Richard C. Henry
Professor
B.A. 1977 Kansas
Ph.D. 1983 Michigan

 My research interests center on the origin and abundances of the chemical elements. Currently, I am most interested in the abundances of carbon, nitrogen, neon, sulfur, chlorine, and argon, all as a function of time. The probes we use for this work are planetary nebulae and HII regions. One focus of the planetary nebula studies is the determination of carbon and nitrogen abundances in planetaries, as this provides useful information for assessing the contributions that PN progenitor stars make to the galactic evolution of these two elements. Another focus involves the use of planetary nebulae as abundance probes to map the galactic distribution of elements such as O, S, Cl, and Ar, elements which are not processed by PN progenitors. Collaborators in these areas include Karen Kwitter (Williams College), Bruce Balick (U. Washington), and Jackie Milingo (Gettysburg College). Projects using extragalactic H II regions as probes are intended to study heavy element distributions in external galaxies. On this topic work with Mike Edmunds (Cardiff University) and Jason Prochaska (UCSC) is designed to identify and evaluate the important cosmic synthesis sites of the elements carbon and nitrogen, as well as to identify useful metallicity indicators for high redshift systems.

Selected Publications:

R.B.C. Henry, K.B. Kwitter, B. Balick, Sulfur, Chlorine, and Argon Abundances in Planetary Nebulae. IV. Synthesis and the Sulfur Anomaly, Astronomical Journal, 127, 2284

J. X. Prochaska, R.B.C. Henry, J.M. O'Meara, D. Tytler, A.M. Wolfe, D. Kirkman, D. Lubin, N. Suzuki, The UCSD HIRES/Keck I Damped Lyman alpha Abundance Database. IV. Probing Galactic Enrichment Histories with Nitrogen, Pub. Astron. Soc. Pacific, 114, 933

R.B.C. Henry, M.G. Edmunds, and J. Koeppen On The Cosmic Origins of Carbon and Nitrogen, Astrophysical Journal, 541, 660 (2000).

R.B.C. Henry, K.B Kwitter, and J.A. Bates A New Look At Carbon Abundances In Planetary Nebulae IV: Implications For Stellar Nucleosynthesis, Astrophysical Journal 531, 928 (2000).

R.B.C. Henry and Guy Worthey, The Distribution of Heavy Elements in Spiral and Elliptical Galaxies, Invited Review, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 111, 919 (1999).