Brian Williams' Webpage

Personal Information

My name is Brian Williams, and I'm a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Physics Department at North Carolina State University. My research advisors are Dr. Steve Reynolds and Dr. Kazimierz Borkowski. My research is in astrophysics, particularly the study of supernova remnants and their interaction with the interstellar medium. We are particularly interested in the role that supernova remnants play in the evolution of interstellar dust grains, and how dust and gas are distributed throughout the universe. If you'd like to know more, or would like to contact me for any reason, e-mail me at bjwilli2 at ncsu.edu.

My Curriculum Vitae
My prelim exam talk Download a PDF copy of the talk given for my preliminary thesis defense.

What is a Supernova Remnant? An introduction
My LMC SNRs page
My page dedicated to Kepler's Supernova Remnant

List of Refereed Publications

"Dust Destruction in Type Ia Supernova Remnants in the Large Magellanic Cloud," Astrophysical Journal Letters. Vol. 642, 141 K.J. Borkowski, B.J. Williams, S.P. Reynolds, W.P. Blair, P. Ghavamian, R. Sankrit, S.P. Hendrick, K.S. Long, J.C. Raymond, R.C. Smith, S. Points, P.F. Winkler. (2006). Download

"Dust Destruction in Fast Shocks of Core-Collapse Supernova Remnants in the Large Magellanic Cloud," Astrophysical Journal Letters Vol. 652, 33. B.J. Williams, K.J. Borkowski, S.P. Reynolds, W.P. Blair, P. Ghavamian, S.P. Hendrick, K.S. Long, J.C. Raymond, R. Sankrit, R.C. Smith, S. Points, & P.F. Winkler. (2006). Download

"Spitzer Space Telescope Observations of Kepler's Supernova Remnant: A Detailed Look at the Circumstellar Dust Component," The Astrophysical Journal.Vol 662, 998 W.P. Blair, P. Ghavamian, K.S. Long, B.J. Williams, K.J. Borkowski, S.P. Reynolds, R. Sankrit. (2007) Download

"Spitzer Space Telescope Observations of the Crab's Twin: B0540-69.3." B.J. Williams, K.J. Borkowski, S.P. Reynolds, W.P. Blair, P. Ghavamian, R. Sankrit, S.P. Hendrick, K.S. Long, J.C. Raymond, R.C. Smith, S. Points, J. Morse, & P.F. Winkler. (accepted by ApJ, in press) Download

Published Abstracts

(Only ones that I'm first author on)

"Dust Destruction in Type Ia SNRs in the Large Magellanic Cloud," Proceedings of the Six Years of Science with Chandra Symposium. B.J. Williams, K.J. Borkowski, S.P. Reynolds, W.P. Blair, P. Ghavamian, R. Sankrit, S.P. Hendrick, K.S. Long, J.C. Raymond, R.C. Smith, S. Points, P.F. Winkler. (2005). http://cxc.harvard.edu/symposium_2005/proceedings/sn_snr_isol_ns.html

"Dust Destruction in Supernova Remnants: Spitzer Observations," Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society. Vol. 37 B.J. Williams, K.J. Borkowski, S.P. Reynolds, W.P. Blair, P. Ghavamian, R. Sankrit, S.P. Hendrick, K.S. Long, J.C. Raymond, R.C. Smith, S. Points, P.F. Winkler. (2005). p. 1436.

"Spitzer Survey of Magellanic Clouds Supernova Remnants: Dust Content in Core-Collapse Supernovae," Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society Vol. 38 B.J. Williams, K.J. Borkowski, S.P. Reynolds, W.P. Blair, P. Ghavamian, R. Sankrit, S.P. Hendrick, K.S. Long, J.C. Raymond, R.C. Smith, S. Points, P.F. Winkler. (2006). p. 74.

Conferences Attended

Spitzer Data Analysis Workshop, March 21-25, 2005, Spitzer Science Center, Pasadena, CA.
Six Years of Science with Chandra Symposium, November 2-4, 2005, Boston, MA.
Winter Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, January 8-12, 2006, Washington, DC.
Summer Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, June 4-8, 2006, Calgary, Alberta, CA.
Winter Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, January 6-10, 2007, Seattle, WA.

Hey Look!

Our Spitzer observation of Kepler's SNR was chosen for the cover of the second edition of "Astrophysics of Gaseous Nebulae and Active Galactic Nuclei," a monolith in the field of astrophysics. Credit for this image (which is actually a combined image comprised of observations from Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra) goes to the PIs on the project, Bill Blair and Ravi Sankrit. It was officially published in our paper on Kepler's SNR, which can be retrived from my bibliography above. You can learn more about Kepler's SNR or about supernova remnants in general from some pages I've set up.

You can buy this book from amazon.com (though I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for the amateur). Sadly, we do not receive any of the profits from the book ;) I didn't even get a free copy!