As of October 2004, my PhD thesis doesn't yet have a title. This is due to the broad range of subtopics within astronomical optical interferometry that I've been interested in and worked on. I'll need a title before July 31 2005, my official submission date. I guess the three main areas of work have been:
1. Technical development at SUSI: I've contributed to optical design changes at SUSI, as well as the the software, astronomical Comissioning and some hardware involved in the new CCD-based tip/tilt adaptive optics system, fringe scanning and data acquisition systems. I've also written the SUSI data analysis pipeline. Other fun and interesting work that won't end up in the PhD has been bugshooting a range of existing systems, porting old software to RT-linux and creating a scheduler to ease the pressure on the observer. In principle, SUSI runs itself once internally aligned (in practice there are several tweaks best done by a real observer). The unique challenges here have been in overcoming the very low signal levels for tip/tilt and automatic fringe acquisition and tracking.
2. Aperture masking interferometry: This was originally a back-up plan due to uncertainty in funding for the SUSI project, however I've remained somewhat involved in projects initiated by my supervisor and other collaborators. I have my own pipeline for data analysis from a range of aperture masking experiments including imaging code. I hope to publish some results that require data analysis techniques unique to my new code before completing my PhD (I realise not many people will actually read my thesis).
3. Modelling the atmospheres of Mira variables: This work started off being driven by Michael Scholz, but after he pointed me in the right direction for my repetitive question ``Just how hard can it be to model dust formation around Mira variables, I mean, really?'' curiosity has got the better of me and I'm significantly involved in the modelling process. This modelling process has three stages, a grey, time-dependent calculation done by Peter Wood in Canberra that is used to calculate pressure as a function of radius (temperature is also calculated but has significant errors in the upper layers), detailed non-grey spherical radiative transfer to solve for temperature more accurately as a function of radius, and finally predicting observable properties such as centre-to-limb variation and spectra (plus derived quantities). I've been involved in the second two stages of this processs, and have been attempting to add dust to the models. Dust is required to explain both aperture masking observations and more recent observations at SUSI, and may help in predicting fundamental stellar properties and mass-loss rates for Miras as a function of their many observable properties.
Ireland, M.J., Tuthill, P.G., Bedding, T.R., Robertson, J.G. and Jacob, A.P., ``Multi-wavelength diameters of Nearby Miras and Semiregulars'', 2004, MNRAS, 350, 365 astro-ph/0402326
Ireland, M.J., Scholz, M and Wood, P.R., ``On the Observability of Pulsation of M-type Mira Variables'', 2004, MNRAS, 352, 318
Ireland, M.J., Scholz, M, Tuthill, P.G. and Wood, P.R., ``Pulsation of M-type Mira variables with moderately different mass: search for observable mass effects'', 2004, MNRAS, 355, 444 astro-ph/0408540
Ireland, M.J., Tuthill, P.G., Davis, J. and Tango, W.G., ``Dust scattering in the Miras R Car and RR Sco resolved by Optical Interferometric Polarimetry'', 2005, MNRAS, 361, 337
Conference Proceedings:Michael Ireland, William A. Kirk and Brailey Sims ``The Leray-Shauder Alternative for Nonexpansive Maps from the Ball Characterize Hilbert Space'', In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Nonlinear Analysis and Convex Analysis, World Scientific, 1999 (Editors Takahashi, W. and Tanaka, T.)
M.J. Ireland, P.G. Tuthill, T.R. Bedding, J.G. Robertson and A.P. Jacob ``Multi-wavelength angular diameters of pulsating red giants with MAPPIT'', In: Asteroseismology Across the HR Diagram, Kluwer Astrophysics and Space Science Series, eds. Thompson M.J., Cunha M.S., Monteiro M.J.P.F.G, 2003, P421--P424
M.J. Ireland et al., 2004, ``Interferometry of Pulsating Red Giants from 0.65 to 3.5 microns'', In: Variable Stars in the Local Group, eds D.W. Kurtz & K.R. Pollard, ASPC, 310,327
Mark R. Swain, Christopher K. Walker, Wesley A. Traub, John W. Storey, Vincent Coude du Foresto, Erric Fossat, Farrok Vakili, Anthony A. Stark, James P. Lloyd, Peter R. Lawson, Adam S. Burrows, Michael Ireland, Rafael Millan-Gabet, Gerard T. van Belle, Benjamin Lane, Gautam Vasisht, Tony Travouillon, 2004, ``The Antarctic Planet Interferometer'', In: Proceedings of the SPIE Vol 5491, ed W. Traub, 176
Peter G. Tuthill, John Davis, Michael Ireland, Julian North, John O'Byrne, J. Gordon Robertson, William J. Tango,2004,``SUSI: recent technology and science'', In: Proceedings of the SPIE Vol 5491, ed W. Traub,499
Selected Presentations not in ProceedingsJ. Davis, M.J. Ireland, A.P. Jacob, A. Mendez, J.R. North, J.W. O'BByrne, S.M. Owens, J.G. Robertson, E.B. Seneta, W.J. Tango, P.G Tuthill, ``An Orbit for the Long-Period Component of l Scorpii'', ASA Meeting 2004 (Poster)
J. Davis, M.J. Ireland, A.P. Jacob, J.R. North, S.M. Owens, J.G. Robertson, W.J. Tango, P.G Tuthill, ``The Pulsation of the Cepheid l Car Measured with SUSI'', ASA Meeting 2004 (Poster)
J. Davis, M.J. Ireland, A.P. Jacob, J.R. North, S.M. Owens, J.G. Robertson, W.J. Tango, P.G Tuthill, ``Stellar Angular Diameters Determined with SUSI'', ASA Meeting 2004 (Poster)
Swain, M., Lloyd, J., Traub, W., Walker, C., Stark, A., Lawson, P., Storey, J., Coude du Foresto, V., Fossat, E., Ireland, M., Burrows, A. and Vakili, F., ``The Antarctic Planet Interferometer'', AAS Meeting 203, 2003