I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Astronomy Department at the Ohio State University. I obtained my Ph. D. degree in the Astronomy & Astrophysics Department at the Pennsylvania State University in 2004.
Research Interests:
Recently, I am particularly interested in two projects. The first one will use the microlensing technique to study the structure of quasar accretion disk. In particular, we monitor several gravitational lenses both in the optical bands from ground and in the X-Ray band with Chandra. These light-curves will provide first quantitative measurements of the X-Ray emission region of the quasar accretion disk. The second project involves studying the averaged X-Ray properties of large samples (over thousands) of optically-selected galaxy clusters. This is important in testing the selection biases of the optical cluster selection algorithm and will calibrate the optical richness to the cluster mass. As a result, a cluster mass function can be more accurately measured with optical surveys, which is essential in constrainting cosmological models, such as measuring the equation of state of the dark energy. Please see my research page for more details.
Contact Information:
Department of Astronomy
The Ohio State University
4055 McPherson Lab
140 West 18th Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210Email: xinyu@astronomy.ohio-state.edu
Phone: 614-292-5790
Fax: 614-292-2928