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Full-Text Articles in Astrophysics and Astronomy
Investigating Brown Dwarf Atmospheres: Gravity, Dust Content, Cloud Structure And Metallicity, Kendra Kellogg
Investigating Brown Dwarf Atmospheres: Gravity, Dust Content, Cloud Structure And Metallicity, Kendra Kellogg
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Brown dwarfs are the lowest mass products of star formation. Their low masses don't allow them to sustain, or sometimes even begin, the thermonuclear processes that provide stars with internal energy and the thermal pressure necessary to maintain hydrostatic equilibrium. Thus, their radii and effective temperatures decrease as they age, continually changing their spectral classification. However, it is now a well-known fact that the spectral appearance of ultra-cool dwarfs is governed by more than just temperature. Factors such as gravity, metallicity and cloud distribution play an important role in the structure and composition of ultra-cool dwarf atmospheres and ultimately their …
Data Mining By Grid Computing In The Search For Extrasolar Planets, Oisin Creaner [Thesis]
Data Mining By Grid Computing In The Search For Extrasolar Planets, Oisin Creaner [Thesis]
Doctoral
A system is presented here to provide improved precision in ensemble differential photometry. This is achieved by using the power of grid computing to analyse astronomical catalogues. This produces new catalogues of optimised pointings for each star, which maximise the number and quality of reference stars available. Astronomical phenomena such as exoplanet transits and small-scale structure within quasars may be observed by means of millimagnitude photometric variability on the timescale of minutes to hours. Because of atmospheric distortion, ground-based observations of these phenomena require the use of differential photometry whereby the target is compared with one or more reference stars. …