting field, and we consider it part of ourmission to return to the community a distillation of the highlights of our research and that ofothers of our colleagues in the worldwide astronomy enterprise. The ultimate goal remains tomaintain an Institute for Astronomy which is academically and technologically excellent, andwhich is well-integrated into its University and the society of the Hawaiian Islands.