Michael Hudson

Professor

Mike Hudson Headshot Broadly speaking, Professor Hudson's research is in observational and theoretical cosmology, particularly Galaxy Formation, and measuring the properties of dark matter and dark energy through Gravitational Lensing, Cosmic Flows and Large-scale Structure.

Contact information
Office: PHY 252
Phone: 519 888-4567 ext. 42212
Email: mike.hudson@uwaterloo.ca
Website: https://uwaterloo.ca/scholar/mjhudson

Expertise

Gravitational lensing
Cosmic flows
Large scale structure
Galaxy formation and evolution

Research

Weak Gravitational Lensing in the Hubble Deep Field The image shows galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field, a very deep exposure of distant galaxies obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope. The overlay in the lower left hand corner represents the distortion of background images due to gravitational lensing expected from the dark matter "haloes" of the foreground galaxies, indicated by red ellipses. The blue polarization "sticks" indicate the distortion. Dr. Hudson is currently working on the CFHTLenS Survey.

Cosmic Flows are deviations from the uniform Hubble expansion of the Universe. They are the only probe of the large-scale distribution of dark matter in the nearby Universe. Hudson is currently working on two major observational projects

SMAC (Streaming Motions of Abell Clusters) is a study of 56 Abell clusters, mostly within 120 Mpc/h.
NFPS is a new peculiar velocity survey of 100 X-ray luminous clusters within 200 Mpc/h.

Galaxies are the building blocks of the Universe ... why? How do they form, and how do they evolve? Why are there fundamentally two different types of galaxy: elliptical "bulges" and spiral discs?

Hudson's primary interest is focussed on galaxy bulges, the dominant component of elliptical and lenticular galaxies, that contain half of the stars in the Universe. His team's studies on spectra of these bulges has revealed that more massive bulges are older than less massive bulges. Projects:

NOAO Fundamental Plane Survey
AAOmega Survey of the Shapley Supercluster
Hubble Space Telescope Survey of Coma

Teaching

PHYS121, Mechanics
PHYS239, Computational Physics 2
PHYS474, Galaxies
PHYS475, Cosmology
PHYS787, Cosmology
SCI238, Introductory Astronomy

Highlighted Publications

Alex Conley, J Guy, M Sullivan, N Regnault, P Astier, C Balland, S Basa, RG Carlberg, D Fouchez, D Hardin, IM Hook, DA Howell, R Pain, N Palanque-Delabrouille, KM Perrett, CJ Pritchet, J Rich, V Ruhlmann-Kleider, D Balam, S Baumont, RS Ellis, S Fabbro, HK Fakhouri, N Fourmanoit, S González-Gaitán, ML Graham, MJ Hudson, E Hsiao, T Kronborg, C Lidman, AM Mourao, JD Neill, S Perlmutter, P Ripoche, N Suzuki, ES Walker.
"Supernova constraints and systematic uncertainties from the first three years of the supernova legacy survey".
The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 192 (1), 1

Liping Fu, E Semboloni, H Hoekstra, M Kilbinger, L Van Waerbeke, I Tereno, Y Mellier, C Heymans, J Coupon, K Benabed, J Benjamin, E Bertin, O Doré, MJ Hudson, O Ilbert, R Maoli, C Marmo, HJ McCracken, B Ménard.
"Very weak lensing in the CFHTLS wide: cosmology from cosmic shear in the linear regime".
Astronomy and Astrophysics 479 (1), 9-25

Mark Sullivan, J Guy, A Conley, N Regnault, P Astier, C Balland, S Basa, RG Carlberg, D Fouchez, D Hardin, IM Hook, DA Howell, R Pain, N Palanque-Delabrouille, KM Perrett, CJ Pritchet, J Rich, V Ruhlmann-Kleider, D Balam, S Baumont, RS Ellis, S Fabbro, HK Fakhouri, N Fourmanoit, S Gonzalez-Gaitan, ML Graham, MJ Hudson, E Hsiao, T Kronborg, C Lidman, AM Mourao, JD Neill, S Perlmutter, P Ripoche, N Suzuki, ES Walker.
"SNLS3: constraints on dark energy combining the supernova legacy survey three-year data with other probes".
The Astrophysical Journal 737 (2), 102

Please see Google Scholar for a complete list of Professor Hudson's publications.