Other Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons^™

Modeling An Extra Planet's Effects On Earth, Emily Simpson

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Student Publications

Orbital dynamics play a crucial role in determining the habitability of exoplanets, and many models have been developed to study the dynamical evolution of broader planetary system structure. To further investigate the implications this has regarding planetary habitability, this project simulated the evolution of the Solar System with an additional planet orbiting in place of the Asteroid Belt using the Gravitational Rigid-body InTegrator (GRIT) package. 21 total simulations were run for 100,000 years with varying values for the extra planet’s mass (from 0.01 to 10 Earth masses) and orbital parameters (based on the 4 most massive asteroids in the Asteroid …

Factors Predicting Public’S Willingness To Support National Aeronautics And Space Administration’S Artemis Mission, Sean Crouse

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

NASA's Artemis program aspires to return astronauts to the moon and aims to land the first woman and person of color on the lunar surface. The endeavor symbolizes the next evolution in space exploration and serves as a testament to the human spirit of discovery. In the face of this significant undertaking, gauging public sentiment and understanding the factors driving public support becomes necessary. The current study aimed to address a critical gap in the literature by examining public support for NASA’s Artemis mission, which is essential for sustaining the program’s momentum and cultivating a culture of innovation and exploration. …

Toltec: A New Multichroic Imaging Polarimeter For The Large Millimeter Telescope, Nat S. Denigris

Doctoral Dissertations

The TolTEC camera is a new millimeter-wave imaging polarimeter designed to fill the focal plane of the 50-m diameter Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT). Combined with the LMT, TolTEC offers high angular resolution (5", 6.3", 9.5") for simultaneous, polarization-sensitive observations in its three wavelength bands: 1.1, 1.4, and 2.0 mm. Additionally, TolTEC is designed to reach groundbreaking mapping speeds in excess of 1 deg²/mJy²/hr, which will enable the completion of deep surveys of large-scale structure, galaxy evolution, and star formation that are currently limited when considering practical observation times for other ground-based observatories. This thesis covers the …

Studying The Impact Of The Geospace Environment On Solar Lithosphere Coupling And Earthquake Activity, Dimitar Ouzounov, Galina Khachikyan

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

In solar–terrestrial physics, there is an open question: does a geomagnetic storm affect earthquakes? We expand research in this direction, analyzing the seismic situation after geomagnetic storms (GMs) accompanied by the precipitation of relativistic electrons from the outer radiation belt to form an additional radiation belt (RB) around lower geomagnetic lines. We consider four widely discussed cases in the literature for long-lived (weeks, months) RBs due to GMs and revealed that the 1/GMs 24 March 1991 with a new RB at L~2.6 was followed by an M7.0 earthquake in Alaska, 30 May 1991, near footprint L = 2.69; the 2/GMs …

Godel, Escherian Staircase And Possibility Of Quantum Wormhole With Liquid Crystalline Phase Of Iced-Water - Part Ii: Experiment Description, Victor Christianto, T. Daniel Chandra, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The present article was partly inspired by G. Pollack’s book, and also Dadoloff, Saxena & Jensen (2010). As a senior physicist colleague and our friend, Robert N. Boyd, wrote in a journal (JCFA, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2022), for example, things and Beings can travel between Universes, intentionally or unintentionally [4]. In this short remark, we revisit and offer short remark to Neil Boyd’s ideas and trying to connect them with geometry of musical chords as presented by D. Tymoczko and others, then to Escherian staircase and then to Jacob’s ladder which seems to pointto possibility to interpret Jacob’s vision …

Improving Inferences About Exoplanet Habitability, Risinie D. Perera, Kevin H. Knuth

Physics Faculty Scholarship

Assessing the habitability of exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars) is of great importance in deciding which planets warrant further careful study. Planets in the habitable zones of stars like our Sun are sufficiently far away from the star so that the light rays from the star can be assumed to be parallel, leading to straightforward analytic models for stellar illumination of the planet’s surface. However, for planets in the close-in habitable zones of dim red dwarf stars, such as the potentially habitable planet orbiting our nearest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centauri, the analytic illumination models based on the parallel ray approximation …

First Approximation Of Population Distributions On The International Space Station, Justin St. P. Walsh, Rao Hamza Ali, Alice C. Gorman, Amir Kanan Kashefi

Art Faculty Articles and Research

This paper presents an analysis of data derived from thousands of publicly available photographs showing life on the International Space Station (ISS) between 2000 and 2020. Our analysis uses crew and locational information from the photographs’ metadata to identify the distribution of different population groups—by gender, nationality, and space agency affiliation—across modules of the ISS, for the first time. Given the significance of the ISS as the most intensively inhabited space habitat to date, an international cooperative initiative involving 26 countries and five space agencies, and one of the most expensive building projects ever undertaken by humans, developing an understanding …

Tests Of General Relativity Through Searches For Lorentz And Cpt Symmetry Breaking, Kellie Ault

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

An effective field theory framework, the Standard Model Extension (SME), provides an agnostic, systematic test of General Relativity (GR) and its founding spacetime symmetries, Lorentz and CPT symmetry. Violating these symmetries may provide clues toward unifying the physics of the General Relativity and the Standard Model of particle physics. Part of this work involves the merge of theory, data analysis and experiments with gravitational wave (GW) signals from LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA (LVK) detectors. A modified dispersion relation derived from the SME of GWs is implemented into the LIGO Scientific Collaboration Algorithm Library Suite (LALSuite), where a joint Bayesian inference of the source …

Direct Measurement Of The 114cd(��, ��)115cd Cross Section In The 1 Ev To 300 Kev Energy Range, Kofi Tutu Addo Assumin-Gyimah

Theses and Dissertations

The large thermal cross section of cadmium makes it ideal for many practical applications where screening of thermal neutrons is desired. For example, in non-destructive assay techniques, or for astrophysical studies of the s-process. All such applications require precise knowledge of the neutron-capture cross section on cadmium. Although there are some data on neutron-capture cross sections particularly at thermal energies and at energies relevant for astrophysics, there is very little data at most other energies. Further, the evaluated cross sections from the ENDF and JENDL databases disagree at high energies. Therefore, there is a critical need for precise knowledge of …

Cosmic Diffuse Neutrino And Gamma-Ray Backgrounds In The Mev Regime, Ilukpitiye Samalka Anandagoda

All Dissertations

Cosmic Multi-Messenger backgrounds include relic diffuse components created in the early Universe and contributions from individual sources. In this dissertation, I present the work done in Anandagoda (2019); Anandagoda et al. (2020, 2023) where type Ia (SNe Ia) and core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) contributions to the diffuse neutrino and gamma-ray backgrounds in the MeV regime are studied. These backgrounds are referred to as DSNB and DSGB respectively. Based on this work, the diffuse SN Ia background is ~10⁶ times lower (for electron antineutrinos) than the CCSN background making it negligible. The predicted DSNB electron antineutrino flux at earth in the …

Development And Testing Of A New Method For Velocity-Selecting White Dwarfs From Gaia By Galactic Population, Joseph Hammill

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The detailed processes by which spiral galaxies form remains an open question in modern cosmology. Observations of the current configuration of spiral galaxies including the Milky Way reveal thin and thick disk and halo populations which must all be accounted for in formation theories and likely have distinct ages. Using the Milky Way as an example to probe this question, we are studying the formation history of these structures.

This work details our approach to age-dating the galaxy, velocity-selecting targets from a sample of white dwarfs from the Gaia DR3 catalog that have also been age-analysed using BASE-9. BASE-9 uses …

(R2033) Resonant Curve Due To Perturbations Of Geo-Synchronous Satellite Including Effect Of Earth’S Equatorial Ellipticity, Sushil Yadav, Mukesh Kumar, Virendra Kumar

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

In this paper, we have investigated resonant curve due to frequencies − angular rate of rotation of the Earth and the rate of change of Earth’s equatorial ellipticity parameter. Perturbation equations are used to convert the non-linear equations of motion of geo-synchronous satellite to the linear form. With the help of graphs, we have shown the effect of Earth’s equatorial ellipticity parameter on oscillatory amplitude and variation in orbital radius of satellite. By defining different perturbations, we have also drawn resonant curve due to frequencies steady-state orbital angular rate of satellite and the rate of change of Earth’s equatorial ellipticity …

Using Deep Neural Networks To Classify Astronomical Images, Andrew D. Macpherson

Honors Projects

As the quantity of astronomical data available continues to exceed the resources available for analysis, recent advances in artificial intelligence encourage the development of automated classification tools. This paper lays out a framework for constructing a deep neural network capable of classifying individual astronomical images by describing techniques to extract and label these objects from large images.

Perspective Sky: A New Architectural Typology For Astronomy, Brendan Lydic

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis aims to reconnect modern humans to the night sky and the universe around us. A connection that has been lost to a multitude of barriers and distractions. Physical barriers like air and light pollution, and distractions like technology and overwhelming world events. I aim to restore this connection by creating a new architectural typology for the observation of and education about the night sky, the cosmos, and astronomy. It will serve as a site of pilgrimage, where visitors of all ages can re-engage with the stars and reintroduce themselves to the perspective of our ancestors. The questions I …

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 …

Mapping Galactic Acceleration With Pulsar Timing, Abigail Moran

University Scholar Projects

We have conducted a cross match of objects in Gaia Early Data Release 3 and millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in the International Pulsar Timing Array’s Data Release 2 (IPTA DR2) to identify binary systems. Gaia has parallax measurements for these optical companions, which we combine with pulsar timing based parallax measurements to calculate new combined MSP distances. Through this crossmatch with IPTA DR2 we improved five distance measurements and found the first parallax measurement for one MSP.

Using this Gaia crossmatch method now with a well-timed subset of the Australia Telescope National Facility’s database, we found three new pulsar distances. We …

Identifying And Analyzing Multi-Star Systems Among Tess Planetary Candidates Using Gaia, Katie E. Bailey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Exoplanets represent a young, rapidly advancing subfield of astrophysics where much is still unknown. It is therefore important to analyze trends among their parameters to learn more about these systems. More complexity is added to these systems with the presence of additional stellar companions. To study these complex systems, one can employ programming languages such as Python to parse databases such as those constructed by TESS and Gaia to bridge the gap between exoplanets and stellar companions. Data can then be analyzed for trends in these multi-star exoplanet systems and in juxtaposition to their single-star counterparts. This research was able …

Analysis On High Mass X-Ray Binary Spectral Shape Dependence On Luminosity For Ngc3310, Izabela Pavel

Physics Undergraduate Honors Theses

In most normal galaxies, the most X-ray luminous sources are high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs), which are binary star systems that contain compact objects (black holes or neutron stars) accreting from massive (> 8M⊙) companion stars. These HMXBs are thought to have been important sources of ionizing emission within star-forming galaxies that may have contributed to the heating of the intergalatic medium (gas over large cosmic scales) in the early Universe. When studying how HMXBs contribute to interstellar medium feedback, a single spectral shape of an absorbed power-law is typically assumed to be universal. The goal of this thesis is to …

Analysis Of A Controlled Approximation For Explicit Integrations Of Stiff Thermonuclear Networks, Nicholas Brey

Masters Theses

The current standard method to solve stiff coupled differential equations relies on implicit integration methods. Explicit methods are generally avoided due to the extremely small and limiting timesteps they allow when the equations are stiff. However, implicit methods are computationally expensive because of the complex calculations that need to be done at each time step. An explicit integration method can do these calculations quicker and, if allowed to take comparable timesteps to the implicit ones, would allow the entire calculation to be done faster. Previous work by Dr. Guidry, Dr. Endeve, Dr. Hix and Dr. Billings has shown that, in …

Constraining H0 Via Extragalactic Parallax, Nicholas Ferree

Honors Theses

We examine the prospects for measurement of the Hubble parameter 𝐻₀ via observation of the secular parallax of other galaxies due to our own motion relative to the cosmic microwave background rest frame. Peculiar velocities make distance measurements to individual galaxies highly uncertain, but a survey sampling many galaxies can still yield a precise 𝐻₀ measurement. We use both a Fisher information formalism and simulations to forecast errors in 𝐻₀ from such surveys, marginalizing over the unknown peculiar velocities. The optimum survey observes ∼ 102 galaxies within a redshift 𝐻₀max = 0.06. The required errors …