Craig Heinke

Group Members

Postdoc
Aarran Shaw
Started 2016
Research on X-ray binaries

Grad Students
Pavan Hebbar
Started 2017, Master's student

Zhao Yue (Cory)
Started 2016, transferred to PhD student

Asma Hattawi
Started 2016, Master's student (also summer research 2016)

Reuben Gazer
Started 2015, Master's student
Research on Galactic Bulge X-ray sources

Undergraduates
Can Lyu
Research fall 2017

Tianyin Lu
Research fall 2017

Tetiana Kozynets
Summer research 2017

Mario Ivanov
Summer research 2017

Sean McClure
Summer research 2017, NSERC USRA

Former Members

Dr. Nathan Leigh
Ph.D. McMaster U., 2011
NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at U of A
Research on star clusters

Dr. Jeanette Gladstone
Ph.D. Durham U., 2009
Avadh Bhatia Fellow at U of A
Research on ultraluminous X-ray sources

Grad Students
Khaled Elshamouty
Master's 2012, PhD 2016
Research on neutron stars in supernova remnants
Data scientist at Navut, Montreal, CA

Arash Bahramian
PhD 2016
Research on globular clusters. Now postdoc at Michigan State.

Mizan Chowdhury
Master's 2011
Candidate neutron stars in SMC
Ph.D. in geophysics 2015

Undergraduates
Chinmaya Verma
Summer research 2017, via UARE

Pavan Hebbar
Summer research 2016, via UARE

Souradeep Bhattacharya
Summer research 2016, via MITACS
Research on star clusters

Courtney Parr
Phys 499 winter 2013

Robert Pavelich
Phys 499 fall 2013

Eric Koch
Summer research 2013
Now PhD student w/Prof. Rosolowsky

N. Thomas Denman
Phys 499 winter 2013.
Master's in astrophysics at U. Toronto

Samuel Rowe
Research fall 2012, Phys 499 winter 2013.

Robin Arnason
Phys 499 fall 2012, published as part of a master's w/Prof. Sivakoff.
Now in PhD program at UWO.

Tyler Naffin
Phys 499 fall 2012

Lindsay Forestell
Summer research 2012, 2013
Master's at UBC

Andrei Catuneanu
Phys 499 winter 2012, summer research 2012, 2013
Master's at Perimeter Institute, Ph.D. at Toronto in condensed matter theory

Siobhan Crothers
Phys 499 winter 2012

James Sikora
Phys 499 winter 2012
Master's at Queen's U. in astrophysics with Prof. Wade

Will Stacey
Summer research 2010, 2011
Phys 499 fall 2011
PhD at Waterloo University, in quantum computing

Megan Engel
Summer research 2011, 2012
Earned master's in biophysics at U of A; now Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. See also The Last Alliance.

Taylor Cartwright
Summer research 2011
Phys 499 fall 2010
Master's at International Space University, Strasbourg, France; now pilot with Canadian Forces.

Johannes J. Berger
Phys 499 winter 2011, published

Rhys Chouinard
Phys 499 winter 2010; research published

Master's at U of A in particle physics; now corporate analyst for City of St. Albert

Sonia Budac
Phys 499 winter 2010
Summer research 2009
Now at Bioware

Clifton Price
Phys 499 fall 2009
Summer research 2009

George Coomber
Summer research 2009
Research fall 2009
Phys 499 winter 2009
Doing a second degree in CS at U of A

Semyon Chaichenets
Summer research 2009
Now working for IST, U of Alberta

Group news

May 2017; Arash's final thesis chapter is published, which finds the shortest known period of a candidate black hole X-ray binary (28 minutes); Bahramian et al. 2017, "The ultracompact nature of the black hole candidate X-ray binary 47 Tuc X9".

Nov. 2016; Postdoc Aarran Shaw has started with the group, coming from Southampton.

Sept. 2016; New MSc students Asma Hattawi and Zhao Yue (Cory) are starting with the group.

July 2016; PhD students Arash Bahramian and Khaled Elshamouty successfully defend their PhD theses. Khaled is moving to Toronto and applying for jobs as a data scientist, while Arash is moving to Michigan State as a postdoc (working with Jay Strader and Laura Chomiuk). Khaled has just published two papers, Elshamouty et al. 2016a, "The Impact of Surface Temperature Inhomogeneities on Quiescent Neutron Star Radius Measurements" and Elshamouty et al. 2016b, "The Soft X-ray Spectrum of the High Mass X-Ray Binary V0332+53 in Quiescence". Arash is second author on two new papers, Tetarenko, B. et al. 2016, "The First Low-mass Black Hole X-Ray Binary Identified in Quiescence Outside of a Globular Cluster" and Tetarenko, A. et al. 2016, "Disc-jet coupling in the Terzan 5 neutron star X-ray binary EXO 1745-248".

May 2016; Summer students Asma Hattawi, Souradeep Bhattacharya, and Pavan Hebbar are starting research in the group.

Aug. 2015; Postdoc Chengkui Li (funded by his Institute of High Energy Physics, in the Chinese Academy of Sciences) is visiting for a 6-month stay.

Aug. 2015; New MSc student Reuben Gazer is starting at the U of Alberta with me.

Aug. 2015; Arash and I have a new paper, Bahramian et al. 2015, "Limits on thermal variations in a dozen quiescent neutron stars over a decade". We are also coauthors on Degenaar et al. 2015, "Neutron star crust cooling in the Terzan 5 X-ray transient Swift J174805.3-244637", and on Wijnands et al. 2015, "Low-level accretion in neutron-star X-ray binaries".

July 2015; Robin Arnason, Greg and I have a new paper, Arnason et al. 2015, "A Low-mass Main-sequence Star and Accretion Disk in the Very Faint X-Ray Transient M15 X-3".

March 2015; Arash and I have a new paper, Heinke et al. 2015, "The nature of very faint X-ray binaries: hints from light curves".

Jan. 2015; Khaled and I are coauthors of Ho et al. 2015, "Tests of the nuclear equation of state and superfluid and superconducting gaps using the Cassiopeia A neutron star".

Jan. 2015; Nathan Leigh and I have two papers published; Leigh et al. 2014, "On the coexistence of stellar-mass and intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters", and Leigh et al. 2015, "The state of globular clusters at birth - II. Primordial binaries". Nathan and Jeanette are both moving on.

May 2014: Eric Koch's first-author paper (with Arash as 2nd author) on a very-faint X-ray transient near the Galactic center is accepted for MNRAS; Koch et al. 2014, "The 2013 outburst of a transient very faint X-ray binary, 23\" from Sgr A*".

March 2014: Arash's first-author paper identifying a symbiotic X-ray binary is accepted; Bahramian et al. 2014, "Revealing a new symbiotic X-ray binary with Gemini NIFS".

March 2014: Lindsay's first-author paper on millisecond pulsars has been accepted; Forestell et al. 2014, "A Chandra Look at the X-ray Faint Millisecond Pulsars in the Globular Cluster NGC 6752".

December 2013: Craig contributed to a paper identifying the progenitors of AM CVn stars, Kilic et al. 2014, "Found: The Progenitors of AM CVn and Supernovae .Ia". We publicized this result via the Chandra website, and a physics department news story.

November 2013: Arash has two papers on X-ray transients in globular clusters accepted; Bahramian et al. 2013, "Discovery of the Third Transient X-ray Binary in the Galactic Globular Cluster Terzan 5" and Linares, Bahramian et al. 2013, "The neutron star transient and millisecond pulsar in M28: from sub-luminous accretion to rotation-powered quiescence".

August 2013: Khaled's careful analysis of the cooling of the Cas A neutron star is accepted by ApJ: "Measuring the Cooling of the Neutron Star in Cassiopeia A with all Chandra X-ray Observatory Detectors", by Elshamouty et al.

March 2013: Our two-part all-Alberta analysis of Galactic ultracompact X-ray binaries is accepted for publication in ApJ, "Galactic Ultracompact X-ray Binaries: Empirical Luminosities", by Cartwright, Engel, Heinke, Sivakoff, Berger, Gladstone, & Ivanova (Hans Berger's first paper), and "Galactic Ultracompact X-ray Binaries: Disk Stability and Evolution", by Heinke, Ivanova, Engel, Pavlovskii, Sivakoff, Cartwright, & Gladstone. See also Arash's first Astronomer's Telegram, "Confirmation of GRS 1747-312 as the active transient in Terzan 6".

March 2013: Jeanette's detailed analysis of the 33 nearest ULXs with Hubble and Chandra data is accepted for publication in ApJ Supplement, Optical counterparts of the nearest ultraluminous X-ray sources.

March 2013: Craig's short review Constraints on physics of neutron stars from X-ray observations is accepted for publication in a refereed conference proceedings.

February 2013: Arash Bahramian's paper is accepted for publication in ApJ; Stellar Encounter Rate in Galactic Globular Clusters.

January 2013: I have to link to Prof. Ivanova's Science paper, though I had nothing to do with it; Physics Dept. story, link to paper.

January 2013: Andrei Catuneanu's paper is accepted for publication in ApJ; Mass/Radius Constraints on the Quiescent Neutron Star in M13 Using Hydrogen and Helium Atmospheres.

November 2012: Megan Engel is awarded a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, to study the physics of photosynthesis at Oxford. See the Physics Department story, her City-TV Edmonton appearance, and the Edmonton Journal story.

October 2012: Craig is named one of Avenue Edmonton's Top 40 Under 40; see the Physics Dept. story.

September 2012: Craig is awarded the Martha Cook Piper Research Prize (U of A 2012 Awards), recognizing annually two early-career U of A faculty members who show outstanding promise as researchers and enjoy a reputation for original research.

August 2012: Khaled Elshamouty successfully defends his master's thesis, "The Cooling of the Neutron Star in the Cassiopeia A Supernova Remnant". Congrats!

August 2012: Sonia Budac and Craig are coauthors on a paper studying X-ray binaries in the globular cluster NGC 6388 that has been accepted to ApJ, X-ray Binaries in the Ultrahigh Encounter Rate Globular Cluster NGC 6388.

June 2012: At Canadian Astronomical Society conference (in Calgary), Arash Bahramian and Khaled Elshamouty gave (well-received) talks, and Megan Engel won the award for best student poster.

April 2012: Megan Engel and Andrei Catuneanu were awarded NSERC postgraduate scholarships.

April 2012: Taylor Cartwright is accepted into the International Space University, Strasbourg, France, with a scholarship.

April 2012: Craig is a co-author on the first paper to apply his collaborator Wynn Ho's non-hydrogen neutron star atmosphere models to quiescent low-mass X-ray binaries in globular clusters; Servillat, Heinke, Ho et al. 2012, Neutron star atmosphere composition: the quiescent, low-mass X-ray binary in the globular cluster M28. This application was Craig's original idea in asking Wynn to create helium and carbon atmospheres.

March 2012: Lindsay Forestell accepts an NSERC USRA to join the group this summer.

March 2012: Will Stacey's second paper (& Arash's first) is accepted for the Astrophysical Journal: An Examination of the X-ray Sources in the Globular Cluster NGC 6652. Congrats to Will for getting two first-author papers published as an undergrad!

March 2012: Jeanette Gladstone's appointment as the Avadh Bhatia Fellow is renewed.

March 6, 2012: Craig is a guest on the CBC program "Ideas", "Silver and Exact", on the history and cultural significance of mirrors.

Jan. 24, 2012: Craig is inducted into the joys of fatherhood, as Rachel gives birth to Leonard Russell Frey-Heinke.

Jan. 2012: Megan Engel's (& Khaled's) first paper is accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal: A 2.15 Hour Orbital Period for the Low-Mass X-ray Binary XB 1832-330 in the Globular Cluster NGC 6652.

Jan. 2012: Khaled Elshamouty presented his studies of the Cas A neutron star's temperature decline at the American Astronomical Society's conference in Austin, TX. His talk stirred up intense interest from the Chandra X-ray Observatory's calibration team, the Chandra project scientist and director, who are now in close discussions with Khaled and Craig on this research project.

Nov. 2011: Check out the planet models, which the physics department has recently installed in the west atrium of CCIS. See the Physics Dept. news story, the Folio front page (starring Khaled), and the Observatory's planets page.

Nov. 2011: Craig has been awarded tenure! He'll be sticking around a while.

Sept. 2011: The American Astronomical Society awarded Dr. Gladstone the High Energy Astrophysics Division Dissertation Prize for her work on the unusual black holes in ultraluminous X-ray sources. See the U of A news page for details.

Aug. 2011: Arash Bahramian joins the group as a master's student. Welcome Arash!

July 2011: George Coomber's paper is published in the Astrophysical Journal: The Unusual X-Ray Binaries of the Globular Cluster NGC 6652.

May 2011: Will Stacey's paper is published in the Astrophysical Journal: Transient Extremely Soft X-ray Emission from the Unusually Bright Cataclysmic Variable in the Globular Cluster M3: A New CV X-ray Luminosity Record?

April 2011: Welcome Gregory Sivakoff to the U of A as a new assistant professor!

March 2011: Coordinated press releases from NASA, the U of A, the Royal Astronomical Society, and UNAM Institute de Astronomy, on our identification (Shternin et al. 2011, joint with Page et al. 2011) of the superfluid transition in the core of the Cas A neutron star. See here for my summary page.

January 2011: Craig was a (very small) part of a collaboration that discovered unusual gamma-ray flaring from the Crab Nebula (Tavani et al. 2011, Science, 331, 736). See here for my summary page.