Rick Watkins
Professor
Physics
Willamette University
United States of America
Biography
Dr. Watkins studies the flow of galaxies though the Universe. Basically, galaxies are pulled by gravity into regions where matter is concentrated and out of regions that are relatively empty. By studying these motions one can learn how much matter the Universe contains, how it is distributed, and how this distribution is changing in time. This information can, in turn, be used to test models of how the Universe has evolved, thus illuminating such issues as dark matter and dark energy. He received Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara (1989) and B.A., Cornell University (1984)
Research Interest
Astrophysics, Cosmology, and Particle Physics, stars and on distant galaxies
Publications
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Wiltshire DL, Smale PR, Mattsson T, Watkins R. Hubble flow variance and the cosmic rest frame. Physical Review D. 2013 Oct 24;88(8):083529.
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Watkins R, Feldman HA. An unbiased estimator of peculiar velocity with Gaussian distributed errors for precision cosmology. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 2015 Apr 29;450(2):1868-73.
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Watkins R, Feldman HA. Large-scale bulk flows from the Cosmicflows-2 catalogue. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 2014 Dec 12;447(1):132-9.
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Mow B, Reinhart E, Nhim S, Watkins R. RAPID EVOLUTION OF GSC 03144-595, A NEW TRIPLE-MODE RADIALLY PULSATING HIGH-AMPLITUDE δ SCUTI. The Astronomical Journal. 2016 Jun 21;152(1):17.
