Derek B. Fox, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar & P60 Project Scientist
Caltech Astronomy
I am working with Professor Shri Kulkarni
and the GRB group here at Caltech (including collaborators at NRAO and
Carnegie) on panchromatic follow-up observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts
(GRBs). Since my arrival at Caltech, I have adapted the Oschin
48-inch and Oscar Mayer 60-inch telescopes of Palomar Observatory to
the task of rapid-response GRB observations; so far we have succeeded
in discovering three burst afterglows - GRB021004, GRB021211, and
GRB040924 - at a very young age. The behavior of the GRB021004
afterglow, in particular, was sufficiently interesting that it
inspired a whole NASA press
conference last year. By moving quickly to observe and analyze
the data from these and other facilities, I have discovered the
afterglows of twelve GRBs. As a group, we have discovered 25
afterglows during this time, including the first three afterglows of
X-ray Flashes (XRFs), and the first XRF redshift, z=0.251 for
XRF020903.
Recently we completed the roboticization of the Palomar
60-inch telescope (P60) - here is our first paper! I have
served as the project lead and software architect for this effort for
the past year, and wrote the software to perform queue-scheduling of
observations during the night and make a pipeline reduction of the
images as they are taken.
I am a graduate of the astrophysics
program within the MIT
physics department. I received my Ph.D. in September 2000 with
thesis advisor Professor
Walter H. G. Lewin.
Current Projects
- The Robotic Palomar 60-Inch Telescope, including
an approved ground-based observations program for Cycle 1 of the Swift mission
- Solving the Mystery of the Short-Hard Gamma-Ray Bursts (Hubble Space Telescope,
Cycle 13, 42 orbits)
- The Energetics and Host Galaxies of X-ray Flashes (Chandra X-ray Observatory, Cycles
5 and 6, 140 ksec)
- Spitzer Observations of the Highest-Redshift Gamma-Ray Bursts (Spitzer Space Telescope,
Cycle 1, 46.8 hours)
- The Spectroscopic Diversity of Gamma-Ray Burst Supernovae (Gemini Observatory, 2004B, 20 hours)
- The Nature of the Flaring EUVE Companion to HD 43162 (XMM-Newton,
Cycle 3, 7.9 ksec)
- Keck and Palomar Hale Telescope TOO Observations of Gamma-Ray
Bursts (ongoing)
- The Caltech
Core-Collapse Program, a Palomar Large Program for 2004B and 2005A
(as Co-I)
Looking ahead, I have put forward a modest proposal to
use 10% of the observing time of the Swift satellite over
three years, 9.4 Msec in all, to make a complete survey of the 18,811
X-ray sources of the ROSAT Bright
Source Catalog. This would provide an order-of-magnitude
refinement in the two-dimensional positions of these sources and
enable near-complete identification of their optical counterparts.
This effort, in turn, should reveal the physical nature of these
sources - which will include the nearest isolated neutron stars and
quiescent X-ray binaries.
Curriculum Vitae
PDF or Postscript
Thesis
X-ray Observations of Globular Clusters, Low-Mass
X-ray Binaries, and a Supernova, MIT Physics, September 2000
Selected Publications
For a full list, you may wish to look
me up on the ADS Abstract Service; or get a list of my
refereed journal and astro-ph articles only. Note that there is
some slight contamination (David C. Fox) in these searches; my name
changed from Derek W. Fox to Derek B. Fox in 2003.
On Early Optical Emission from Gamma-Ray Bursts:
- Discovery
of Early Optical Emission from GRB 021211, D. W. Fox et al.,
2003, ApJ, 586, L5 (astro-ph)
- Early
Optical Emission from the Gamma-Ray Burst of 4 October 2002,
D. W. Fox et al., 2003, Nature, 422, 28 (PDF)
On Gamma-Ray Bursts and X-Ray Flashes:
- The
Sub-Energetic Gamma-Ray Burst GRB 031203 as a
Cosmic Analogue to GRB 980425, A. M. Soderberg,
S. R. Kulkarni, E. Berger, D. W. Fox, & 12 others, 2004,
Nature, 430, 648 (astro-ph)
- Re-Analysis
of Polarization in the Gamma-Ray Flux of GRB 021206,
R. E. Rutledge & D. B. Fox, 2004, MNRAS, 350, 1288 (astro-ph)
- A
Redshift Determination for XRF 020903: First Spectroscopic
Observations of an X-ray Flash, A. M. Soderberg,
S. R. Kulkarni, E. Berger, D. B. Fox, & 9 others, 2004, ApJ,
606, 994 (astro-ph)
- The
First Two Host Galaxies of X-ray Flashes: XRF 011030 and XRF
020427, J. S. Bloom, D. W. Fox, P. G. van Dokkum,
S. R. Kulkarni, E. Berger, S. G. Djorgovski, & D. A. Frail,
2003, ApJ, 599, 957 (astro-ph)
- The
Bright Optical Afterglow of the Nearby Gamma-Ray Burst of 29
March 2003, P. A. Price, D. W. Fox, & 12 others, 2003,
Nature, 423, 844 (astro-ph)
- Optical
Spectropolarimetry of the GRB 020813 Afterglow, A. J. Barth,
R. Sari, M. H. Cohen, R. W. Goodrich, P. A. Price, D. W. Fox,
J. S. Bloom, A. M. Soderberg, & S. R. Kulkarni, 2003, ApJ,
584, L47 (astro-ph)
On Supernovae:
- Photometric
Typing Analyses of Three Young Supernovae with the Robotic
Palomar 60-Inch Telescope, A. M. Rajala, D. B. Fox,
A. Gal-Yam, D. C. Leonard, A. M. Soderberg, S. R. Kulkarni,
S. B. Cenko, D.-S. Moon, & F. A. Harrison, 2004, PASP,
in press
- The Radio and
X-ray Luminous Type Ibc Supernova 2003L, A. M. Soderberg,
S. R. Kulkarni, E. Berger, R. A. Chevalier, D. A. Frail,
D. B. Fox, & R. C. Walker, 2004, ApJ, submitted
- The
J-Band Light Curve of SN 2003lw, Associated with GRB 031203,
A. Gal-Yam, D.-S. Moon, D. B. Fox, & 15 others, 2004, ApJL,
609, L59 (astro-ph)
- The
X-ray Spectrum and Light Curve of SN1995N, D. W. Fox et al.,
2000, MNRAS, 319, 1154 (astro-ph)
On Compact Objects:
- A ROSAT Bright
Source Catalog Survey with the Swift Satellite, Derek
B. Fox, 2004
- Microsecond
Timing of PSR B1821-24 with Chandra High Resolution
Camera-S, R. E. Rutledge, D. W. Fox, S. R. Kulkarni,
B. A. Jacoby, I. Cognard, D. C. Backer, & S. S. Murray, 2004,
ApJ, 613, 522 (astro-ph)
- A
Limit on the Number of Isolated Neutron Stars Detected in the
ROSAT Bright Source Catalogue, R. E. Rutledge, D. W. Fox,
M. Bogosavljevic, & A. Mahabal, 2003, ApJ, 598, 458 (astro-ph)
- Discovery
of a Possible Anomalous X-Ray Pulsar in the Small Magellanic
Cloud, R. C. Lamb, D. W. Fox, D. J. Macomb, & T. A. Prince,
2002, ApJ, 574, L29 (astro-ph)
- High Resolution
X-ray and Radio Observations of SGR 1900+14 in the Immediate
Aftermath of a Giant Flare, D. W. Fox, D. L. Kaplan,
S. R. Kulkarni, D. A. Frail, 2001
Derek Fox (derekfox [at] astro.caltech.edu)
10 December 2004