Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The light coming from the sun/stars/nebulae or other astronomical bodies has stored in it an immense amount of knowledge about the physical properties of these bodies.  This light is given out by the atoms and molecules present in their atmospheres, and therefore its study can provide information on elemental abundance, surface temperature, pressure, motions, magnetic field, etc.  To retrieve this information from the light (spectrum) emitted, one has to understand the behaviour of atoms/ions in the laboratory under conditions somewhat similar to those of the astronomical bodies, and then compare the laboratory and the astronomical data.  Our group in Antigonish, in collaboration with Russian, French and US research Institutes, has been engaged for over three decades in this endeavour of studying these ions in the laboratory environment and has made significant contributions to the field of Analysis of Atomic Spectra.  The data on platinum (Pt) and selenium reported by our laboratory confirmed the presence of heavy element Pt in chemically peculiar stars and selenium in planetary nebulae.  Knowledge of the structure of heavy ions, as well as, those with f-electrons, is still quite sketchy, and these are the ions we propose to investigate in the next five years.  The extended experimental data on atomic/ionic structures provided by research groups like ours are also of vital importance to theoretical atomic physicists and astrophysicists for testing/revising/extending their ionic models or stellar phenomena on these ions.