Adam Kowalski

About

Adam Kowalski is an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, affiliated with the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences since August 2016. His research interests focus on solar and stellar astrophysics, with a specialization in spectroscopy of optical and ultraviolet emission in stellar flares. He employs state-of-the-art modeling codes combined with analysis of data from ground and space-based observatories such as Hubble, IRIS, and the APO ARC 3.5m to understand how the lower, dense stellar atmosphere, including the chromosphere and photosphere, is heated during flares in response to the sudden release of magnetic energy. Kowalski is also interested in developing new media for disseminating scientific results to the public and establishing interdisciplinary collaborations.

Research topics

• Physics
• Political Science
• Astronomy
• Computer Science
• Optics
• Astrobiology
• History
• Systems engineering
• Engineering

Selected publications

• Critical Science Plan for the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST)

  Solar Physics · 2021 · 107 citations

  Abstract The National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) will revolutionize our ability to measure, understand, and model the basic physical processes that control the structure and dynamics of the Sun and its atmosphere. The first-light DKIST images, released publicly on 29 January 2020, only hint at the extraordinary capabilities that will accompany full commissioning of the five facility instruments. With this Critical Science Plan (CSP) we attempt to anticipate som…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Extreme-ultraviolet Stellar Characterization for Atmospheric Physics and Evolution mission: motivation and overview

  Journal of Astronomical Telescopes Instruments and Systems · 2022 · 30 citations

  The Extreme-ultraviolet Stellar Characterization for Atmospheric Physics and Evolution (ESCAPE) mission is an astrophysics Small Explorer employing ultraviolet spectroscopy (EUV: 80 to 825 and FUV: 1280 to 1650 ) to explore the high-energy radiation environment in the habitable zones around nearby stars. ESCAPE provides the first comprehensive study of the stellar EUV and coronal mass ejection environments that directly impact the habitability of rocky exoplanets. In a 20-month science mission,…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Evolution of Flare Activity in GKM Stars Younger Than 300 Myr over Five Years of TESS Observations

  The Astronomical Journal · 2024-07-08 · 23 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Stellar flares are short-duration (< hours) bursts of radiation associated with surface magnetic reconnection events. Stellar magnetic activity generally decreases as a function of both the age and Rossby number, R 0 , a measure of the relative importance of the convective and rotational dynamos. Young stars (<300 Myr) have typically been overlooked in population-level flare studies due to challenges with flare-detection methods. Here, we select a sample of stars that are members…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Multiwavelength Survey of Nearby M Dwarfs: Optical and Near-ultraviolet Flares and Activity with Contemporaneous TESS, Kepler/K2, Swift, and HST Observations

  The Astrophysical Journal · 2024-08-01 · 21 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract We present a comprehensive multiwavelength investigation into flares and activity in nearby M dwarf stars. We leverage the most extensive contemporaneous data set obtained through the Transiting Exoplanet Sky Survey, Kepler/K2, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, and the Hubble Space Telescope, spanning the optical and near-ultraviolet (NUV) regimes. In total, we observed 213 NUV flares on 24 nearby M dwarfs, with ∼27% of them having detected optical counterparts, and found that all opt…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Rising Near-ultraviolet Spectra in Stellar Megaflares

  The Astrophysical Journal · 2024-12-26 · 15 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Flares from M dwarf stars can attain energies up to 10 4 times larger than solar flares but are generally thought to result from similar processes of magnetic energy release and particle acceleration. Larger heating rates in the low atmosphere are needed to reproduce the shape and strength of the observed continua in stellar flares, which are often simplified to a blackbody model from the optical to the far-ultraviolet (FUV). The near-ultraviolet (NUV) has been woefully undersampled in…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Energy Release and Transport in Impulsive Phase of Solar Flares

  NSF · $277k · 2019–2025

Frequent coauthors

• Suzanne L. Hawley

  122 shared

• John P. Wisniewski

  121 shared

• L. Fletcher

  105 shared

• Joel C. Allred

  97 shared

• Tetsu Anan

  84 shared

• H. Lin

  University of Hawaii System

  84 shared

• Gregory D. Wirth

  82 shared

• Graham S. Kerr

  Heliophysics Science Division

  61 shared

Similar researchers at University of Colorado Boulder

• Daniel Bakerh-132
• Andrew Hamiltonh-122
• Nils Halversonh-80