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Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Astrophysics and Astronomy

Accretion And Debris Disc Dynamics Around Single And Higher-Order Star Systems, Jeremy L. Smallwood May 2021

Accretion And Debris Disc Dynamics Around Single And Higher-Order Star Systems, Jeremy L. Smallwood

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

My research deals with highly topical areas of astrophysics, such as planet habitability, stellar evolution, the origin of fast radio bursts, the evolution of debris discs, and the dynamics of accretion discs in binary and higher-order star systems. Accretion discs around binary star systems are ubiquitous in the galaxy and planet formation is thought to occur within these discs. Circumbinary discs are commonly observed to be misaligned with respect to the binary orbital plane. A misaligned circumbinary disc eventually evolve to a stable orientation, either coplanar or polar with the binary orbital plane. The process of disc alignment has important …


Molecular Processes In Astrophysics: Calculations Of H + H2 Excitation, De-Excitation, And Cooling, Matthew Kelley Dec 2012

Molecular Processes In Astrophysics: Calculations Of H + H2 Excitation, De-Excitation, And Cooling, Matthew Kelley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The implications of H+H2 cooling in astrophysics is important to several applications. One of the most significant and pure applications is its role in cooling in the early universe. Other applications would include molecular dynamics in nebulae and their collapse into stars and astrophysical shocks. Shortly after the big bang, the universe was a hot primordial gas of photons, electrons, and nuclei among other ingredients. By far the most dominant nuclei in the early universe was hydrogen. In fact, in the early universe the matter density was 90 percent hydrogen and only 10 percent helium with small amounts of lithium …