Dr. William Dawson

Dr. William Dawson, LLNL

Dr. Dawson is a Staff Member in the Physics Division at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. I use the cosmos to determine the properties of dark matter and nature of dark energy. In particular I use weak lensing, X-ray, optical, and spectroscopic observations of merging galaxy clusters to compare dark matter with baryonic matter. I am also a member of the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration with a focus on using cosmic shear to constrain the nature of dark energy. Generally I am interested in using statistical methods to enable science at the low signal to noise frontier..

Research Interests

Dark energy; Dark matter; (Merging) galaxy clusters; Weak gravitational lensing; X-ray astronomy; Optical astronomy; Large scale structure of the universe.

Honors and Awards

• Hubble Space Telescope Cycle 21 GO-13343, 2010
  Probing Dark Matter with a New Class of Merging Clusters - $130,000
• UC HiPACC Grant, 2012-2014
  UC Davis-Irvine Merging Cluster Collaboration - $20,000 ($10,000 pending)
• AAS Astronomy Ambassador, 2012
  A professional development program providing mentoring, training, and access to resources and a network of contacts within the astronomy EPO community.
• UC Davis Graduate Program Fellowship, Spring 2013 - $3,000
• UC Davis Graduate Program Fellowship, Summer 2012 - $5,000
• UC Davis Graduate Program Fellowship, Spring 2012 - $6,000
• UC Davis Graduate Program Fellowship, Fall 2011 - $6,000
• Hubble Space Telescope Cycle 18 GO-12377, 2010
  DLSCL J0916+2953: A New Transverse Cluster Merger - $51,000
• Chandra Space Telescope Cycle 12 GO-12800854, 2010
  DLSCL J0916+2953: A New Transverse Cluster Merger - $30,000
• Jacques Franquelin Award, 2006
  A prestigious internal company award honoring those "who through their spirit of initiative, their creativity, or their sense of innovation and cooperation within the Group, contribute to the dynamism and development of Technip."
  ~20 are awarded amongst ~20,000 employees each year.

Selected (Recent) Publications

Wittman, D., Dawson, W.A., Benson, Bryant, 2013. Shedding light on the matter of Abell 781, MNRAS 2791W

Dawson, W.A., 2013. The Dynamics of Merging Clusters: A Monte Carlo Solution Applied to the Bullet and Musket Ball Clusters. ApJ 772 131

Wittman, D., & Dawson, W.A., 2012. Constraining Source Redshift Distributions with Gravitational Lensing. ApJ 756 140

Dawson, W.A. et al., 2012. Discovery of a Dissociative Galaxy Cluster Merger with Large Physical Separation. ApJ Letters 747 L42