The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

Support Our Science

Randall Smith

Center for Astrophysics

Associate Director for Science

Randall Smith

rsmith@cfa.harvard.edu

About

Randall Smith is an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, primarily working in high energy astrophysics. Randall is involved with multiple X-ray observatories, most notably the Arcus X-ray Grating Spectroscopy Explorer, and tries to maintain a broad perspective regarding science priorities in astrophysics and their impact on mission requirements and capabilities. His research focuses on processes in the interstellar medium and on maintaining an atomic database (AtomDB) that is used throughout the field to model the spectra of hot collisional plasmas.

Randall was named the Associate Director for Science at the Center for Astrophysics in October 2022.

Projects

AtomDB

High Energy Astrophysics

In extreme environments, where pressure, temperature, and density are high, atoms change the way they emit and absorb light. Electrons are stripped from nuclei, forming a plasma, and the ions emit X-rays when struck by free electrons. To assist astronomers in identifying atoms under these harsh conditions, the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian maintains the AtomDB database of X-ray spectra. This catalog provides essential information for studying conditions in many astrophysical environments, including those near black holes, stars, and neutron stars.

Chandra Supernova Remnant Catalog

High Energy Astrophysics

Galaxies are littered with supernova remnants: expanding clouds of material blasted out during the explosions of massive stars. These remnants are complex: full of strong magnetic fields, high-temperature collisions between particles, and flows of material into interstellar space. The clouds are rich environments that provide raw materials for future star formation, as well as laboratories for studying extreme astrophysics. For that reason, the Chandra Supernova Remnant Catalog collects the available observational data collected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory about supernova remnants in the Milky Way and our neighboring galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds. The catalog is managed by astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and includes information about the remnants’ shapes and X-ray spectra, along with corresponding radio observations for some specimens.

Telescopes and Instruments

Lynx X-Ray Observatory

The Lynx X-ray Observatory is a proposed X-ray space telescope, designed to be the next generation following NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency’s upcoming Athena Telescope. This observatory will be able to take images of a larger area of the sky in X-ray light with better resolution than any existing telescope, allowing astronomers to study the first supermassive black holes, the hot gas surrounding galaxies as they evolve, and radiation from the earliest stars. Researchers from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and other universities are presenting Lynx to NASA for consideration in the 2020 Decadal Survey, with a proposed launch date in the mid-2030s.

Visit the Lynx X-Ray Observatory Website

Chandra

The Chandra X-ray Observatory is NASA’s flagship X-ray observatory, providing essential data on everything from the environment surrounding newborn stars to the emissions from hot plasma inside galaxy clusters. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), as part of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, manages Chandra’s day-to-day operations, providing spacecraft control, observation planning, and data processing for astronomers. Chandra is one of NASA’s orbiting Great Observatories, along with the Hubble.

Visit the Chandra Website

Arcus

The most powerful astronomical events are often very bright in X-rays, including supermassive black holes, the hot atmospheres of stars, and the extremely hot plasmas in and around galaxy clusters. Arcus is a proposed NASA space telescope designed to study the X-ray spectrum of a wide range of astronomical phenomena to a level of sensitivity higher than any previous X-ray observatory. Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian scientists are the leaders of the collaboration proposing Arcus. The mission proposal will be due in late 2023 and, if ultimately accepted, Arcus would launch in 2031.

See Arcus Website