The Future of Cool-Star Astrophysics

July 30th - August 3rd, 2001, Boulder, Colorado

Splinter Session on Molecular Hydrogen

Wednesday 1st August 2001 (3:00-5:30 pm)

Chair: Jeff Valenti (valenti@stsci.edu)

Molecular hydrogen is ubiquitous in cool stars and their environments. Existing and new instrumentation (e.g. CSHELL, Phoenix, NICMOS, ISO, GHRS, STIS, FUSE) have opened wavelength windows and resolution that allow unprecedented studies of H2 in the environments of cool stars. Observations of H2 probe cold gas around young stars, in stellar atmospheres, and in ejecta from evolved stars. H2 can be used to study shocks and the intrinsic UV radiation field in complex environments. The goal of this splinter group session is to review available molecular and astronomical data, discuss the formation of H2 lines, and ultimately understand what can be learned about cool stars from observations of H2.

SESSION I	03:00-04:05pm
Motivation	5 minutes
	TBD	General importance of H2/molecular gas, e.g. disks, atmospheres, outflows, ISM
Molecular Properties and Processes	20 minutes
	TBD	Molecular nomenclature and H2 primer
	O'Mara	Collisional broadening of spectral lines by H and H2
	Berdyugina	Zeeman sensitivity of H2
	Piskunov	Serving H2 line data with VALD
Discussion	...
UV Absorption	15 minutes
	Gnacinski	Dependence of interstellar C/H on H2 fraction
	Young	FUV H2 absorption towards AB Aur and AG Dra
	Clayton	Interstellar dust and FUSE H2 measurements
Discussion	...
IR Absorption and Emission	20 minutes
	Hinkle	Miras and other cools stars
	Preibisch	Recent observations of S140 IRS3
	Yu	Herbig-Haro flows
Discussion	...
Break	04:00-04:20pm
SESSION II	04:20-05:30pm
Broad Absorption	5 minutes
	Burgasser	Collisionally induced absorption in T dwarfs
UV Fluorescence in the Sun and Giants	25 minutes
	Jordan	Fluorescence tutorial, and the Discovery of Solar H2 Features
	Curdt	SUMER spectra of the Sun
	McMurry/Jordan	Fluorescence in alpha Tau
Discussion	...
UV Fluorescence in T Tauri Systems	40 minutes
	Jordan	Discovery of fluorescence in T Tau
	Linsky	Survey of IUE final archive
	Ardila	Analysis of all archival GHRS data
	Walter	Initial results from STIS
	Harper	Analysis of FUSE spectrum of T Tau
	Herczeg	FUSE spectra of TW Hya, SU Aur, etc.
Discussion	...