JOSHUA N. WINN, Assistant
Professor of Physics
Research Interests
Planet formation is a venerable physics problem, dating back to Kant
and Laplace, who argued that the solar system formed from a spinning
disk of gas and dust. Yet it was only in 1995 that astronomers began
finding planets around other Sun-like stars ("extrasolar planets").
Finally it has become possible to learn whether our solar system is
typical, or unusual, in the context of our entire galaxy.
This topic is interesting on many levels. As a physicist, one wants to
understand how matter accumulates into planets, and what is the full
range of possible outcomes. Some of the newfound planetary systems
have striking unanticipated properties: planets on very eccentric
orbits, and giant planets hugging their stars much closer than Mercury
does the Sun. From a technological point of view, planet detection is
a challenging problem that motivates fascinating and ambitious
solutions. And finally, it would be wonderful to make even slight
progress on the age-old question of whether there are other planets
capable of supporting life.
Professor Winn's research involves observations of young stars and
extrasolar planetary systems with optical telescopes (especially the
Magellan 6.5m telescopes in Chile), and theoretical model building.
His recent work includes high-precision photometry of planetary
transits (when planets pass in front of their parent stars);
measurements of the alignment between an extrasolar planetary orbit
and the rotation axis of its parent star; and theoretical models for
the anomalously large planet HD 209458b, and for the peculiar eclipses
of the young star KH 15D.
In addition, Prof. Winn is interested in cosmology and galaxy
structure. He has used radio observations to detect gravitational
lenses, and searches for special cases of lensing in which one can
learn about the centers of galaxies, including the supermassive black
holes that reside there. He is interested in new techniques and
technologies for radio interferometry that will enable further
progress in these areas.
[top]
Biographical Sketch
Josh Winn is from Deerfield, Illinois. He graduated from MIT in 1994
with S.B. and S.M. degrees in physics. After spending a year as a
Fulbright Scholar in the UK, at Cambridge University, he returned to
MIT as a Hertz Fellow. While in graduate school, he worked in medical
physics, condensed-matter physics, and astrophysics, and wrote for the
science section of The Economist. He earned a Ph.D. in physics in
2001, and subsequently held NSF and NASA postdoctoral fellowships at
the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He begins as an
Assistant Professor of Physics at MIT in January 2006.
[top] Selected Publications
"Obliquity Tides on Hot Jupiters," J.N. Winn and M.J. Holman,
Astrophysical Journal (Letters), 628, 159 (2005).
"Measurement of Spin-Orbit Alignment in an Extrasolar Planetary
System," J.N. Winn, R.W. Noyes, M.J. Holman, D. Charbonneau, Y. Ohta,
A. Taruya, Y. Suto, N. Narita, E.L. Turner, J.A. Johnson, G.W. Marcy,
R.P. Butler, and S.S. Vogt, Astrophysical Journal, 631, 1215 (2005).
"KH 15D: Gradual Occultation of a Pre-Main-Sequence Binary,"
J.N. Winn, M.J. Holman, J.A. Johnson, K.Z. Stanek, and P.M. Garnavich,
Astrophysical Journal (Letters), 603, 45 (2004).
"The Central Image of a Gravitationally Lensed Quasar," J.N. Winn,
D. Rusin, and C.S. Kochanek, Nature, 427, 613 (2004).
"Omnidirectional Reflection from a One-Dimensional Photonic Crystal,"
J.N. Winn, Y. Fink, S. Fan, and J.D. Joannopoulos, Optics Letters, 23,
1573 (1998).
[top]
|
