Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons^™

The Effects Of Water Ice Sublimation On Slope Failures Of Icy Regolith, Christopher Cox, Madison Weinberg, Trisha Joseph

The Pegasus Review: UCF Undergraduate Research Journal

The frost line in a planetary system represents the distance from the central star inside of which conditions are too warm for ice to form, while beyond this line it will be stable. When an icy object passes that line heading toward the Sun it will begin to sublimate and outgas, potentially causing mass loss and surface changes. One example is surface failures, which can lead to material being removed from the object. Evidence of this has been seen on cometary surfaces, where surfaces often show structures that appear to have suffered various mechanical failures like cracking and landslides. By ...

An Ultra-Short-Period Transiting Super-Earth Orbiting The M3 Dwarf Toi-1685, P. Bluhm, E. Pallé, K. Molaverdikhani, J. Kemmer, A. P. Hatzes, D. Kossakowski, S. Stock, J. A. Caballero, J. Lillo-Box, V. J. S. Béjar, M. G. Soto, P. J. Amado, P. Brown, C. Cadieux, R. Cloutier, K. A. Collins, K. I. Collins, M. Cortés-Contreras, R. Doyon, S. Dreizler, N. Espinoza, A. Fukui, E. González-Álvarez, T. Henning, K. Horne, S. V. Jeffers, J. M. Jenkins, Eric L.N. Jensen, A. Kaminski, J. F. Kielkopf, N. Kusakabe, M. Kürster, D. Lafrenière, R. Luque, F. Murgas, D. Montes, J. C. Morales, N. Narita, V. M. Passegger, A. Quirrenbach, P. Schöfer, S. Reffert, A. Reiners, I. Ribas, G. R. Ricker, S. Seager, A. Schweitzer, R. P. Schwarz, M. Tamura, T. Trifonov, R. Vanderspek, J. Winn, M. Zechmeister, M. R. Zapatero Osorio

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

Dynamical histories of planetary systems, as well as the atmospheric evolution of highly irradiated planets, can be studied by characterizing the ultra-short-period planet population, which the TESS mission is particularly well suited to discover. Here, we report on the follow-up of a transit signal detected in the TESS sector 19 photometric time series of the M3.0 V star TOI-1685 (2MASS J04342248+4302148). We confirm the planetary nature of the transit signal, which has a period of Pb = 0.6691403−0.0000021+0.0000023 d, using precise radial velocity measurements taken with the CARMENES spectrograph. From the joint photometry and ...

Dna-Topology Simplification By Topoisomerases, Andreas Hanke, Riccardo Ziraldo, Stephen D. Levene

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

The topological properties of DNA molecules, supercoiling, knotting, and catenation, are intimately connected with essential biological processes, such as gene expression, replication, recombination, and chromosome segregation. Non-trivial DNA topologies present challenges to the molecular machines that process and maintain genomic information, for example, by creating unwanted DNA entanglements. At the same time, topological distortion can facilitate DNA-sequence recognition through localized duplex unwinding and longer-range loop-mediated interactions between the DNA sequences. Topoisomerases are a special class of essential enzymes that homeostatically manage DNA topology through the passage of DNA strands. The activities of these enzymes are generally investigated using circular DNA ...

Fabrication Of Nd3+ And Yb3+ Doped Nir Emitting Nano Fluorescent Probe: A Candidate For Bioimaging Applications, D. Karthickraja, G. A. Kumar, D. K. Sardar, S. Karthi, Gamage C. Dannangoda, Karen S. Martirosyan, M. Prasath, M. Gowri, E. L. Girija

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

The intentional design of rare earth doped luminescent architecture exhibits unique optical properties and it can be considered as a promising and potential probe for optical imaging applications. Calcium fluoride (CaF2) nanoparticles doped with optimum concentration of Nd3+ and Yb3+ as sensitizer and activator, respectively, were synthesized by wet precipitation method and characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and photoluminescence. In spite of the fact that the energy transfer takes place from Nd3+ to Yb3+, the luminescence intensity was found to be weak due to the lattice defects generated from the doping of trivalent cations (Nd3+ and Yb3+) for divalent host ...

Diving Below The Spin-Down Limit: Constraints On Gravitational Waves From The Energetic Young Pulsar Psr J0537-6910, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, S. Abraham, F. Acernese, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Karla E. Ramirez, W. H. Wang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present a search for quasi-monochromatic gravitational-wave signals from the young, energetic X-ray pulsar PSR J0537-6910 using data from the second and third observing runs of LIGO and Virgo. The search is enabled by a contemporaneous timing ephemeris obtained using Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) data. The NICER ephemeris has also been extended through 2020 October and includes three new glitches. PSR J0537-6910 has the largest spin-down luminosity of any pulsar and exhibits fRequent and strong glitches. Analyses of its long-term and interglitch braking indices provide intriguing evidence that its spin-down energy budget may include gravitational-wave emission from a ...

A Consistent Model Of Terrestrial Planet Magnetospheres And Rotations In Our Solar System, Fred J. Cadieu

Publications and Research

The Sun comprises 99.9% of the solar system mass so it is expected that Sun terrestrial planet interactions can influence the motion as well as the rotation of the terrestrial planets.Gravity affects the planet orbital motions while the changing magnetic fields of the Sun can influence the planet rotations. Planets that manifest a magnetic field dominate any weaker magnetic fields from the Sun, but the rotation of terrestrial planets without a magnetic field interacts with the changing Sun’s field dependent on the electrical conductivity of the core region. It is determined that the average planet density becomes ...

Mass And Density Of The Transiting Hot And Rocky Super-Earth Lhs 1478 B (Toi-1640 B), M. G. Soto, G. Anglada-Escudé, S. Dreizler, K. Molaverdikhani, J. Kemmer, C. Rodríguez-López, J. Lillo-Box, E. Pallé, N. Espinoza, J. A. Caballero, A. Quirrenbach, I. Ribas, A. Reiners, N. Narita, T. Hirano, P. J. Amado, V. J. S. Béjar, P. Bluhm, C. J. Burke, D. A. Caldwell, D. Charbonneau, R. Cloutier, K. A. Collins, M. Cortés-Contreras, E. Girardin, P. Guerra, H. Harakawa, A. P. Hatzes, J. Irwin, J. M. Jenkins, Eric L.N. Jensen, K. Kawauchi, T. Kotani, T. Kudo, M. Kunimoto, M. Kuzuhara, D. W. Latham, D. Montes, J. C. Morales, M. Mori, R. P. Nelson, M. Omiya, S. Pedraz, V. M. Passegger, B. V. Rackham, A. Rudat, J. E. Schlieder, P. Schöfer, A. Schweitzer, A. Selezneva, C. Stockdale, M. Tamura, T. Trifonov, R. Vanderspek, D. Watanabe

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

One of the main objectives of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission is the discovery of small rocky planets around relatively bright nearby stars. Here, we report the discovery and characterization of the transiting super-Earth planet orbiting LHS 1478 (TOI-1640). The star is an inactive red dwarf (J ~ 9.6 mag and spectral type m3 V) with mass and radius estimates of 0.20 ± 0.01M⊙ and 0.25 ± 0.01R⊙, respectively, and an effective temperature of 3381 ± 54 K. It was observed by TESS in four sectors. These data revealed a transit-like feature with a period of 1 ...

Hot Planets Around Cool Stars – Two Short-Period Mini-Neptunes Transiting The Late K-Dwarf Toi-1260, I. Y. Georgieva, C. M. Persson, O. Barragán, G. Nowak, M. Fridlund, D. Locci, E. Palle, R. Luque, I. Carleo, D. Gandolfi, S. R. Kane, J. Korth, K. G. Stassun, J. Livingston, E. C. Matthews, K. A. Collins, S. B. Howell, L. M. Serrano, S. Albrecht, A. Bieryla, C. E. Brasseur, D. Ciardi, W. D. Cochran, K. D. Colon, I. J. M. Crossfield, S. Csizmadia, H. J. Deeg, M. Esposito, E. Furlan, T. Gan, E. Goffo, E. Gonzales, S. Grziwa, E. W. Guenther, P. Guerra, T. Hirano, J. M. Jenkins, Eric L.N. Jensen, P. Kabáth, E. Knudstrup, K. W. F. Lam, D. W. Latham, A. M. Levine, R. A. Matson, S. Mcdermott, H. L. M. Osborne, M. Paegert, S. N. Quinn, S. Redfield, G. R. Ricker, J. E. Schlieder, N. J. Scott, S. Seager, A. M. S. Smith, P. Tenenbaum, J. D. Twicken, R. Vanderspek, V. Van Eylen, J. N. Winn

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

We present the discovery and characterization of two sub-Neptunes in close orbits, as well as a tentative outer planet of a similar size, orbiting TOI-1260 – a low metallicity K6 Vdwarf star. Photometry from TESS yields radii of Rb = 2.33 ± 0.10 R⊕ and Rc = 2.82 ± 0.15 R⊕, and periods of 3.13 and 7.49 days for TOI-1260 b and TOI-1260 c, respectively. We combined the TESS data with a series of ground-based follow-up observations to characterize the planetary system. From HARPS-N high-precision radial velocities we obtain Mb =8.6+1.4−1.5 M⊕ and Mc ...

Energy Requirements For Abiotic Production Of Phosphorous Compounds At The Ice-Schreibersite Interface, Lindsay M. Hicks

Symposium of Student Scholars

Energy Requirements for Abiotic Production of Phosphorous Compounds at the

Ice-Schreibersite Interface

The Abbott-Lyon Lab is investigating the chemistry at the interface of simple ices and a meteoritic mineral analogue. Phosphorous is a key component of numerous biomolecules necessary for life. Lack of an abundance of biologically accessible mineral sources of phosphates on Earth, termed “The Phosphorous Problem,” has led some origin-of-life scientists to look to extraterrestrial sources like meteoritic metal phosphides as possible sources of available phosphates. Schreibersite (Fe₂NiP) is a common mineral in iron meteorites and a plausible source of biologically accessible phosphorous. This study will ...

Population Properties Of Compact Objects From The Second Ligo–Virgo Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, S. Abraham, Ofek Birnholtz, F. Acernese, Teviet Creighton, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Malik Rakhmanov, Karla E. Ramirez, W. H. Wang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We report on the population of 47 compact binary mergers detected with a false-alarm rate of < in the second LIGO–Virgo Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog. We observe several characteristics of the merging binary black hole (BBH) population not discernible until now. First, the primary mass spectrum contains structure beyond a power law with a sharp high-mass cutoff; it is more consistent with a broken power law with a break at or a power law with a Gaussian feature peaking at (90% credible interval). While the primary mass distribution must extend to or beyond, only of systems have primary masses greater than . Second, we find that a fraction of BBH systems have component spins misaligned with the orbital angular momentum, giving rise to precession of the orbital plane. Moreover, %–% of BBH systems have spins tilted by more than 90°, giving rise to a negative effective inspiral spin parameter, . Under the assumption that such systems can only be formed by dynamical interactions, we infer that between 25% and 93% of BBHs with nonvanishing are dynamically assembled. Third, we estimate merger rates, finding for BBHs and for binary neutron stars. We find that the BBH rate likely increases with redshift ( credibility) but not faster than the star formation rate ( credibility). Additionally, we examine recent exceptional events in the context of our population models, finding that the asymmetric masses of GW190412 and the high component masses of GW190521 are consistent with our models, but the low secondary mass of GW190814 makes it an outlier.

Gyrochronology Model Evaluation Method, Tomomi Otani, Ted Von Hippel, Terry D. Oswalt, Alexander Stone-Martinez, Derek Buzasi

Publications

Accurate stellar ages are essential for our understanding of the star formation history of the Milky Way, Galactic chemical evolution, and to constrain exoplanet formation models. Gyrochronology, an empirical relationship between stellar rotation and age, appears to be a reliable age indicator for main sequence stars over the mass range 0.6 to 1.0 M. Under the assumption that wide binaries contain two coeval stars, we selected pairs from the Kepler, K2, and T ESS surveys in order to evaluate three Gyrochronology models (Barnes 2007; Angus et al. 2015; Mamajek & Hillenbrand 2008). In this first paper in a planned ...

Sampling Candidate Reionization Galaxies Using Spectral Energy Distribution Fitting, Nicholas J. Velikonja, Michael Rutkowski

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

The process of reionization is one of the major pieces of galaxy evolution which remain to be un- derstood. With new observational tools like JWST on the horizon, imaging reionization-era galaxies will soon be possible. However, because the ionizing radiation is absorbed by the neutral hydrogen it ionizes, observers need some other parameter by which to identify those galaxies capable of reionizing. The search for ionizing emission via related parameters is well underway, and has come up with some tentative correlations, yet a consistent indicator or set of indicators remains to be discovered. New data in the Low-Redshift Lyman Continuum ...

Carrier Lifetime And Carrier Mobility Of Gaasn With Changing Nitrogen Concentration, Sun Gyu Park

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

In this work, we conducted Ultrafast Conductivity Measurements, using THz Spectroscopy to characterize the carrier mobility and the carrier lifetime of gallium arsenide nitride (GaAsN) thin films with a range of Nitrogen concentrations. The photoexcitation of semiconductor samples excites free charges by promoting electrons from the valence band to the conduction band. We then measure the change in conductivity by measuring the transmission of a THz electromagnetic pulse after photoexcitation and comparing with the signal that was measured without photoexcitation. The values of transmission are then converted into conductivity, from which we derive the carrier concentration and scattering time of ...

Renewing The Paradigm: Simulating The Miso Region Electrical Grid Using Renewable Energy Generation With Implementation Of Long-Term Hydrogen Storage, Jackson C. Henningfield

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

The current electrical grid regime is not optimized to include renewable sources of power generation such as wind and solar. Electrical storage, as of now, is primarily established through the short-term generation and demand-meeting consumption leaving much of the grid susceptible to inefficiencies and power loss during natural events that leave grids out of commission. Delineating a new type of long-term storage, a hydrogen fuel cell, would ensure a reliable source of power to the masses regardless of the physical and climatic geography. The MISO region provides a perfect case study to introduce the ideas of diverse energy generation and ...

Electrical Grid Energy Storage Using Hydrogen: A Feasibility Study, Elizabeth M. Curtiss

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

In this project, we studied the possibility of implementing hydrogen as energy storage. With the focus being on decarbonizing the grid, we looked at studies that were powered by renewable sources. In addition to utilizing renewable sources, we decided to study electrolysis as a way to produce hydrogen. Electrolysis is the splitting of water to obtain hydrogen and oxygen, which is a carbon free technique. Pulling from two different papers, we were able to construct an equation that modeled the levelized cost of producing hydrogen. We also calculated the levelized cost of a fuel cell too, with hydrogen as fuel ...

Tidal Deformability Of Strange Stars And The Gw170817 Event, Odilon Lourenço, Cesar H. Lenzi, Mariana Dutra, Efrain J. Ferrer, Vivian De La Incera, Laura Paulucci, J. E. Horvath

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this work we consider strange stars formed by quark matter in the color-flavor-locked (CFL) phase of color superconductivity. The CFL phase is described by a Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with four-fermion vector and diquark interaction channels. The effect of the color superconducting medium on the gluons are incorporated into the model by including the gluon self-energy in the thermodynamic potential. We construct parametrizations of the model by varying the vector coupling GV and comparing the results to the data on tidal deformability from the GW170817 event, the observational data on maximum masses from massive pulsars such as the MSP J0740+6620 ...

Standard Non-Uniform Noise Dataset, Andres Imperial, John M. Edwards

Browse all Datasets

Fixed Pattern Noise Non-Uniformity Correction through K-Means Clustering

Fixed pattern noise removal from imagery by software correction is a practical approach compared to a physical hardware correction because it allows for correction post-capture of the imagery. Fixed pattern noise presents a unique challenge for de-noising techniques as the noise does not present itself where large number statistics are effective. Traditional noise removal techniques such as blurring or despeckling produce poor correction results because of a lack of noise identification. Other correction methods developed for fixed pattern noise can often present another problem of misidentification of noise. This problem can result ...

Study Of Efficient Methods Of Detection And Reconstruction Of Gravitational Waves From Nonrotating 3d General Relativistic Core Collapse Supernovae Explosion Using Multilayer Signal Estimation Method, Soma Mukherjee, Gaukhar Nurbek, Oscar Valdez

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the post-detection era of gravitational wave (GW) astronomy, core collapse supernovae (CCSN) are one of the most interesting potential sources of signals arriving at the Advanced LIGO detectors. Mukherjee et al. have developed and implemented a new method to search for GW signals from the CCSN search based on a multistage, high accuracy spectral estimation to effectively achieve higher detection signal to noise ratio (SNR). The study has been further enhanced by incorporation of a convolutional neural network (CNN) to significantly reduce false alarm rates (FAR). The combined pipeline is termed multilayer signal estimation (MuLaSE) that works in an ...

Aztlán Del Sol, Marcus Zúñiga

Chamisa: A Journal of Literary, Performance, and Visual Arts of the Greater Southwest

An artistic writing developed from the themes and concepts of an of art installation made by a visual artist of Mexican-American descent from New Mexico. The work references the relationship of Aztec mythology to the American Southwest, art theoretical discourse in object oriented ontology and aesthetics, and key ideas in astronomy. Additionally interwoven is an expanded sense for interpreting ancestry and history under the constructs of multicultural conceptions of time, specifically cultures with notable spiritual rituals of Sun worship and observation.

Distant Stars Become Future Homes: The Close Relationship Of Interstellar Between Hard Science-Fiction And Spectacle, Gabriel Davis

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hard Science-fiction shares a close relationship with the element of spectacle. This is especially apparent in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014), a film based in realistic science and emotional appeal. Nolan makes use of creating a team comprised of creative minds with different backgrounds. This includes theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, co-writer Jonathan Nolan, and composer Hans Zimmer. Together, the four develop a film that focuses on three main facets of science: time dilation, black holes, and dimensions. Incorporating these elements based in the historical world gives Interstellar its classification as hard science-fiction, a genre based more solidly in realistic science ...