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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

A Search For Pulsars Towards The Galactic Center, Jacob W. Hetrick, Kunal Mooley, Preshanth Jagannathan May 2020

A Search For Pulsars Towards The Galactic Center, Jacob W. Hetrick, Kunal Mooley, Preshanth Jagannathan

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

We present observations from two separate methods for observing the Galactic Center in an attempt to characterize its pulsar and neutron star populations. A persistent puzzle of the past 20 years has been the lack of pulsar detections towards the Galactic Center, specifically within a few parsecs of the central supermassive black hole Sgr A*. This object is bright in the total intensity of its polarized emission, but is very weakly linearly polarized. We take advantage of these circumstances in an experimental search technique where we utilize the Faraday effect in an attempt to detect high rotation measure (RM) point …


Design And Modal Analysis Of An Ultra-Wideband Receiver For Green Bank Observatory, Alyssa Bulatek May 2020

Design And Modal Analysis Of An Ultra-Wideband Receiver For Green Bank Observatory, Alyssa Bulatek

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

The next generation of radio receivers for astronomy will be marked by tenfold improvements in sensitivity. These sensitive receivers will be useful for the detection of broadband fast radio bursts and other transients as well as the efficient discovery of radio recombination lines among many other scientific pursuits. One contribution to these improvements is an increase to decade receiver bandwidths. The Green Bank Observatory (GBO) is currently in the process of fabricating a new ultra-wideband (UWB; 0.7 to 4.2 GHz) receiver for the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). The UWB receiver will be used by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for …


Shakespeare, A Supernova, And A Little Green Man Walk Into A Mathematics Classroom, Sheila Kirstin Miller Jul 2017

Shakespeare, A Supernova, And A Little Green Man Walk Into A Mathematics Classroom, Sheila Kirstin Miller

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Creativity amidst constraints is a hallmark of the STEM researcher. It is precisely what is required to see what has never been seen. It is also at the core of creative mathematics, more commonly called “research”. We in the 21st century tell ourselves that science and story are separate enterprises. One goal of this article is to tell parts of the human story—featuring Shakespeare, Tycho Brahe, visiting stars, Little Green Men, and modern astrophysics—that might erode belief in that duality and illustrate why dissolving the artificial barriers between talents within individuals is to the benefit of ourselves, our students, …