James Higdon

Associate Professor | Georgia Southern University

Statesboro, GA, UNITED STATES

Professor Higdon uses optical, infrared, and radio telescopes to study galaxies both in the relatively local and very distant universe

Biography

I use optical, infrared, and radio telescopes to study the multi-phase interstellar medium in galaxies both in the relatively local and very distant universe. For example, I have used radio telescopes like the Very Large Array in New Mexico to study the distribution and motions of neutral hydrogen gas (“HI”) in colliding galaxies and (hopefully) shed light on the processes triggering and suppressing star formation. I also use observations in the near-infrared part of the spectrum (1-2 microns wavelengths) to search for young galaxy clusters at epochs when the universe was only ~20% of its current age, a very important epoch. Most recently I have used the Green Bank Telescope to detect cold molecular gas in extremely powerful (yet exceedingly faint optically) galaxies at an epoch when our own Milky Way galaxy likely formed.

Areas of Expertise (5)

Galaxies

Radio Astronomy

Telescopes

Infrared Imaging

Physics and Astronomy

Education (4)

University of Texas at Austin: Ph.D., Astronomy

University of Texas at Austin: B.S., Physics

University of Texas at Austin: M.A., Physics

University of Texas at Austin: B.A., Astronomy

Links (1)

Faculty Profile Page

Articles (1)

The SMART Data Analysis Package for the Infrared Spectrograph* on the Spitzer Space Telescope

Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

SJU Higdon, D Devost, JL Higdon, et al.

2014 SMART is a software package written in IDL to reduce and analyze Spitzer data from all four modules of the Infrared Spectrograph, including the peak‐up arrays. The software is designed to make full use of the ancillary files generated in the Spitzer Science Center pipeline so that it can either remove or flag artifacts and corrupted data and maximize the signal‐to‐noise ratio in the extraction routines. It can be run in both interactive and batch modes. The software and users guide will be available for public release in 2004 December...