Kenneth J. Rines
Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Optical and Infrared Division, P312
60 Garden St, MS 19
Cambridge, MA 02138

Phone: (617) 496-7579
Fax: (617) 495-7467
Email: krines (at) cfa (dot) harvard (dot) edu


Teaching:

Yale: SMDEP Physics Physics 180a: Advanced General Physics Astronomy 170a Introduction to Cosmology
Harvard: Science A35: Matter in the Universe Astronomy 14: The Universe And Everything

Research:

I study galaxy clusters and their outskirts. Galaxy clusters are the largest collapsed objects in the universe, and thus provide a powerful probe of the growth and evolution of structure in the universe. Clusters are still forming today, and many galaxies in their outskirts are falling into the cluster for the first or second time. Velocity surveys of the outskirts of these clusters measure the mass on large scales and show the state of cluster assembly. Many of these galaxies are aligned along massive filaments like those seen in numerical simulations. Galaxy properties change dramatically from cluster centers to their edges, although the physical mechanisms responsible for this change are still hotly debated. Are cluster galaxies formed differently from field (non-cluster) galaxies? Or do cluster galaxies resemble field galaxies and then evolve in harsh cluster and group environments? If the latter, does this evolution occur only in massive clusters or does it occur in the less massive groups which merge to form the cluster?
I am also using clusters to try to understand the properties of dark energy. Alexey Vikhlinin at the CfA is leading a team getting Chandra observations of 41 X-ray selected clusters at moderate redshift. The Chandra data measure the masses of the clusters. Once you know the masses of the clusters, you can reconstruct the history of structure formation, which depends sensitively on the amount of and properties of dark energy. I am following up these clusters at multiple wavelengths. We were awarded Spitzer time to observe star formation and its evolution in these clusters. I am using the WIYN telescope to obtain multicolor imaging to identify likely cluster members. We have recently been awarded time on the Kitt Peak 4-meter telescope to observe these clusters at near-infrared wavelengths. These images will measure the stellar masses of the cluster galaxies. All of the above data can be combined to measure scaling relations between cluster masses and simple observables like those expected in future large cluster surveys. We expect that this sample will be the best studied sample of "typical" clusters at cosmologically important redshifts.
This project is nicknamed the Chandra Cluster Cosmology Project (CCCP), and the optical followup is the CCCP Optical Survey (C3PO).

Recent Publications:

ADS Listing
"WMAP5 and the Cluster Mass Function", Kenneth Rines, Antonaldo Diaferio, and Priyamvada Natarajan, 2008, submitted to ApJ Letters, (arXiv:0803.1843)
"Spectroscopic Determination of the Faint End of the Luminosity Function in the Nearby Galaxy Clusters A2199 and Virgo", Kenneth Rines and Margaret J. Geller, 2008, AJ, in press (arXiv:0710.1082)
"An Extremely Massive Dry Galaxy Merger in a Moderate Redshift Cluster", Kenneth Rines, Rose Finn, and Alexey Vikhlinin, 2007, ApJ Letters, vol. 665, pp. L9-L13 (arXiv:0708.0011 (astro-ph))
"The Virial Mass Function of Nearby SDSS Galaxy Clusters", Kenneth Rines, Antonaldo Diaferio, and Priyamvada Natarajan, 2007, ApJ, vol. 657, pp. 183-196
"Galaxy orbits and the intracluster gas temperature in clusters", Latchezar Benatov, Ken Rines, Priyamvada Natarajan, Andrey Kravtsov, and Daisuke Nagai, 2006, MNRAS, vol. 370 (1), pp. 427-434
"CIRS: Cluster Infall Regions in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey I. Infall Patterns and Mass Profiles", Kenneth Rines and Antonaldo Diaferio, 2006, AJ, vol. 132, pp. 1275-1297
"CAIRNS: The Cluster And Infall Region Nearby Survey III. Environmental Dependence of H-alpha Properties of Galaxies ", Kenneth Rines, Margaret J. Geller, Michael J. Kurtz, and Antonaldo Diaferio, 2005, AJ, vol. 130, pp. 1482-1501
"Caustic and Weak Lensing Estimators of Galaxy Cluster Masses ", Antonaldo Diaferio, Margaret J. Geller, and Kenneth Rines, 2005, ApJ Letters, vol. 628, pp. L97-L100
"K-Band Properties of Well-Sampled Groups of Galaxies ", Ramella, M., Boschin, W., Geller, M., Mahdavi, A., and Rines, K., 2004, AJ, vol. 128, pp. 2022-2036
"CAIRNS: The Cluster and Infall Region Nearby Survey. II. Environmental Dependence of Infrared Mass-to-Light Ratios", Kenneth Rines, Margaret J. Geller, Antonaldo Diaferio, Michael J. Kurtz, and Thomas H. Jarrett, 2004, AJ, vol. 128, pp. 1078-1111
"CAIRNS: The Cluster and Infall Region Nearby Survey. I. Redshifts and Mass Profiles", Kenneth Rines, Margaret J. Geller, Michael J. Kurtz, and Antonaldo Diaferio, 2003 AJ, vol. 126, pp. 2152-2170