Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons^™

A Slow Neutron Polarimeter For The Measurement Of Parity-Odd Neutron Rotary Power, W. M. Snow, E. Anderson, L. Barrón-Palos, C. D. Bass, T. D. Bass, B. E. Crawford, Christopher Crawford, J. M. Dawkins, D. Esposito, J. Fry, H. Gardiner, K. Gan, C. Haddock, B. R. Heckel, A. T. Holley, J. C. Horton, C. Huffer, J. Lieffers, D. Luo, M. Maldonado-Velázquez, D. M. Markoff, A. M. Micherdzinska, H. P. Mumm, J. S. Nico, M. Sarsour, S. Santra, E. I. Sharapov, H. E. Swanson, S. B. Walbridge, V. Zhumabekova

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We present the design, description, calibration procedure, and an analysis of systematic effects for an apparatus designed to measure the rotation of the plane of polarization of a transversely polarized slow neutron beam as it passes through unpolarized matter. This device is the neutron optical equivalent of a crossed polarizer/analyzer pair familiar from light optics. This apparatus has been used to search for parity violation in the interaction of polarized slow neutrons in matter. Given the brightness of existing slow neutron sources, this apparatus is capable of measuring a neutron rotary power of dϕ/dz = 1 × 10⁻⁷ rad/m.

Phenomenology Of N-N̄ Oscillations Revisited, Susan Gardner, Ehsan Jafari

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We revisit the phenomenology of n−n̄ oscillations in the presence of external magnetic fields, highlighting the role of spin. We show, contrary to long-held belief, that the n−n̄ transition rate need not be suppressed, opening new opportunities for its empirical study.

Characterization Of Cataclysmic Variables And White Dwarfs In The Kepler Field, Trisha Doyle

Theses and Dissertations

We present long baseline Kepler photometry and ground-based Hale 20000 spectroscopy of five known white dwarfs, five newly identified white dwarfs, and a cataclysmic variable, V523 Lyr. Analysis of the photometric and spectroscopic data is used to characterize the white dwarfs and the cataclysmic variable, by determining preliminary fundamental parameters. We model the white dwarfs to determine their fundamental parameters, e↵ective temperature and surface gravity. If the e↵ective temperature of a white dwarf falls within a specific range, the white dwarf is expected to be a pulsator. We verified possible pulsation with complementary Kepler light curves when possible. The modeled …

P-Manga: Full Spectral Fitting And Stellar Population Maps From Prototype Observations, David M. Wilkinson, Claudia Maraston, Daniel Thomas, Lodovico Coccato, Rita Tojeiro, Michele Cappellari, Francesco Belfiore, Matthew Bershady, Mike Blanton, Kevin Bundy, Sabrina Cales, Brian Cherinka, Niv Drory, Eric Emsellem, Hai Fu, David Law, Cheng Li, Roberto Maiolino, Karen Masters, Christy Tremonti, David Wake, Enci Wang, Anne-Marie Weijmans, Ting Xiao, Renbin Yan, Kai Zhang, Dmitry Bizyaev, Jonathan Brinkmann, Karen Kinemuchi, Daniel Oravetz, Kaike Pan, Audrey Simmons

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory) is a 6-yr SDSS-IV (Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV) survey that will obtain resolved spectroscopy from 3600 to 10 300 Å for a representative sample of over 10 000 nearby galaxies. In this paper, we derive spatially resolved stellar population properties and radial gradients by performing full spectral fitting of observed galaxy spectra from P-MaNGA, a prototype of the MaNGA instrument. These data include spectra for 18 galaxies, covering a large range of morphological type. We derive age, metallicity, dust, and stellar mass maps, and their radial gradients, using high spectral-resolution stellar …

P-Manga Galaxies: Emission-Lines Properties – Gas Ionization And Chemical Abundances From Prototype Observations, F. Belfiore, R. Maiolino, K. Bundy, D. Thomas, C. Maraston, D. Wilkinson, S. F. Sánchez, M. Bershady, G. A. Blanc, M. Bothwell, S. L. Cales, L. Coccato, N. Drory, E. Emsellem, H. Fu, J. Gelfand, D. Law, K. Masters, J. Parejko, C. Tremonti, D. Wake, A. Weijmans, Renbin Yan, T. Xiao, K. Zhang, T. Zheng, K. Bizyaev, K. Kinemuchi, D. Oravetz, A. Simmons

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory) is a 6-yr Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) survey that will obtain spatially resolved spectroscopy from 3600 to 10 300 Å for a representative sample of over 10 000 nearby galaxies. In this paper, we present the analysis of nebular emission-line properties using observations of 14 galaxies obtained with P-MaNGA, a prototype of the MaNGA instrument. By using spatially resolved diagnostic diagrams, we find extended star formation in galaxies that are centrally dominated by Seyfert/LINER-like emission, which illustrates that galaxy characterizations based on single fibre spectra are necessarily incomplete. We observe extended …

Measurement Of The Scattering Cross Section Of Slow Neutrons On Liquid Parahydrogen From Neutron Transmission, K. B. Grammer, R. Alarcon, L. Barrón-Palos, D. Blyth, J. D. Bowman, J. Calarco, Christopher Crawford, K. Craycroft, D. Evans, N. Fomin, J. Fry, M. Gericke, R. C. Gillis, G. L. Greene, J. Hamblen, C. Hayes, S. Kucuker, R. Mahurin, M. Maldonado-Velázquez, E. Martin, M. Mccrea, P. E. Mueller, M. Musgrave, H. Nann, S. I. Penttilä, W. M. Snow, Z. Tang, W. S. Wilburn

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Liquid hydrogen is a dense Bose fluid whose equilibrium properties are both calculable from first principles using various theoretical approaches and of interest for the understanding of a wide range of questions in many-body physics. . . .

The remainder of this abstract can be read at:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.91.180301

Population Dynamics In Active Galactic Nuclei, Jon Bessler

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is to present an approach to understanding the dynamics that govern the evolution of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in general, and those associated with spiral galaxies in particular. This approach starts with the continuity equation governing the mass function for a population of supermassive black holes (SMBHs). This approach is then extended to the luminosity function for AGN. Where the dynamical parameters that govern accretion are fairly well known, those values are adopted. The values that are not as well known are constrained by comparing evolved luminosity functions with observed luminosity functions. Boundary conditions for …

Schwarzschild Spacetime And Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker Cosmology, Zachary Cohen

Honors Scholar Theses

The advent of General Relativity via Einstein's field equations revolutionized our understanding of gravity in our solar system and universe. The idea of General Relativity posits that gravity is entirely due to the geometry of the universe -- that is, the mass distribution throughout the universe results in the "curving" of spacetime, which gives us the physics we see on a large scale. In the framework of General Relativity, we find that the universe behaves differently than was predicted in the model of gravitation developed by Newton. We will derive the general relativistic model for a simple system near a …

High-Precision Time-Series Photometry For The Discovery And Characterization Of Transiting Exoplanets., Karen Alicia Collins 1962-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The discovery of more than a thousand planets orbiting stars other than the Sun (i.e. exoplanets) over the past 20 years has shown that planetary systems are commonplace in the Milky Way galaxy. However, these discoveries are only a starting point in the quest to answer one of the most compelling questions posed by mankind for centuries – "are we alone in the universe?". This research aims to help build the foundation needed to search for that answer by optimizing data reduction techniques, determining and refining fundamental properties of known exoplanets, and searching for new exoplanets. Many exoplanets have been …

Logarithmic Spiral Arm Pitch Angle Of Spiral Galaxies: Measurement And Relationship To Galactic Structure And Nuclear Supermassive Black Hole Mass, Benjamin Lee Davis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I explore the geometric structure of spiral galaxies and how the visible structure can provide information about the central mass of a galaxy, the density of its galactic disk, and the hidden mass of the supermassive black hole in its nucleus. In order to quantitatively measure the logarithmic spiral pitch angle (a measurement of tightness of the winding) of galactic spiral arms, I led an effort in our research group (the Arkansas Galaxy Evolution Survey) to modify existing two-dimensional fast Fourier transform software to increase its efficacy and accuracy. Using this software, I was able to lead …

Constraining The Progenitor And Central Engine Of Gamma-Ray Bursts With Observational Data, Lu Houjun

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are extremely energetic explosions at cosmological distances. We have made great progress in understanding the mysteries of these events since they were discovered more than forty years ago. However, some open questions still remain, e.g. how many classes of GRBs are there, what are the progenitors of these classes, and what is the central engine powering these huge explosions? Thanks to the NASA missions Swift and Fermi, which are used to detect the multi-wavelength emission from these transients, our understanding of GRBs has been greatly advanced. In this dissertation, I use multi-wavelength data to constrain the progenitor …

Physical Records Of Impacts In The Early And Modern Solar System, Robert Ellis Beauford

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The study of terrestrial meteorite impact craters and of impacted meteorites expands our understanding of cratered rocky surfaces throughout the solar system. Terrestrial craters uniquely expand upon data from remote imaging and planetary surface exploration by providing analogs for understanding the buried sub-surface portions of impact structures, while impacted meteorites provide examples of a much wider range of surface and subsurface impactite materials than we can directly sample thus far through solar system exploration.

This report examines three facets of the impact record preserved in terrestrial impact craters and in meteorites. First, it looks at the macroscopic structure of the …

A Photometric Study Of The Eclipsing Binary Star Uv Lyncis, Edward J. Michaels

Bright Ideas Conference

UV Lyncis is a short period, over contact eclipsing binary star. These stars are physically in contact with each other, sharing a common atmosphere. Photometric observations were made on 10 nights in February and March 2014 using the 0.3 meter robotic telescope and a CCD science imager at the Waffelow Creek Observatory. 3051 images were acquired, calibrated and then reduced to record the changing brightness as the two stars orbited and eclipsed each other. Data collected resulted in complete light curves in 5 band passes and several times of minima. A period analysis confirmed previous studies that the orbital period …

Nuclear Parton Distributions And The Drell-Yan Reaction, S. A. Kulagin, Roberto Petti

Faculty Publications

We discuss the nuclear parton distribution functions on the basis of our recently developed semi-microscopic model, which takes into account a number of nuclear effects including Fermi motion and nuclear binding, nuclear meson-exchange currents and off-shell corrections to bound nucleon distributions as well as nuclear shadowing effect. We also discuss application to the nuclear Drell-Yan process and compare our predictions with data from the E772 and E866 experiments.

Time-Dependent Photoionization Modeling Of Gaseous Nebulae, Manuel Bautista, Ehab Elhoussieny, Javier Garcia, T. R. Kallman

Faculty Research and Creative Activities Award (FRACAA)

Photoionized plasmas are the most commonly observed in astronomy, particularly through optical and UV observatories, such as the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Modeling astronomical photoionized plasmas is generally done from the condition of steady-state statistical equilibrium, but none-equilibrium time-dependent photoionization (TDP) is found in a large variety of astronomical objects, yet it has received little attention thus far. There are multiple examples of notable failures of steady-state photoionization modeling. We have developed of a general purpose time-dependent photoionization modeling code and its use in the analysis of astronomical spectra. The new code, TDPX, is capable of including all chemical elements …

The Role Of Bulge Formation In The Homogenization Of Stellar Populations At Z ~ 2 As Revealed By Internal Color Dispersion In Candels, Steven Boada, V. Tilvi, R. F. Quadri, M. Hilton, S. Finkelstein, Yicheng Guo, N. Bond, C. Conselice, A. Dekel, H. Ferguson, M. Giavalisco, N. A. Grogin, Dale D. Kocevski, A. M. Koekemoer, D. C. Koo

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We use data from the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey to study how the spatial variation in the stellar populations of galaxies relates to the formation of galaxies at 1.5 < z < 3.5. We use the internal color dispersion (ICD), measured between the rest-frame UV and optical bands, which is sensitive to age (and dust attenuation) variations in stellar populations. The ICD shows a relation with the stellar masses and morphologies of the galaxies. Galaxies with the largest variation in their stellar populations as evidenced by high ICD have disk-dominated morphologies (with Sérsic indexes M/M_⊙) < 11. There is a marked decrease in the ICD as the stellar mass and/or the Sérsic index increases. By studying the relations between the ICD and other galaxy properties including size, total color, star formation rate, and dust attenuation, we conclude that the largest variations in stellar populations occur in galaxies where the light from newly, high star-forming clumps contrasts older stellar disk populations. This phase reaches a peak for galaxies only with a specific stellar mass range, 10 < log(M/M_⊙) < 11, and prior to the formation of a substantial bulge/spheroid. In contrast, galaxies at higher or lower stellar masses and/or higher Sérsic index (n > 2) show reduced ICD values, implying a greater homogeneity of their stellar populations. This indicates that if a galaxy is to have a quiescent bulge along with a star-forming disk, typical of Hubble sequence galaxies, this is most common for stellar masses 10 < log(M/M_⊙) < 11 and when the bulge component remains relatively small (n > 2).

The Differences In The Torus Geometry Between Hidden And Non-Hidden Broad Line Active Galactic Nuclei, Kohei Ichikawa, Eric S. Perlman

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

We present results from the fitting of infrared (IR) spectral energy distributions of 21 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with clumpy torus models. We compiled high spatial resolution (∼0.3–0.7 arcsec) mid-IR (MIR) N-band spectroscopy, Q-band imaging, and nuclear near- and MIR photometry from the literature. Combining these nuclear near- and MIR observations, far-IR photometry, and clumpy torus models enables us to put constraints on the torus properties and geometry. We divide the sample into three types according to the broad line region (BLR) properties: type-1s, type-2s with scattered or hidden broad line region (HBLR) previously observed, and type-2s without any published …

The Emergence Of Negative Superhumps In Cataclysmic Variables: Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Simulations, David M. Thomas, Matt A. Wood

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

Negative superhumps are believed to arise in cataclysmic variable systems when the accretion disk is tilted with respect to the orbital plane. Slow retrograde precession of the line-of-nodes results in a signal—the negative superhump—with a period slightly less than the orbital period. Previous studies have shown that tilted disks exhibit negative superhumps, but a consensus on how a disk initially tilts has not been reached. Analytical work by Lai (1999, ApJ, 524, 1030) suggests that a magnetic field on the primary can lead to a tilt instability in a disk when the dipole moment is offset in angle from the …

The 2009 Multiwavelength Campaign On Mrk 421: Variability And Correlation Studies, P. T. Reynolds, Et. Al.

Physical Sciences Publications

Aims. We perform an extensive characterization of the broadband emission of Mrk 421, as well as its temporal evolution, during the non-flaring (low) state. The high brightness and nearby location (z = 0.031) of Mrk 421 make it an excellent laboratory to study blazar emission. The goal is to learn about the physical processes responsible for the typical emission of Mrk 421, which might also be extended to other blazars that are located farther away and hence are more difficult to study.

Methods. We performed a 4.5-month multi-instrument campaign on Mrk 421 between January 2009 and June 2009, which …

The Differences In The Torus Geometry Between Hidden And Non-Hidden Broad Line Active Galactic Nuclei, Kohei Ichikawa, Christopher Packham, Cristina Ramos Almeida, Andrés Asensio Ramos, Almudena Alonso-Herrero, Omaira González-Martín, Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez, Yoshihiro Ueda, Tanio Díaz-Santos, Moshe Elitzur, Sebastian F. Hönig, Masatoshi Imanishi, Nancy A. Levenson, Rachel E. Mason, Eric S. Perlman, Crystal D. Alsip

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We present results from the fitting of infrared (IR) spectral energy distributions of 21 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with clumpy torus models. We compiled high spatial resolution (~0.3–0.7 arcsec) mid-IR (MIR) N-band spectroscopy, Q-band imaging, and nuclear near- and MIR photometry from the literature. Combining these nuclear near- and MIR observations, far-IR photometry, and clumpy torus models enables us to put constraints on the torus properties and geometry. We divide the sample into three types according to the broad line region (BLR) properties: type-1s, type-2s with scattered or hidden broad line region (HBLR) previously observed, and type-2s without …