Dr. Ralf-Dieter Scholz
Within the program area Milky Way and the Local Volume I preferentially deal with objects, which populate the immediate Solar neighbourhood (i.e. very local, e.g. within 10-20 pc) or travel with relatively high speed (several 100 km/s) with respect to the sun.
Phone: +49 331 7499 336
rdscholz@aip.de
Leibniz-Institut
für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP)
An der Sternwarte 16
14482 Potsdam
Main research fields (with some web links)
The missing brown dwarfs (AIP news from April 2016)
Credit: AIP/2MASSSolar neighbourhood stars, traditionally uncovered by their high proper motions (see our review from 2006 in Calar Alto Newsletter), which are sometimes surprisingly young ("Younger than the dinosaurs" - BdW report from 2014), or were even visiting the solar system (AIP news from February 2015), not so long time (only 70000 years!) ago; related video by Harald Lesch "Roter Zwergstern streift Sonnensystem" on YouTube channel Urknall, Weltall und das Leben in June 2015 (in German); and my corresponding interview with Deutschlandradio Kultur in February 2017 (in German, for listening: link to mp3 file), see also further contributions in Public Talks & Interviews (mostly in German)
Nearby brown dwarfs (see e.g. ESO press release from 2003 on our most important discovery of epsilon Indi B , soon afterward resolved as a binary brown dwarf),
Nearby white dwarfs, where we made a discovery within 10 pc with help of Gaia (published in 2018 in Astronomy and Astrophysics) and also helped uncovering the nearest of of the rare extremely low-mass (ELM) white dwarfs (reported on phys.org in 2020),
Hyper-velocity stars (e.g. HD 271791 featured in Spiegel online 2009 and SDSS J1539+0239 discussed 2010 in physicsworld.com), which were the topic of the international workshop "Stars on the Run II" in Potsdam 2019 (with own contribution),
Cool subdwarfs, as this visitor from the Galactic halo attracting attention in 2004; and the possibly oldest brown dwarfs (see Calar Alto Observatory Press release from 2009),
Survey of Galactic open clusters - in a long-term collaboration with Anatoly Piskunov (INASAN Moscow), Nina Kharchenko (MAO Kiev), Elena Schilbach and Siegfried Röser (ARI/ZAH Heidelberg) - here you find our data release in VizieR@CDS from Kharchenko et al. (2013) with data on 3006 out of 3784 clusters investigated.
Discovery of epsilon Indi B (ESO press release from 2003)
Credit: ESO/R.-D.Scholz et al. (AIP)
Artist's impression of brown dwarfs (AIP news from April 2016)
Credit: AIP/J. Fohlmeister
Star visiting the solar system:
The new solar neighbour was originally discovered in 2014 at AIP using new data of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and astronomical archives of old photographic plates. It hides in the band of the Milky Way, which is overcrowded by many background stars. Typical of a cool red dwarf, it appears much brighter in infrared light. Despite its proximity, it moves rather slowly on the sky (in direction of the arrow). This was a first hint on a possible recent encounter with the sun (AIP news from February 2015).
Publications
Publications at NASA ADS: ADS libraryLatest refereed publications, retrieved from NASA ADS:
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 685, A162; published May 2024
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 685, A6; published May 2024
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 664, L4; published August 2022
The Astronomical Journal, 160, 2, 83; published August 2020
The Astronomical Journal, 160, 2, 82; published August 2020
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 637, A45; published May 2020
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 628, A81; published August 2019
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 481, 4, 5163; published December 2018
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 619, A31; published November 2018
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 614, A22; published June 2018