Andrew Norton's Work-Related Home Page

Dr. Andrew J. Norton

email A.J.Norton@nospam.ac.uk
replacing 'nospam' with 'open'

phone +44 (0)1908 654121

fax +44 (0)1908 654192

postal Department of Physics and Astronomy,

The Open University,

Walton Hall,

Milton Keynes MK7 6AA,

U.K.

Andrew Norton's Work-Related Home Page

(For non-work-related information, go to my personal home page.)

I am a member of the Astronomy Research Group within the Centre for Earth, Planetary, Space and Astronomical Research, and also Physical Science Awards Director and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the Open University. In the past I have been Curriculum Director for Astronomy and Planetary Science within the Science Faculty, although the post has lapsed now that A&PS courses are included within the Physical Science named degree. I am experimenting with mathtran to make things like $tex:R_{\rm AB}=6.48 \times 10^{-24} \frac{n_{\rm A}n_{\rm B}}{A_{\rm r}Z_{\rm A}Z_{\rm B}} S(E_0) \left( \frac{E_{\rm G}}{4 kT}\right)^{2/3} \exp \left[-3\left(\frac{E_{\rm G}}{4 kT}\right)^{1/3}\right] {\rm m}^{-3}{\rm s}^{-1}$ appear in web pages.

I do research in areas broadly classified as Time-Domain Astrophysics. This is mainly in the fields of High Mass X-ray Binaries (see here for a catalogue and here for info on those containing Be Stars) and the Magnetic Cataclysmic Variables known as Intermediate Polars (see here for a catalogue of IPs). Here are some movies showing the type of accretion flows in these systems. I am also involved in SuperWASP - the Wide Angle Search for Planets - which also detects vast numbers of variable stars and other transient phenomena.

I started my astrophysics career as a postgraduate student in the X-ray Astronomy Group at Leicester University in 1985. I then headed south to join the Astrophysics group at Southampton University as a postdoc in 1988. I finally got a real job and moved to the OU in October 1992.

Research

A complete bibliography of all my published work is available, containing links to downloadable PDF files. As well as refereed journal articles and conference papers, this list also includes text books, videos, TV programmes, CD-ROMs and experiment designs that I have produced. The statistics of my research papers are also available. There is also a link to the ADS listing of my papers.

Bibliography Statistics Publications on ADS

In the field of Cataclysmic Variables, I work with Olly Butters (former full-time postgrad with me at the OU, now working at Leicester University on the SuperWASP archive) and Liz Barlow, who is a visiting research fellow at the OU (during school holidays from her teaching job). I also collaborate with various people including Koji Mukai at GSFC; Graham Wynn at Leicester, Pete Wheatley at Warwick; Seppo Katajainen & Harry Lehto at Turku; and Dave Buckley & Steve Potter at SAAO. My first postgrad student (Pete Taylor) got his PhD in 1997, with a thesis entitled ``Modelling the Accretion Process in Intermediate Polars''; my fourth postgrad student (Tracey Parker) received her PhD in 2007 with a thesis entitled ``Accretion characteristics in Intermediate Polars''; my part-time postgrad Les Thomas had the viva for his PhD in December 2008 on his thesis entitled ``Optical and infrared observations of cataclysmic variable stars'' and is currently completing minor corrections to it.
With X-ray binaries, I work with Simon Clark at the OU and Fraser Lewis & Vanessa Stroud (two OU postgrads based at the Faulkes Telescope, Cardiff) and Andrew Mason (full-time OU postgrad starting in Oct 2008) and collaborate with Ignacio Negueruela, Paul Roche and Malcolm Coe. My second postgrad student (Tim Ash) got his PhD in 1999, with a thesis entitled ``The masses of the neutron stars in Cen X-3 and Vela X-1''; my third postgrad student (Diana Maxwell) got her PhD in 2001, with a thesis entitled ``Identification of High Mass X-ray Binaries''; and my fifth postgrad student (Amira Val Baker) got her PhD in 2008, with a thesis that focused on SMC X-1, LMC X-3, A0535+26 & X Per.
Here's a link to the Compton GRO BATSE accretion powered pulsars data archive page and a link to the Rossi XTE All Sky Monitor Light Curves page
On the SuperWASP project, I work with a part-time OU postgrad, Stan Payne, on a project to identify and classify non-periodic optical transients. Stan is co-supervised by Pete Wheatley at Warwick and Richard West at Leicester.
In addition to those named above, the Time-Domain Astrophysics gang within the OU Astronomy Research Group also includes Carole Haswell, Ulrich Kolb, and Simon Clark.

Teaching

I have been Curriculum Director for Astronomy and Planetary Science, a subject area in which we have a large range of courses, and am currently Awards Director for the Physical Science programme at the OU.

My teaching activities are currently (or recently) with the following courses:

S382 Astrophysics and S383 The Relativistic Universe are the two new 30 CATS point Level 3 Astro courses due for first presentation in 2010. I am chairing the production of both courses.
S104 Exploring Science is the new 60 CATS point Level 1 'Science Foundation Course' which had its first presentation in 2008. I wrote the penultimate Book of the course, entitled Quarks to Quasars which covers the physics of the very small and the very large.
S197 How the Universe Works is a 10 CATS point Level 1 course which started in 2003. It provides an introduction to cosmology and particle physics using full-colour text, multimedia activities and video.
SXR208 Observing the Universe is a 15 CATS point Level 2 Residential School in Astronomy and Planetary Science. It is hosted at the Observatori Astronomic de Mallorca in the Spring and Autumn each year.
S381 The Energetic Universe is a 3rd level astrophysics course which Carole Haswell, Ulrich Kolb, Sean Ryan and I wrote. It had its first presentation in 2002. I chaired the course production and wrote Block 1 An introduction to astrophysics. The three major blocks of the course, Block 2 The life and death of stars, Block 3 Interacting binary stars and Block 4 Active galaxies were written by the other authors.
S207 The Physical World is the 60 CATS point level 2 Physics Course. I was academic editor of Book 6 Dynamic Fields and Waves, covering `Fields that vary with time', `Waves and Electromagnetic radiation', `Optics and optical intruments' and `Special Relativity'. This had its first presentation in 2000.
S103 Discovering Science, the 60 CATS point Science Foundation Course, on which I was responsible for writing most of two Physics blocks, namely The Quantum World and Universal Processes. I was therefore responsible for about 12.5% of the total text of the course (four weeks study). This course was presented to students for the first time in 1998. A novel feature of the course is its high multimedia content, presented in the form of interactive CD-ROMs as well as conventional printed texts, videos, home experiments and a residential school.
The first of the three CD-ROM packages which I worked on was in The Quantum World block. This is called Quarks and looks at the way in which quarks participate in both strong and weak nuclear interactions. Part of the package is a kind of `virtual particle accelerator' illustrating proton-proton collisions and pion production. It also contains a `quark fruit machine' to illustrate the possible baryons and mesons that can be formed from the six flavours of quark.
The other two CD-ROM packages are both in the Universal Processes block. They are a Virtual Telescope enabling students to measure the expansion of the Universe, and A History of the Universe enabling students to investigate processes that have occurred throughout the Universe from the big bang to the present day. There are a total of over twenty CD-ROM packages in the course as a whole.
As well as text and CD-ROM on S103, I was also responsible for three of the course's twelve video programmes ( Making Waves , The Photoelectric Effect, and Seeing Inside the Sun), the most extensive home experiment in the course (Atomic Energy Levels ) and one of the four residential school activities ( Energy in the Earth: Rocks and Radioactivity).
Oh yes, and I also acted as a consultant to one of the TV programmes produced for the course. Called Uncertain Principles this programme looks at the development of quantum physics from the discovery of the electron to the present day.
ST291 Images and Information, a 30 CATS point course at Level 2, for which I have been the maintenance team chairman and also re-wrote two double units (The transfer of optical information and Spatial filtering) and two case study units (The Crab nebula and The Mariner 9 TV experiment) as part of the course's rolling rewrite.

Personal

More information about me (non-Astronomy) may be found on my personal home page.

This page is maintained by :

Andrew Norton, (e-mail me at A.J.Norton@nospam.ac.uk replacing 'nospam' with 'open'.)

These pages are the personal responsibility of Andrew Norton. The views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of the Open University. The University takes no responsibility for any material on these pages.

Last modified : 19-December-2008

Dr. Andrew J. Norton
	A.J.Norton@nospam.ac.uk replacing 'nospam' with 'open'
	+44 (0)1908 654121
	+44 (0)1908 654192
	Department of Physics and Astronomy,
	The Open University,
	Walton Hall,
	Milton Keynes MK7 6AA,
	U.K.