Welcome to Greg Taylor's Home Page

On August 15, 2005 I joined the faculty at UNM, where we have a strong radio group including the Long Wavelength Array. I am also the Director of the Center for Astrophysical Research and Technologies. For more details, here is my vita.

What's going on in PandA (Physics and Astronomy) at UNM:

We have an active radio astronomy group within PandA. Faculty members Jayce Dowell, Ylva Pihlstrom, and Greg Taylor are all contributing to the Long Wavelength Array effort. Adjunct faculty Ken Obenberger (AFRL), Frank Schinzel (NRAO), and Kevin Stovall (SNL), are also involved. Students interested in radio astronomy and/or the LWA are encouraged to contact one of us.

We are also active in studies of the ionosphere, space weather, and meteors using low frequencies. Much of this work is done in collaboration with adjunct faculty Ken Obenberger (AFRL) and Stephen White (AFRL), and with other researchers at AFRL. Students interested in these research activities are encouraged to contact one of us.


My Courses:

Physics 102: Introduction to Physics Fall 2008
Astro 101: Introduction to Astronomy Fall 2016, Fall 2015, Fall 2011, Fall 2010, Fall 2009, Spring 2008, Fall 2007
Astro 2110: General Astronomy I Spring 2024, Fall 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2014, 2012
Astro 2115: General Astronomy II Fall 2023, Spring 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018
Astro 421: Concepts of Astrophysics I Fall 2022, Fall 2013
Astro 422: Concepts of Astrophysics II Spring 2016, Spring 2014, 2012, 2010
Astro 423: Radio Astronomy Spring 2021 Spring 2017, 2015, 2013, 2011, 2009, 2007, 2006

The Long Wavelength Array (LWA)

The LWA will explore the universe at frequencies in the range 20-80 MHz with arcsecond level resolution and mJy level sensitivity. Eventually consisting of ~50 stations spread across New Mexico, the LWA will make crucial measurements of supernova remnants, gamma-ray bursts, active galaxies, and clusters of galaxies. The first LWA station (LWA1) is located near the VLA, and the second NM station (LWA-SV) is located on the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge. The LWA project is a collaboration led by the University of New Mexico and includes the Naval Research Laboratory, the Air Force Research Laboratory, Virginia Tech, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Jet Propultion Laboratory and with assistance from NRAO and individual researchers across the US. Funding has been provided by ONR, NSF, AFOSR and AFRL.

LWA System Engineer Joe Craig works with a team of student volunteers to build an LWA stand. The first 38 antennas of the first LWA station were installed on Oct 18, 2009.

VLBA Sensitivity Enhancements

As recommended in the VLBI Future Report, the VLBA is being upgraded. For more details check out the VLBA Future Development web pages.

Current Research Interests, Talks and Travel

Here is my travel and talks schedule for this year.

Here is a Movie of the CSO 1946+708 that we have been studying for some 16 years now. This movie shows the 8 GHz monitoring over the last 12 years. A paper describing the results is in the works. We have completed a VLBI survey called the VLBA Imaging and Polarimetry Survey (VIPS). The paper describing the survey and copious amounts of data for 1127 sources can be found on the VIPS web page.

GLAST has launched successfully and is performing beautifully. We anticipate that many of our favorite blazars imaged in VIPS and elsewhere will be detected by GLAST. We have put together a web page describing Radio Observations of Active Galaxies planned during the GLAST mission.

I've been chasing after the radio afterglows from Gamma-Ray Bursts, especially GRB 030329, with both the VLA and VLBA.

We have now finished a couple large VLBI surveys of Active Galactic Nuclei. Here is a link to those 300+ maps in the PR and CJ surveys and the visibility data. My summer 2002 student, Lindsey Pollack, has analyzed polarimetry from 182 sources in CJF. I continue to do a lot of followup observations with the VLA, OVRO mma, Palomar, Keck, and VLBA telescopes.

I'm also continuing to study radio galaxy environments, mostly through the use of Faraday rotation measure observations with the VLA and VLBA. Surprisingly large RMs are found in typical quasars. These results are reported in Evidence for ordered magnetic fields in the quasar environment, Magnetic Fields in Quasar Cores and Magnetic Fields in Quasar Cores II. My former Ph.D. student Bob Zavala has recently completed the study of a larger sample of Radio Galaxies, Quasars, and BL Lacs.

Along with Martin Shepherd and Tim Pearson we have developed automatic mapping for Difmap. We're using the latest FITS version of Difmap and you should be too. Here is the link to the latest release. I recommend mapplot for making images and overlays.

I could go on and on but you might be getting sleepy. Take a look at my publications if you want to know more about what I've been doing. Just realized that you got the wrong person? Check out the Greg Taylors Clearinghouse for different people with the same name.


Browse through the Picture Gallery



Last Modified on 2023 July 7

Greg Taylor Phone: (505) 270-2929