Danchi, William AST-9731625 Dr. Danchi will carry out a program of high-angular resolution observations of dust and gas surrounding evolved stars, with the scientific goals of providing a detailed description of the morphology, kinematics, and physical conditions of material in the circumstellar regions out to 100 stellar radii away. The program will make use of the UC Berkeley Infrared Spatial Interferometer to provide very high spatial resolution observations at 8 - 12 microns, and a non-redundant aperture masking technique in the near-infrared on the Keck telescope. Results from these observations and their analysis will provide information on the process of mass loss in evolved stars.
