I will present spectroscopic data from the Berkeley SuperNova Ia Program (BSNIP), its initial analysis, and the results of my attempt to use spectral information to improve distance determinations to Type Ia supernova (SNe Ia). The dataset consists of 1298 low-redshift (z < 0.2) optical spectra of 582 SNe Ia observed from 1989 through the end of 2008. Many of the SNe have well-calibrated light curves with measured distance moduli as well as spectra that have been corrected for host-galaxy contamination. I will also describe the spectral classification scheme employed (using the SuperNova Identification code, SNID; Blondin & Tonry 2007) which utilizes a newly constructed set of SNID spectral templates. The sheer size of the BSNIP dataset and the consistency of the observation and reduction methods make this sample unique among all other published SN Ia datasets. I will also discuss measurements of the spectral features of about one-third of the spectra which were obtained within 20 days of maximum light. I will briefly describe the method of automated, robust spectral-feature definition and measurement used which expands upon similar previous studies. Comparisons of these measurements of SN Ia spectral features to photometric observables will be presented with an eye toward using spectral information to calculate more accurate cosmological distances. Finally, I will comment on related projects which also utilize the BSNIP dataset that are planned for the near future.

Traditionally, in stellar binary systems photometry is used primarily to measure eclipse light curves and infer the objects' size, and spectroscopy (Doppler) to measure radial velocity curves and derive the components' orbits and masses. Kepler's high precision and continuous photometry allows us to use photometry to study the orbit, and reveal the existence of non-eclipsing binary companions. Orbital photometry includes three modulations correlated with the orbit: beaming, tidal ellipsoidal deformation and reflection/heating. I will describe this new approach, present some of the already published and recently submitted results, and show some preliminary results from on-going projects. Those include looking for orbital photometry, including beaming, in known transiting systems, and looking for new non-eclipsing systems using photometry. Time allowing, I will discuss also the use of photometry to measure spin-orbit alignment.

The limits that pulsar timing places on the energy density of gravitational waves in the universe are on the brink of limiting models of galaxy formation and have already placed limits on the tension of cosmic strings. Pulsar timing has traditionally focused on stochastic sources, but most recently I have been investigating the idea of detecting individual gravitational wave bursts wherein there are some interesting advantages. I will demonstrate how the array can be used to reconstruct the waveform and obtain its direction, making it a shrewd gravitational wave detection instrument. With this new strategy comes interesting questions about how best to optimize the array given our current resources.

Massive galaxies in the nearby universe typically have very little cold gas, they host old stellar populations and exhibit extremely low specific star formation rates. Therefore, studies of these galaxies typically find that essentially all of the stellar mass growth takes place through mergers and other gravitational interactions, with the relative importance of each process still debatable. For example, while some authors find that major dry mergers contribute significantly to the mass evolution of massive galaxies, others find only a mild contribution or none at all. Other studies argue that minor mergers and low mass accretion events contribute at least some of the stellar mass growth in massive galaxies over a longer timescale. I present results from two studies of the contribution of minor mergers to the mass growth of massive galaxies at z < 0.7. I show that essentially all nearby ellipticals have morphological disturbances in their stellar bodies that can be associated with minor merger activity. In addition, I discuss a purely statistical study of the satellite galaxies around luminous red galaxies in SDSS and show that major mergers are an unlikely contributor to their mass growth.

Ever since their discovery, the nature of low ionization nuclear emission-line regions (LINERs) has been hotly debated. Some authors treat them as AGNs, others argue they are not AGNs but powered by shocks or hot old stars. No universal agreement has been reached. On the other hand, early-type galaxies frequently contain spatially extended warm ionized gas and have spectra similar to LINERs. How is this large-scale emission related to the nuclear LINERs? Because LINER-like spectrum is the most common spectral type found in early-type galaxies in both nuclear and integrated spectra, understanding its nature is important to numerous topics in astrophysics.

In this talk, you will hear a story of how I converted from a supporter for AGN-powering of LINER line emission to an opponent, and what kind of convincing evidence I find made me convert. I will also discuss what we can learn about the warm ionized gas in early-type galaxies from this line emission, given that it is not an AGN indicator.

It is likely that intergalactic hydrogen was reionized by redshifts of 6-10, but it is not known whether the flux density of UV photons from the earliest galaxies was sufficient to do so. Measurements of the faint end slope of the luminosity function at these redshifts can help to address this question. I explore the use of the densest galaxy fields to lens faint objects into detectability, increasing source counts and providing improved constraints on dlog N / dlog L. First, I present galaxy spectroscopy for the first two dense beams identified from the SDSS. We have now confirmed that these beams have integrated masses of 3-4 x 10^15 solar masses, surpassing even the most massive single cluster lensing fields. This increased mass should result in 50-1000% more detected sources at z > 7 than other current methods.

Second, I compare the high-redshift detection efficiencies of lensing and blank fields with a new multiple-plane gravitation lensing code developed by our collaboration. Including realistic assumptions for the intrinsic sizes and morphologies of sources at z > 7, we find that there are heretofore uncorrected biases introduced by lensing due to the difficulty of detecting faint, highly elongated objects at high magnification. To interpret high-redshift, magnified number counts correctly, incompleteness due to this bias must be addressed with lensing simulations. The correction for incompleteness near the detection limit may exceed a factor of ten. Including finite source size and realistic shape assumptions, luminosity function slopes must be steeper than -dlog N / dlog L ~ 2 at the faint end for cosmic telescopes to surpass blank field surveys in z > 7 detection efficiency.

Theory predicts and statistical observations confirm that large scale structure has a significant roll in the formation and evolution of the first galaxies. However, the influence of large scale structure at high redshift (z>4) remains largely un-quantified due to the spacial extent of structures at these redshifts and the faint fluxes of the galaxies that populate them. Using pan-chromatic imaging from the COSMOS survey combined with deep spectroscopy from Keck we quantify the roll of large scale structure. We show the typical structure extends over 10's of arc-minutes and that galaxy mergers signified by Quasars and Extreme-Starbursts (Sub-mm Galaxies) appear to preferentially populate these structures and may account for up the half the star formation activity at these redshifts. We also link the members of these proto-clusters to their likely decedents at z~2.

The Background Imager of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP) experiment is the first cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimeter designed to measure the "B-mode" polarization of the CMB, hypothesized to originate during the Inflationary epoch. Beginning in 2006 BICEP observed 3% of the sky from our observatory at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Station in Antarctica. In this seminar I will present our initial results and discuss the unique design features of BICEP which led to the first meaningful limits on the energy scale of Inflation to come from CMB polarization. Soon after BICEP's initial results were released, a publication (Xia, Li & Zhang, 2009), claimed a first-detection of parity-violating "cosmic birefringence" effects using publicly available BICEP data. I will discuss the challenges of polarimetry at the few parts per billion level and explain why systematic effects are particularly pernicious for probes of cosmic parity violation. I will conclude by discussing how BICEP and its successor, BICEP2, currently in its second observing season at the South Pole will constrain Inflationary cosmology and future measurements of cosmic birefringence.

I will discuss unified models for active galaxies, using the COSMOS and CANDELS deep multiwavelength surveys to show how galaxy evolution is tied to fueling, obscuration, and feedback from their supermassive black holes. The classical unified model for active galaxies suggests that all AGN are physically the same, but appear different due only to obscuration in the line of sight. I will instead show that accretion rate is an important axis in any AGN unified model. At low accretion rates, the material around an AGN changes from a thin disk to a radiatively inefficient accretion flow. This is particularly important for galaxy evolution because inefficient accretion leads to weaker ionizing radiation and a change in the dominant feedback mode from radiation driven winds to radio jets. I will also show how the obscuration and accretion rate axes of AGN unification are connected to different host galaxies. Rapidly accreting AGNs tend to lie in disturbed galaxies with merger signatures (when obscured), or massive, star-forming, spheroid-dominated galaxies (when unobscured). In contrast, weakly accreting AGNs tend to lie in undisturbed, disk-dominated galaxies. I will conclude by presenting my toy unified model for AGN-galaxy coevolution.

Outflowing winds have been observed in galaxies over a wide range of redshifts and are thought to play an important role in both the quenching of star formation and the enrichment of the intergalactic medium. We present the results of a study at z = 1 tracing the prevalence and properties of outflows in a sample of DEEP2 objects with rest-frame UV spectroscopy and HST optical imaging. We investigate if a critical star formation rate surface density is required to drive outflows, using a new technique for estimating galaxy area based on a physically motivated luminosity threshold. Previous work has suggested that the star-formation rate surface density may be most strongly correlated with outflows (as opposed to the star formation rate); we observe a 3 sigma correlation between outflow velocity (measured from FeII resonance absorption lines) and star-formation rate surface density, compared with only a 1 sigma correlation between velocity and star-formation rate. From HST imaging, we estimate galaxy inclinations and find that outflows are more prevalent in face-on systems. This is consistent with the picture of winds emanating perpendicular to galactic disks. As various interstellar features yield different results about galactic-scale gas kinematics, care must be taken in defining how outflows are measured. Specifically, the kinematics of MgII absorption often suggest stronger blueshifts than those measured from FeII absorption lines. By conducting analyses on a per-object basis at z = 1, we are able to examine the relationship between outflow properties and individual galaxy morphology, stellar populations, and star formation surface density, at the epoch when the global star-formation rate is beginning its decline to the present day.