Proposed CIRCE Science Projects
CIRCE is a flexible near-infrared instrument for what will soon be the world's largest telescope. Because CIRCE will be open to the entire GTC observing community, it will be used for a broad range of scientific work, and space considerations prevent a detailed presentation of each project here. The table below gives a list of planned projects headed by University of Florida astronomers alone. In the following subsection, we present more detailed descriptions of selected projects from this list to demonstrate just a small portion of the scientific work CIRCE will enable on the GTC.
1. Near-infrared observations of microquasars (PI - S. Eikenberry)
An artist conception of a microquasar
2. Emission-line surveys for massive star clusters (PI - S. Eikenberry)3. Transient observations: GRBās and X-ray flash (PIs - S. Eikenberry and A. Castro-Tirado)
4. Deep JHK Photometry of Galactic Globular Clusters (PI - A. Sarajedini)
A globular cluster
5. The distance Scale of Local Group Dwarf Galaxies (PI - A. Sarajedini)6. Metal Abundance Gradients in M31 and M33 (PI - A. Sarajedini)
7. The Stellar Masses of Galaxies over Cosmological Timescales (PI - R. Guzman)