Phone:   (215) 895-2723
Fax:     (215) 895-5934
e-mail:  steve (at) physics.drexel.edu

Research Interests

• Dynamics of stars and star clusters
• Chaos and the astrophysical three-body problem
• N-body-simulations of self-gravitating systems

• Starlab, a software environment for stellar dynamics and stellar evolution
  - Some demonstrations:
  • 3-body scattering
  • Simple N-body integrations
  • Cross-section calculations
• Starlab at the Hayden planetarium...

• Dynamics of dense stellar systems -- manybody.org .
• Build your own star cluster!
  • the Hyades
  • the Pleiades
• Special-purpose computers: the GRAPE project
• Monte-Carlo simulations of star clusters

Other Interests

• Computational Physics
• Physics 131: Survey of the Universe
  
  
• Astronomy Today. A non-technical introduction to modern astronomy.
  
  
• Summer School in Computational Physics
• Computational fluid dynamics
• The Drexel Beowulf project

• mcdraw: a graphics and array-handling package

• Want to see some baby photos?

Selected Publications

• Astronomy Today, E. Chaisson and S. McMillan (Prentice Hall 1993; 2nd ed. 1996; 3rd ed. 1999; 4th ed. 2002)
  and
  Astronomy, A Beginner's Guide to the Universe, E. Chaisson and S. McMillan (Prentice Hall 1995; 2nd ed. 1998; 3rd ed. 2001; 4th ed. 2003)

  ---

• On the Central Structure of M15. H. Baumgardt, J. Makino, P. Hut, S. McMillan, and S. Portegies Zwart, Astrophysical Journal (Letters), 528, L21, (2003)   [NASA press release, Jan 2003]
• The Runaway Growth of Intermediate-Mass Black Holes in Dense Star Clusters. S. Portegies Zwart and S. McMillan, Astrophysical Journal, 576, 899 (2002)   [AAS press release, Jan 2002]
• The Lives and Deaths of Star Clusters in the Galactic Center. S. Portegies Zwart, S. McMillan, J. Makino, and P. Hut, Astrophysical Journal, 565, 265 (2002)
• Missing Link Found? -- The "Runaway'' Path to Supermassive Black Holes. T. Ebisuzaki, J. Makino, T. Go Tsuru, Y. Funato, S. Portegies Zwart, P. Hut, S. McMillan, S. Matsushita, H. Matsumoto, and R. Kawabe, Astrophysical Journal (Letters), 562, 19 (2001)
• Star Cluster Ecology IVa: Dissection of an Open Star Cluster: Photometry. S. F. Portegies Zwart, S. L. W. McMillan, J. Makino, & P. Hut, Monthly Notices of the Astronomical Society (2001)
• How Many Star Clusters Exist in the Galactic Center?. S. F. Portegies Zwart, S. L. W. McMillan, J. Makino, & P. Hut, Astrophysical Journal Letters (2000)
• Black Hole Mergers in the Universe. S. Portegies Zwart & S. McMillan Astrophysical Journal (Letters), 528, L17 (2000)
• Star Cluster Ecology III: Runaway Mergers in Young Dense Star Clusters. S. Portegies Zwart, S. McMillan, J. Makino, & P. Hut Astronomy & Astrophysics, 348, 117 (1999)
• On the Dissolution of Evolving Star Clusters. S. F. Portegies Zwart, P. Hut, S. L. W. McMillan, and J. Makino, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 337, 363 (1998)
• Star cluster ecology II: Collisions Between Single Stars and Binaries. S. F. Portegies Zwart, P. Hut, S. L. W. McMillan, & F. Verbunt, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 328, 143 (1997)
• Gravitational Radiation from the Coalescence of Binary Neutron Stars: Effects Due to the Equation of State, Spin, and Mass Ratio. X. Zhuge, J. C. Centrella, and S. L. W. McMillan. Physical Review D, 54, 7278 (1996)
• Binary-single-star scattering VI. Automatic Determination of Interaction Cross Sections. S. McMillan and P. Hut, Astrophysical Journal, 467 (1996)
• Binary-Binary Interactions and the Formation of the PSR B1620-26 Triple System in M4. F.A. Rasio, S.L.W. McMillan and P. Hut, Astrophysical Journal (Letters), 438, 33 (1995)
• Building a Better Leapfrog. P. Hut, J. Makino and S.L.W. McMillan, Astrophysical Journal Letters (1995)
• Star Cluster Evolution with Primordial Binaries: III. Effect of a Galactic Tidal Field. S.L.W. McMillan and P. Hut, Astrophysical Journal, 427, 793 (1994)
• Chaotic Scattering in the Gravitational Three-body Problem. P.T. Boyd and S.L.W. McMillan, CHAOS: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science, 3, 507 (1993).

• An O(N log N) Integration Scheme for Collisional Stellar Systems. S.L.W. McMillan and S. J. Aarseth, Astrophysical Journal, 414, 200 (1993)
• Binary Stars in Globular Clusters. P. Hut, S.L.W. McMillan, J.G. Goodman, M. Mateo, E.S. Phinney, C. Pryor, H.B. Richer, F. Verbunt, and M. Weinberg, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 105, 1 (1992)

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