Cecil, Gerald N.

Cecil, Gerald N.
Professor

Contact

Office: 268 Phillips Hall
Email: cecil@unc.edu
Phone:
Web page: https://sites.google.com/site/cecilatunc/gerald-cecil-unc-activities

Background

• BS, MS (theoretical heavy-ion physics) McGill University
• PhD U. Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, Honolulu
• Post-doctoral fellow Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
• Project Scientist for International SOAR Telescope, NOAO Tucson
• Professor of Astrophysics, UNC Chapel Hill

Research

• Observational astrophysics, design/build 3D spectroscopic instrumentation, energy systems and transition from fossil fuels
• Our laboratory in 175 Phillips Hall currently works on
  • multi-frequency observations and ATHENA-3D hydro/MHD models of galactic feedback by AGN and star formation.
  • deployable integral field front-end for Goodman spectrograph to spectrally map compact groups of galaxies.
  • SALT Fabry-Perot and SOAR tunable filter studies of resolved stellar populations in Magellanic Clouds to test evolutionary models. Some work in the NIR to quantify AGB/RGB phase transition in unresolved populations.
  • Central participation in SAMI galaxy survey at AAT with emphasis currently on feedback processes and gas disk dynamics.

Publications

(more at astroph):

• Fogarty, L.M.R., + 28, “First Science with SAMI: A Serendipitously Discovered Galactic Wind in ESO 185-G031”, Astroph. J., 12 pages, in press (2012)
• Bland-Hawthorn, J., Bryant, J., Robertson, G., Gillingham, P., O’Byrne, J., Cecil, G., Haynes, R., Croom, S., Ellis, S., Maack, M., Skovgaard, P., and Noordegraaf, D., “Hexabundles: Imaging Fibre Arrays for Low-Light Astronomical Applications”, Optics Express, 19, 3, 2649-2663 (2011)
• Miner, J., Rose, J.A., Cecil, G. 2011, “Galaxies M32 and NGC 5102 Confirm a Near-infrared Spectroscopic Chronometer”, Astroph. J., 727, L15-18 (2011)
• Cecil, G. and Rose, J. A., “Insights on Galaxy Structure and Evolution from the Light of Nearby Systems”, Rep. Prog. Phys. 70, 1177-1258 (2007)
• Cecil, G. and Rashkeev, D., “A Side of Mercury Not Seen by Mariner 10”, Astron. J., 134, 1468-1474 (2007)
• Pimentel, D., Patzek, T., & Cecil, G.,“Ethanol Production: Energy, Economic, and Environmental Losses”, Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 189, 25-41 (2006)
• Veilleux, S., Cecil, G., and Bland-Hawthorn, J., “Galactic Winds”, Ann. Rev. Astr. & Astroph., 611, 769-826 (2005)
• Groves, B., Cecil, G., Ferruit, P., amd Dopita, M. A., “Spatially Resolved Ultraviolet Spectra of the High-Velocity Nuclear Outflow of NGC 1068”, Astroph. J., 611, 786-794 (2004)
• Cecil, G., Dopita, M. A., Groves, B., Wilson, A. S., Ferruit, P., Pecontal, E., and Binette, L., “Spatial Resolution of High-Velocity Filaments in the Narrow-Line Region of NGC 1068: Associated Absorbers Caught in Emission?”, Astroph. J., 568, 627-638 (2002)
• Cecil, G., Bland-Hawthorn, J., Veilleux, S., & Filippenko, A. V., “Jet and Wind-Driven Outflows in the Superbubble and Star-forming Disk of NGC 3079”, Astroph. J., 555, 338-355 (2001)
• Cecil, G., Greenhill, L.J., De Pree, C.G., Nagar, N., Dopita, M.A., Wilson, A.S., Pérez-Fournon, I., Argon, A.L., & Moran, J. M. “The Active Jet in NGC 4258 and Its Associated Shocks.”, Astrophys.J., 536, 675-696 (2000)