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Full-Text Articles in Astrophysics and Astronomy
Probing The Physical Mechanisms Responsible For Brown Dwarf And Giant Planet Formation, Sarah Betti
Probing The Physical Mechanisms Responsible For Brown Dwarf And Giant Planet Formation, Sarah Betti
Doctoral Dissertations
The disks that form around young stellar objects provide the essential material for their continued growth as well as the formation of planets, making them ideal laboratories to investigate the mechanisms and environments key for substellar and planetary formation. In this dissertation, I explore two main formation processes: the transportation of water necessary for giant planet formation, and the accretion and growth of young brown dwarfs. First, I study the water ice content in the circumstellar disk of AB Aurigae, a young Herbig Ae star. I detect and map icy grains on the disk surface using high contrast observations taken …
Sub-Chandrasekhar Type Ia Supernovae Scenarios With Increased Pathways For Neutronization, Fernando Hernan Rivas
Sub-Chandrasekhar Type Ia Supernovae Scenarios With Increased Pathways For Neutronization, Fernando Hernan Rivas
Doctoral Dissertations
Type Ia supernovae are thermonuclear explosions of white dwarfs (WD), electron-degenerate cores of old intermediate mass stars(under 8$M_{\odot}$). Reaching energies of $10^{51}$\si{\erg}, they outshine whole galaxies as they synthesize and distribute most of the iron group elements (IGE; V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni) into the interstellar medium, thus being one of the main agents in cosmic chemical evolution. Also, given their notably homogeneous lightcurves, they form the last step in the cosmic distance ladder outdistancing Cepheid variables by orders of magnitude. Though calibration of said lightcurves is dependent on a high number of confirmed events, the limits of statistical …
The Coeval Mass Assembly Of The Universe Via Supermassive Black Hole Accretion And Star Formation In Galaxies, Alyssa Sokol
The Coeval Mass Assembly Of The Universe Via Supermassive Black Hole Accretion And Star Formation In Galaxies, Alyssa Sokol
Doctoral Dissertations
The possible co-evolution between galaxies and their central supermassive black holes is supported by the similarity in shape between the Star Formation Rate Density (SFRD) and Black Hole Accretion Rate Density (BHARD) out to z$\sim$ 3. This apparent connection between BH growth and star formation is only established globally; while both trends peak at z$\sim$ 2, the amount of stellar and black hole mass assembly occurring within the same galaxies is unknown. Computing these trends for the same galaxies will mitigate the present sample mismatch and can be accomplished with an IR-selected sample; however, the approach relies on a robust …
Dissecting The Most Extreme Starburst Events In The Universe With Gravitational Lensing, Patrick S. Kamienski
Dissecting The Most Extreme Starburst Events In The Universe With Gravitational Lensing, Patrick S. Kamienski
Doctoral Dissertations
Three billions years after the Big Bang, the rate at which galaxies in the Universe were forming stars was at its peak. Colloquially known as Cosmic Noon, this epoch (redshift z ~ 2) is crucial to our understanding of how galaxies evolve with time. Dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) offer important clues to such fueling and quenching of star formation. With extreme infrared luminosities (1012 − 1014 solar luminosities), their inferred star formation rates are 100−10000 solar masses per year. Yet, the physical mechanisms by which they fuel this short-lived maximal starburst phase remain poorly understood. With this dissertation, …