UNLV physicist’s research peers into cosmic dark ages

November 23, 2009 by Leslie Ventura 

Physics professor continues nationally renowned research

One UNLV physics professor is making great achievements in an area most know nothing about – the cosmic dark ages.

Associate professor of physics and astronomy Bing Zhang is attempting to introduce people to the significance of new findings on gamma ray bursts.

“This is the first time to shed some light into the dark ages,” Zhang said. “Its just one more step further for human beings to understand the universe.”

The burst, which was discovered earlier this year, is the oldest and most distant GRB ever seen by the human eye.

Zhang and his UNLV team of physicists is continuing its work on GRBs, garnering attention in their field from other prestigious institutions.

Post-doctorate student Francisco Virgili said a GRB is an extremely energetic cosmic explosion. They happen everywhere in the universe but are most likely associated with the deaths of massive stars and their by-products.

“That particular GRB happened when the universe was nine times smaller than it is now, which means it was very early in time,” he said.

The burst happened about 13.102 billion years ago, 630 million years after the Big Bang is suspected to have occurred, Zhang said.

He said that the universe is 13.7 billion years old now, making the discovery of the GRB a profound finding.Zhang and his team of UNLV students are currently conducting their own research on GRBs.

“Having the opportunity to do research [with Zhang], along with the other members of the research group, has definitely made my undergraduate experience at UNLV more exciting, educational and preparatory than it would have been otherwise,” said undergraduate Tesla Birnbaum.

Birnbaum said that the scientists in the program are “working hard to show the rest of the world that the UNLV Department of Physics and Astronomy is doing cutting-edge, high-quality research.”

“As more people realize that, more great researchers, motivated students, and funding will be attracted to UNLV,” Birnbaum said.

Virgili said that when a UNLV professor publishes in a journal like “Nature,” it directly adds to UNLV’s research mission and brings attention to the work of productive faculty members and departments.

“This attention, in turn, brings that positive attention back to UNLV, which helps us grow and provides more opportunities to be invited to write articles for journals,” he said.

The attention helps UNLV bring in research grants, which are vital to the program’s continuing efforts.

“Everybody can live without knowing these things, but a human being has these natural curiosities,” Zhang said. “They want to know why we are here. By studying the most distant object, we are studying the very early history of the universe.”