Charles Dermer

Charles Dermer is a supervisory astrophysicist in the Gamma and Cosmic Ray Astrophysics Branch of the Naval Research Laboratory's Space Science Division. His interests cover many areas of astrophysics, including cosmic rays, the multiwavelength astronomy of blazars, the physics of neutron stars and black holes, gamma-ray bursts, and solar flares.

He received his PhD from UCSD in 1984 under the supervision of Professor Robert J. Gould, and subsequently held postdoctoral and research scientist positions at NASA/GSFC, UMd, LLNL, UCB Space Sciences Laboratory and Rice University, before joining the Naval Research Laboratory in 1992. He has served as an executive committee member of the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the AAS and an executive committee member-at-large in the Division of Astrophysics of the American Physical Society. Dr. Dermer has authored or co-authored nearly 200 technical papers.

The purpose of Charles Dermer's investigation is to analyze and model the information from GLAST in order to maximize the scientific impact of GLAST and to provide a theoretical framework for the GLAST studies. GLAST will make fundamental contributions to our knowledge of blazars, gamma-ray bursts, cosmic rays, pulsars, particle acceleration physics, and dark matter studies. Models of the spectral and temporal behavior of blazars and gamma-ray bursts, and of the statistics of blazars, will be made in advance of the GLAST mission. Beaming tests will be formalized so that GLAST data can be used to chart the variation of the Doppler factor of plasma outflows from blazars. Software will be developed so that parameter studies and dynamic spectral models can be compared with GLAST data. One goal of this effort is to identify spectral signatures of hadronic acceleration in gamma-ray sources using GLAST data. A significant effort will be directed to discover the nature of the unidentified EGRET sources and to understand particle acceleration mechanisms in high-energy gamma-ray sources. Simulated spectral index maps, taking into account the combined spatial and spectral behavior of cosmic rays accelerated by diffusive shock acceleration, and the levels of the galactic and extragalactic background radiations, will be developed for comparison with GLAST results.