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Star search
A long shot research project has netted Frank Krennrich a top award
from the DOE.
He's looking for something so small that you can't see it with the naked
eye. And even if you could, it would happen too quickly for your brain to
detect. Now imagine trying to find this in the seemingly endless sky. Finding
that allusive needle in a haystack may be easier.
Even Frank Krennrich, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, says
the study is a long shot. But then again, Krennrich thrives on long shots
and is confident that he and his research group will find a mini-black hole.
"My thesis was a long shot but it came in," he said. "This
is a bigger long shot, but I have always liked the riskier experiments.
That's where the discoveries are being made."
Krennrich and his research group are searching for microsecond gamma ray
bursts from exploding primordial black holes. These mini-black holes are
theorized to be the size of a hydrogen nucleus and might have formed in
the early universe. In 1974, Steven Hawking developed a theory that a short
flash of gamma rays indicates the violent death of such objects. Their existence
has yet to be proven.
"No one has seriously attacked this problem," Krennrich said.
"The technology hasn't really existed until this point to effectively
seek out these mini-black holes."
New digital electronics for the study will be developed at Iowa State. Krennrich
and his research team will use the Whipple Observatory in Arizona for the
study, which should be operational by the summer of 2001. Krennrich expects
to have data on the mini-black holes by 2002.
Not only are the mini-black holes small, but Krennrich expects to find out
that the gamma ray bursts will be extremely short, approximately 100 nanoseconds
in length.
"This is a high-risk, exploratory experiment," Krennrich said.
"The idea is that these black holes should exist, and if they do and
we can find them, it will be a very important and big discovery for astrophysics
and particle physics."
The study has attracted the attention of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE),
which recently named Krennrich an Outstanding Junior Investigator. He was
one of six individuals granted the award. Other recipients were from Princeton
University, Columbia University, Duke University, the University of California-Los
Angles and Boston University. Each recipient received funding from the DOE
for research projects they are working on.
The Outstanding Junior Investigator Program in high-energy physics was started
in 1978 to identify exceptionally talented new high-energy physicists early
in their careers and to assist and facilitate the development of their research
programs. Krennrich is the fourth member of Iowa State's physics and astronomy
faculty to receive this honor since 1980. He will receive a $225,000 award
and additional funding from the University, the College of Liberal Arts
and Sciences and the physics department to complete his study.
His research team includes Stefan Le Bohec, a postdoctoral associate, and
Howard Shanks, scientist, who will develop the new digital electronics.
Around LAS
September 18-24, 2000
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