Professor McKay’s research focuses on fundamental questions of observational astrophysics and cosmology. What is the nature and distribution of dark and luminous matter in the Universe? What processes drive the formation and evolution of structure? How has the global expansion of the universe changed with time?

McKay’s group has assembled the largest ever catalog of galaxy clusters using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. By measuring the galaxy-mass and cluster-mass correlation functions with weak gravitational lensing they can learn how galaxies illuminate dark matter halos. Interpreting these observations is complex. As a result, they work closely with Professor August (Gus) Evrard’s structure formation simulation group to help generate mock universes. ‘Observing’ these simulations exactly as they do in the real universe allows them to explore the complex relationships between dark matter mass and observables like shear and galaxy velocity.

Professor McKay also joins a number of other Michigan Physics faculty in two projects designed to probe the expansion history of the universe. The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is constructing a large new camera for the 4m telescope at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory in Chile. This camera will be used in conjunction with the South Pole Telescope (SPT) Sunyaev-Zeldovich imager to detect galaxy clusters at a very high redshift over a 4,000 square degree region of the southern sky. The ultimate tool for measuring the expansion history is the Supernova Acceleration Probe (SNAP), a new wide-field space telescope. The Michigan SNAP team is working to optimize the telescopes ability to precisely detect high redshift supernovae.

Finally, Professor McKay is a member of the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment. ROTSE operates a global array of small telescopes to search for prompt optical emission from gamma-ray bursts, with the hope of eventually understanding these bizarre cosmological explosions.

Related Links

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: http://www.sdss.org
The Dark Energy Survey: >>http://www.darkenergysurvey.org
The Supernova Acceleration Probe: http://snap.lbl.gov/
The Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment: http://www.rotse.net

Analysis of RR Lyrae Stars in the Northern Sky Variability Survey, (K. Kinemuchi, H. Smith, P. Wozniak, and T. McKay), submitted to The Astronomical Journal (2006).

The Optical Light Curve of GRB050319, (R. Quimby, et al.), accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal (2006).

The Anomalous Early Afterglow of GRB 050801, (E. Rykoff, et al.), The Astrophysical Journal Letters 638, 5 (2006).

The Fourth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, (J. Adelman-McCarthy, et al.), The Astrophysical Journal Supplements Series 162, 38 (2005).

Optical Light Curve and Cooling Break of GRB050502a, (S. Yost, et al.), accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal 636, 939 (2006).

A Catalog of 1022 Bright Contact Binary Stars, (S. Gettel, M. Geske, and T. McKay), The Astronomical Journal 131, 621 (2006).

X-ray Emission from Contact Binary Stars, (M. Geske, S. Gettel, and T. McKay), The Astronomical Journal 131, 633 (2006).

Prompt Optical Detection of GRB050401 with ROTSE-IIIa, (E. Rykoff, et al.), The Astrophysical Journal Letters 631L, 121 (2005).

Cross-correlation lensing: Determining Density and Mass Profiles from Stacked Weak Lensing Shear Measurements, (D. Johnston et al.), submitted to The Astrophysical Journal, also astro-ph/0507467 (2005).

A Search for Untriggered GRB Afterglows with ROTSE-III, (E. Rykoff, et al.), The Astrophysical Journal 631, 1032 (2005).

The C4 Clustering Algorithm: Clusters of Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, (C. Miller, et al.), The Astronomical Journal 130, 968 (2005).

The Third Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, (K. Abazajian, et al.), The Astronomical Journal 129, 1755 (2005).

Measurement of Galaxy Cluster Sizes, Radial Profiles, and Luminosity Functions from SDSS Photometric Data, (S. Hansen, T. McKay, R. Wechsler, J. Annis, E. Sheldon, and A. Kimball), The Astrophysical Journal 633, 122 (2005).

Detection of the Baryon Acoustic Peak in the Large-Scale Correlation Function of SDSS Luminous Red Galaxies, (D. Eisenstein, et al.), The Astrophysical Journal 633, 560 (2005).

Discovery of CVs ROTSE3 J151453.6+020934.2 and ROTSE3 J221519.8-003257.2, (E. Rykoff, et al.), Informational Bulletin of Variable Stars 5559, 1 (2004).

Supernova / Acceleration Probe: A Satellite Experiment to Study the Nature of the Dark Energy, (G. Aldering, et al.), submitted to the Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (2004).

The Second Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, (K. Abazajian et al.), The Astronomical Journal 128, 502 (2004).

Morphological Classification of Galaxies by Shapelet Decomposition in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey II: Multiwavelength Classification, (B. Kelly, and T. McKay), The Astronomical Journal 129, 1287 (2004).

Cosmological Parameters from SDSS and WMAP, (M. Tegmark et al.), Physical Review D 69, 103501 (2004).

The Northern Sky Variability Survey (NSVS): Public Data Release, (P. Wozniak et al.), The Astronomical Journal 127, 2436 (2004).

The Galaxy-Mass Correlation Function Measured from Weak Lensing in the SDSS, (E. Sheldon et al.), The Astronomical Journal 127, 2544 (2004).