Hi,

I am an Associate Research Professor based at The Pennsylvania State University, (University Park, PA, USA) in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics.  I work in the field of high resolution X-ray spectroscopy using high precision X-ray optics, Off-Plane Reflection Gratings and solid-state imagers.  My work is aimed towards the development of X-ray detection instrumentation for sub-orbital rocket payloads and orbital satellites.

I work with a group at the Penn State University, run by professor Randall McEntaffer, that has built on several sub-orbital rocket missions (WRXR, TREXS) and is currently working on OGRE. The payloads of these missions are designed to test the effectiveness of off-plane gratings in a high resolution soft X-ray spectrometer and show that such instruments could improve understanding of shock fronts in supernova remnants and find the WHIM.  My primary responsibility is to oversee the specification, design, fabrication, testing and launch of the X-ray CCD camera intended for the mission. In addition I assist in the integration and testing of the rocket spectrometer optics. I run all of the lab space used for the build of the rocket payloads and supervise and mentor a small team of undergraduates.

I am also part of the Radio Neutrino Observatory - Greenland collaboration. The goal of this research is to build an array of radio detectors at Summit Station on Greenland’s ice sheet. The instrument is intended to detect Askaryan emission from ultra-high energy (UHE) neutrinos above 10 PeV. The detector is proposed to have 35 stations of which 7 have been installed so far. Each station consists of 3 strings carrying dipole antennas embedded up to 100 meters in ice. These antennas capture the horizontal and vertical polarization of the Askaryan signal and work in conjunction with surface antennas. The detector is designed to trigger on impulsive radio signals from neutrino-nucleon interactions in the ice. As part of the deployment of this instrument, I spent 5 weeks at Summit Station in 2024, performing experiments to improve the understanding of radio propagation in ice. Please check out the blog of my time in Greenland:

I have varying levels of experience using the following facilities:

I also have collaborations with colleagues at the University of Osaka (Japan) where we are working on an X-ray imaging system for the space mission ASTRO-H (Hitomi -  launched in 2016) .

Anything that is in bold on this website is a link - have a click around.  If any of the links are broken, please let me know!

Contact

dr (dot) james (dot) tutt (at) gmail (dot) com