1994 was the first year of the second funding triennium of the RCfTA, and it was primarily a year of consolidation. An important new initiative was the International Visitor Program run jointly with the newly-created Australian National University Astrophysical Theory Centre (ANUATC). Another notable initiative during the year resulted in the acceptance of a joint RCfTA-Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) proposal for an International Astronomical Union (IAU) Colloquium on pulsars to be held in the School of Physics in January 1996. Although the number of workshops hosted by the RCfTA was lower than in previous years, a very successful two-day international symposium was held in December.
Visitors to the RCfTA in 1994 included several funded by the joint International Visitor Program (IVP). This program was established to encourage and coordinate visits by distinguished theoretical astrophysicists to research groups throughout Australia. Funding for the program in 1994 was $50,000, provided by the RCfTA and the ANUATC. The RCfTA's half was partially funded by the University of Sydney, and the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) has committed $25,000 to the program for 1995. The RCfTA funds contributed to the joint International Visitor Program in 1994 were used to support visits by Prof. Ganesar Chanmugam of Louisiana State University, Prof. Roberto Gallino of the Istituto di Fisica Generale, and Prof. Nick Kaiser of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. In addition to supporting visitors through the IVP, the RCfTA also funds visitors of its own. Notable amongst these is Prof. Jean Eilek, Department of Physics, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, who began a nine-month visit in September. (Details of other visitors are given in Appendix E.)
Professor Colin Norman, who is a Visiting Professor in the RCfTA, visited for a week in April and a week in September. Colin has ongoing collaborations with several of the staff of the RCfTA, and his professional advice on scientific and related issues is much appreciated. He will be visiting for the first three months of 1995.
The RCfTA hosted and funded a symposium on `Galaxies and the Distant Universe' held in the School of Physics on 19-20 December 1994 to honor Prof. Ed Salpeter (Cornell U.), who graduated from the School of Physics 50 years ago. The symposium, which attracted over 50 participants, was very successful. I thank Mark Walker, who organized the meeting.
The changes in personnel during 1994 included the departures of Dr Jessica Chapman, who took up an appointment at the Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO) in March, Dr Peter Edmonds who took up a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the USA in March, and Dr Whayne Padden, who took up an ARC Fellowship in the School of Physics in April. There were no new research appointments, but Dr Sergei Vladimirov and Dr Jeanette Weise became Honorary Fellows with the RCfTA. Sergei is to take up an ARC Research Fellowship within the RCfTA in June 1995.
Ms Ann Fox was appointed as Administrative Assistant in January 1994 and she resigned in November 1994. Ms Jenny Thompson has filled the position of Administrative Assistant on a temporary basis since December 1994.
Three of the staff were seconded to the teaching program of the School of Physics for a semester in 1994: Jenny Nicholls in first semester and Lewis Ball and Helen Pongracic in second semester. The arrangement was mutually advantageous: the research-only staff gained teaching experience which is important for their future academic career prospects, and the School of Physics benefited from the increase in the number of younger teaching staff. Lewis and Helen will be seconded again in 1995. Jenny, who has accepted the editorship of the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, has chosen not to teach in 1995.
Lewis Ball spent three months early in the year on a Visiting Research Fellowship with Dr John Kirk in the Max-Planck-Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg.
Prof. Jean Eilek (NMIMT and NRAO) who arrived in September for a nine month visit to the RCfTA
The research students enrolled in 1994 were Joanne Baker, Sue Byleveld, Stephen Hardy, Lucyna Kedziora-Chudczer, Andrew Melatos, Mick Pope, George Rowe, Mike Wheatland and Andrew Willes. My congratulations to Andrew Melatos who received the Australian Institute of Physics Award for Postgraduate Excellence from the NSW branch in 1994. George Rowe submitted his PhD thesis in August 1994, Joanne Baker, who was on an RCfTA-funded student scholarship, submitted her PhD thesis in November, Mick Pope submitted his MSc thesis in December, and Mike Wheatland submitted his PhD thesis in January 1995. Joanne Baker has a post-doctoral position at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, Mike Wheatland has taken up a postdoctoral position at Stanford University and Andrew Melatos will take up a post-doctoral fellowship in astrophysics at CalTech in September. Sue Byleveld and Andrew Willes made overseas trips during the year to attend international conferences and to visit relevant research groups. (Andrew Melatos and Mike Wheatland made overseas trips for two months and three months, respectively, in 1993.) Bryan Gaensler, who did his Honours year research project in the RCfTA in 1994, topped the Physics year and received the University Medal, for which he too is congratulated. Arthur Street, who was an Honours student in the Research Centre in 1993, was awarded the Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) Bok Prize for his Honours project.
The scheme for vacation scholarships within the School of Physics continues. The RCfTA funded three vacation scholarships in 1993-4 and one in 1994-5.
The number of research students is expected to decline over the next year, and prospects for increasing the number in future years are not particularly rosy. There is a nation-wide decline in the number of students, particularly of the most able students, choosing to study physics and mathematics, and this decline is reflected in the number of potential research students showing interest in theoretical astrophysics. The RCfTA plans to target possible students by taking part in the student vacation scheme presently run jointly by the ATNF and the AAO.
In 1993 Jenny Nicholls accepted primary responsibility for publicity for the RCfTA and her efforts to raise the profile of the Research Centre have produced a number of successes in 1994. Highlights include the following. (1) In January 1994 the binary pulsar PSR B1259-63 was eclipsed as it passed its companion star SS2883. Simon Johnston of the RCfTA was Principle Investigator leading an international team to observe this event. Through the efforts of Jenny and Helen Sim from the ATNF, the eclipse attracted considerable media attention across Australia, resulting in a number of newspaper articles, radio interviews and articles in popular astronomy magazines (including a French publication). The British TV show `The Sky at Night' hosted by Patrick Moore also had a short segment featuring Simon Johnston. (2) Several popular articles on aspects of the work in the Research Centre have appeared in the two Australian astronomy magazines and another is due to be published in 1995. (3) The RCfTA, together with the ASA and the University of New South Wales (UNSW), hosted a public talk on `Jupiter and the Comet Crash' by Dr Vikki Meadows (JPL) in September. The talk was advertized widely and attracted an enthusiastic audience of about 300 people. (4) The end of 1994 saw the completion of plans for a `public lecture tour' by Colin Norman in February and March of 1995, instigated by the RCfTA. Colin will visit six Australian cities to present public talks entitled `New Cosmology from the Hubble Space Telescope'.
The regular meetings of Journal Club on Tuesday afternoons and of the RCfTA at noon on Fridays continued throughout the year. I thank Sue Byleveld, assisted by Ariane Hemming and Andrew Hopkins, for coordinating the Journal Club in 1994, and Simon Johnston for organizing the Friday meetings in 1994.
Looking to the future it is very pleasing that a joint proposal from the RCfTA and the ATNF to the IAU to host a Colloquium on pulsars was successful. IAU Colloquium 160, `Pulsars: Problems and Progress', will be held in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney on 8-12 January 1996. Planning for this major international conference, which is expected to attract around 100 of the world's leading researchers with an interest in pulsars, is already well underway.
A selection of research highlights from 1994 are described in Section 6 of this report. Most of the highlights chosen for inclusion in this Annual Report are related to the astrophysics of pulsars. While this weighting somewhat overemphasizes the role of pulsars in the research of the RCfTA, pulsar astrophysics is an important research field in the Research Centre and it will remain so in 1995, especially as we prepare for the IAU Colloquium in January 1996.
Looking forward to 1995, the steadily increasing productivity of the group is encouraging. The number of workshops organized in 1994 was fewer than I would have liked, but already (by the end of February) two workshops have been hosted by the RCfTA in 1995 and there will certainly be more. The group will benefit from an increase in numbers when Sergei Vladimirov joins us in the middle of the year, and I also expect to make one or two other new appointments during the year.