Kevin Burdge

Kevin Burdge is broadly interested in the study of stellar remnants, including white dwarfs, neutron stars, and stellar mass black holes, as well as the development of high temporal resolution astronomical instrumentation.

His main scientific interests lie in using time domain astronomy to discover and characterize astrophysical sources of both gravitational and electromagnetic radiation, especially those detectable by the upcoming space-based gravitational wave detector, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). These sources are Galactic binary systems with orbital periods of less than an hour, and consist of two compact objects–generally a white dwarf with either a white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole companion.

LISA is expected to detect tens of thousands of such binaries within the Milky Way, and Burdge’s work focuses on leveraging data from current and upcoming wide-field optical surveys such as the Zwicky Transient Facility, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), and the Vera Rubin Observatory to discover and precisely constrain the physical parameters of these objects using the photons they emit. So far, this effort has tripled the number of known examples of LISA-detectable binaries, including the two shortest orbital period eclipsing binary systems known.