Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons^™

Aligning Retrograde Nuclear Cluster Orbits With An Active Galactic Nucleus Accretion Disc, Syeda S. Nasim, Gaia Fabj, Freddy Caban, Amy Secunda, K. E. Saavik Ford, Barry Mckernan, Jillian M. Bellovary, Nathan W. C. Leigh, Wladimir Lyra

Publications and Research

Stars and stellar remnants orbiting a supermassive black hole (SMBH) can interact with an active galactic nucleus (AGN) disc. Over time, prograde orbiters (inclination i < 90°) decrease inclination, as well as semimajor axis (a) and eccentricity (e) until orbital alignment with the gas disc (‘disc capture’). Captured stellar-origin black holes (sBH) add to the embedded AGN population that drives sBH–sBH mergers detectable in gravitational waves using LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA or sBH–SMBH mergers detectable with Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. Captured stars can be tidally disrupted by sBH or the SMBH or rapidly grow into massive ‘immortal’ stars. Here, we investigate the behaviour of polar and retrograde orbiters …

Astr 1: General Astronomy, David Goldberg

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Ellipses, Leaves, And Solar Crescents, John Adam

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Theoretical Study Of Elementary Processes In Interstellar Plasma, Joshua Forer

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Interstellar plasma — interstellar clouds in particular — play an important role in determining the structure and evolution of galaxies. Understanding the time evolution of such plasmas requires knowledge of the chemical processes that drive their dynamics. Two processes are studied in this dissertation: radiative electron attachment (REA) via dipole-bound states (DBSs) and dissociative recombination (DR). Of the several hundred molecules detected in the interstellar medium, only eight anions have been detected: CN-, C3N-, C5N-, C7N-, C4H-, C6H-, C8H-, and C10H-. Their production mechanism is not well known; REA was suggested as a possible formation pathway, but previous theoretical studies …

Astronomy 102 Lab: The Celestial Sphere And Coordinates, Katrina Powers

A with Honors Projects

An astronomy lab that explores introductory topics such as the celestial sphere, celestial coordinates, proper motion, and the impact of time on the location of stars in our sky. This lab is designed to be used on the program Stellarium.

Astrophysics With The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, Pau Amaro-Seoane, Jeff Andrews, Manuel Arca Sedda, Abbas Askar, Quentin Baghi, Razvan Balasov, Imre Bartos, Simone S. Bavera, Jillian Bellovary, Christopher P. L. Berry, Emanuele Berti, Stefano Bianchi, Laura Blecha, Stéphane Blondin, Tamara Bogdanović, Samuel Boissier, Matteo Bonetti, Silvia Bonoli, Elisa Bortolas, Katelyn Breivik, Pedro R. Capelo, Laurentiu Caramete, Federico Cattorini, Maria Charisi, Sylvain Chaty, Xian Chen, Martyna Chruślińska, Alvin J. K. Chua, Ross Church, Monica Colpi, Daniel D’Orazio, Camilla Danielski, Melvyn B. Davies, Pratika Dayal, Alessandra De Rosa, Andrea Derdzinski, Kyriakos Destounis, Massimo Dotti, Ioana Duţan, Irina Dvorkin, Gaia Fabj, Thierry Foglizzo, Saavik Ford, Jean-Baptiste Fouvry, Alessia Franchini, Tassos Fragos, Chris Fryer, Massimo Gaspari, Davide Gerosa, Luca Graziani, Paul Groot, Melanie Habouzit, Daryl Haggard, Zoltan Haiman, Wen-Biao Han, Alina Istrate, Peter H. Johansson, Fazeel Mahmood Khan, Tomas Kimpson, Kostas Kokkotas, Albert Kong, Valeriya Korol, Kyle Kremer, Thomas Kupfer, Astrid Lamberts, Shane Larson, Mike Lau, Dongliang Liu, Nicole Lloyd-Ronning, Giuseppe Lodato, Alessandro Lupi, Chung-Pei Ma, Tomas Maccarone, Ilya Mandel, Alberto Mangiagli, Michela Mapelli, Stéphane Mathis, Lucio Mayer, Sean Mcgee, Barry Mckernan, M. Coleman Miller, David F. Mota, Matthew Mumpower, Syeda S. Nasim, Gijs Nelemans, Scott Noble, Fabio Pacucci, Francesca Panessa, Vasileios Paschalidis, Hugo Pfister, Delphine Porquet, John Quenby, Angelo Ricarte, Friedrich K. Röpke, John Regan, Stephan Rosswog, Ashley Ruiter, Milton Ruiz, Jessie Runnoe, Raffaella Schneider, Jeremy Schnittman, Amy Secunda, Alberto Sesana, Naoki Seto, Lijing Shao, Stuart Shapiro, Carlos Sopuerta, Nicholas C. Stone, Arthur Suvorov, Nicola Tamanini, Tomas Tamfal, Thomas Tauris, Karel Temmink, John Tomsick, Silvia Toonen, Alejandro Torres-Orjuela, Martina Toscani, Antonios Tsokaros, Caner Unal, Verónica Vázquez-Aceves, Rosa Valiante, Maurice Van Putten, Jan Van Roestel, Christian Vignali, Marta Volonteri, Kinwah Wu, Ziri Younsi, Shenghua Yu, Silvia Zane, Lorenz Zwick, Fabio Antonini, Vishal Baibhav, Enrico Barausse, Alexander Bonilla Rivera, Marica Branchesi, Graziella Branduardi-Raymont, Kevin Burdge, Srija Chakraborty, Jorge Cuadra, Kristen Dage, Benjamin Davis, Selma E. De Mink, Roberto Decarli, Daniela Doneva, Stephanie Escoffier, Poshak Gandhi, Francesco Haardt, Carlos O. Lousto, Samaya Nissanke, Jason Nordhaus, Richard O’Shaughnessy, Simon Portegies Zwart, Adam Pound, Fabian Schussler, Olga Sergijenko, Alessandro Spallicci, Daniele Vernieri, Alejandro Vigna-Gómez

Publications and Research

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will be a transformative experiment for gravitational wave astronomy, and, as such, it will offer unique opportunities to address many key astrophysical questions in a completely novel way. The synergy with ground-based and space-born instruments in the electromagnetic domain, by enabling multi-messenger observations, will add further to the discovery potential of LISA. The next decade is crucial to prepare the astrophysical community for LISA’s first observations. This review outlines the extensive landscape of astrophysical theory, numerical simulations, and astronomical observations that are instrumental for modeling and interpreting the upcoming LISA datastream. To this aim, …

The Radial Quenching Progression Of Nearby Galaxies, Chenyu Zhao

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

In this dissertation, we explore the spatial distribution of quiescent regions within galaxies using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (SDSS-IV MaNGA). Our analysis focuses on a radial range spanning from 0.3 R e to 1.2 R e and involves the development of innovative data selection and processing methods. Through this investigation, we identify two prominent types of transition galaxies: central-star-forming galaxies (C-SF galaxies) and central-quiescent galaxies (C-Q galaxies). Notably, we observe a correlation between galaxy mass and the predominant type of transition, with more massive galaxies tending to be C-Q …

A Multidimensional View On The Emission-Line Diagnostics Of The Warm Ionized Gas In Nearby Galaxies, Xihan Ji

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

The baryonic cycle, being a fundamental process that shapes the cosmic ecosystem, describes the transformation and migration of baryonic matter in different phases. The warm ionized interstellar medium (ISM), defined as low-density gas that has temperature of the order of 10,000 K, represents an important link of the baryonic cycle and can be produced by a variety of energetic activities in galaxies, such as star formations, active galactic nuclei, and so forth. More importantly, the formation and evolution of the warm ionized gas not only traces the ongoing activities of the galaxies, but also reveals the past evolution of galaxies …

Towards A Prototype Paleo-Detector For Supernova Neutrino And Dark Matter Detection, Emilie Marie Lavoie-Ingram

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using ancient minerals as paleo-detectors is a proposed experimental technique expected to transform supernova neutrino and dark matter detection. In this technique, minerals are processed and closely analyzed for nanometer scale damage track remnants from nuclear recoils caused by supernova neutrinos and possibly dark matter. These damage tracks present the opportunity to directly detect and characterize the core-collapse supernova rate of the Milky Way Galaxy as well as the presence of dark matter. Current literature presents theoretical estimates for these potential tracks, however, there is little research investigating the experimental feasibility of this technique. At the University of North Florida, …

Clear: Spatially Resolved Emission Lines And Active Galactic Nuclei At 0.6 < Z < 1.3, Bren E. Backhaus, Joanna S. Bridge, Jonathan R. Trump, Nikko J. Cleri, Casey Papovich, Raymond C. Simons, Ivelina Momcheva, Benne Holwerda, Zhiyuan Ji, Intae Jung, Jasleen Matharu

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

We investigate spatially resolved emission-line ratios in a sample of 219 galaxies (0.6 < z < 1.3) detected using the G102 grism on the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 taken as part of the CANDELS Lyα Emission at Reionization survey to measure ionization profiles and search for low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGN). We analyze [O III] and Hβ emission-line maps, enabling us to spatially resolve the [O III]/Hβ emission-line ratio across the galaxies in the sample. We compare the [O III]/Hβ ratio in galaxy centers and outer annular regions to measure ionization differences and investigate the potential of sources with nuclear ionization to host AGN. We investigate some of the individual galaxies that are candidates to host strong nuclear ionization and find that they often have low stellar mass and are undetected in X-rays, as expected for low-luminosity AGN in low-mass galaxies. We do not find evidence for a significant population of off-nuclear AGN or other clumps of off-nuclear ionization. We model the observed distribution of [O III]/Hβ spatial profiles and find that most galaxies are consistent with a small or zero difference between their nuclear and off-nuclear line ratios, but 6%–16% of galaxies in the sample are likely to host nuclear [O III]/Hβ that is ∼0.5 dex higher than in their outer regions. This study is limited by large uncertainties in most of the measured [O III]/Hβ spatial profiles; therefore, deeper data, e.g., from deeper HST/ WFC3 programs or from JWST/NIRISS, are needed to more reliably measure the spatially resolved emission-line conditions of individual high-redshift galaxies.

Forecasting And Optimizing Sensitivity To Low-Frequency Gravitational Waves, Andrew Ryan Kaiser

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Pulsars are among the most exotic objects in our Universe. These rapidly
spinning, high magnetic field neutron stars can be used for a wide range of
scientific studies: from the makeup of their own extremely dense and poorly
understood interior to using their extremely regular signals to detect gravita-
tional waves (GWs). Pulsar timing continues to expand to broader communi-
ties, with larger and more sensitive radio telescopes planned and partnerships
between pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) that span the entire globe. A realm of
new physics with the detection of a background hum of gravitational waves
from black holes merging …

Applications Of Digital Filters In Radio Astronomy, Joseph William Kania

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The radio sky spans tens of orders of magnitude in length, density, and time.
In this thesis, using novel filtering techniques and two different telescopes,
we investigate two tracers of cosmic structure: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations
(BAOs) and Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). BAOs formed as the universe cooled
after the Big Bang. BAOs provide a fiducial length scale of the universe
throughout cosmic time and thus can be used to understand how the universe
is evolving. FRBs are very bright, short timescale, bursts of as-yet unknown
origin which occur uniformly on the sky at a rate of a few thousand per …

Probabilistic Short Term Solar Driver Forecasting With Neural Network Ensembles, Joshua Daniell

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Commonly utilized space weather indices and proxies drive predictive models for thermosphere density, directly impacting objects in low-Earth orbit (LEO) by influencing atmospheric drag forces. A set of solar proxies and indices (drivers), F_10.7, S_10.7, M_10.7, and Y_10.7, are created from a mixture of ground based radio observations and satellite instrument data. These solar drivers represent heating in various levels of the thermosphere and are used as inputs by the JB2008 empirical thermosphere density model. The United States Air Force (USAF) operational High Accuracy Satellite Drag Model (HASDM) relies on JB2008, and …

A Search For Compact Object Dark Matter In The Universe Utilizing Gravitational Millilensing Of Gamma-Ray Bursts, Oindabi Mukherjee

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In this dissertation, I explore the existence of Compact Object (CO) Dark Matter (DM), examining its predicted millilensing impact on the light curves of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). The hypothesis under investigation is that if CO DM exists, it will act as a gravitational lens, influencing light emanating from GRBs and creating a measurable gravitational echo. The detection of this echo is conditional on several factors, including the spatial alignment of the observer, lens, and source and the mass of the CO DM.

Recent studies have reported the potential detection of millilensing in several GRBs, including GRB 950830, GRB 081122A, GRB …

To The Moon: Strategic Competition In The Cislunar Region, Shawn M. Willis

Faculty Publications

China’s advancing space capabilities, particularly in the cislunar region, call for increased cislunar space domain awareness on the part of the United States. US military and civilian decisionmakers must take into account the full scope of China’s cislunar plans and capabilities as the military builds space strategies and future force designs. The United States must also increase near-term investments that support more robust cislunar space domain awareness.

Tracing The Most Powerful Galactic Cosmic-Ray Accelerators With The Hawc Observatory, Dezhi Huang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Since Victor Hess's groundbreaking detection of cosmic rays in the Earth's atmosphere in 1912, the origins of these charged particles have remained an enduring mystery. Recent studies suggest that these cosmic rays are accelerated beyond Peta electronvolts by powerful astrophysical sources within our own galaxy. While the cosmic rays themselves are being deflected in all directions by magnetic fields, the gamma rays produced by them, being electrically neutral, travel to the observer in a straight line. They carry crucial information, allowing us to trace cosmic-ray accelerators within our galaxy. The High Altitude Water Chrenkov (HAWC) Observatory, located on the slopes …

Dynamical Aspects In (4+1)-Body Problems, Ryan Gauthier

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The n-body problem models a system of n-point masses that attract each other via some binary interaction. The (n + 1)-body problem assumes that one of the masses is located at the origin of the coordinate system. For example, an (n+1)-body problem is an ideal model for Saturn, seen as the central mass, and one of its outer rings. A relative equilibrium (RE) is a special solution of the (n+1)-body problem where the non-central bodies rotate rigidly about the centre of mass. In rotating coordinates, these solutions become equilibria.

In this thesis we study dynamical aspects of planar (4 + …

The Importance Of The Pressure Anisotropy Induced By Strong Magnetic Fields On Neutron Star Physics, Efrain J. Ferrer, Aric Hackebill

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

In this paper we discuss in some detail how the pressures determined from semi-classical statistical averaging of the energy momentum tensor in the presence of a uniform background magnetic field are anisotropic with different pressures arising along and perpendicular to the magnetic field direction. Hence, we analyze how this result can affect two important characteristics of dense magnetized systems: (i) The hadron-quark phase transition in the presence of a magnetic field, (ii) The behavior of the speed of sound in dense magnetized systems. Taking into account that large magnetic fields are expected to be present in the interior of neutron …

Helioseismic Diagnostics Of Active Regions And Their Magnetic Fields, John T. Stefan

Dissertations

While two and a half decades of nearly constant observation by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft have yielded key insights into the structure and dynamics of active regions, it is still unclear if active regions can be identified before emerging on the solar surface and, once emerged, whether the subsurface structure of an active region’s magnetic field can be measured. Regarding the dynamical processes associated with active regions, the height and mechanism of sunquake excitation remains poorly understood. To answer these questions, a comprehensive survey of active region magnetic fields and their …

Deep Narrowband Photometry Of The M101 Group: Strong-Line Abundances Of 720 H Ii Regions, Ray Garner Iii, J. Christopher Mihos, Paul Harding, Stacy S. Mcgaugh

Faculty Scholarship

We present deep, narrowband imaging of the nearby spiral galaxy M101 and its satellites to analyze the oxygen abundances of their H ii regions. Using Case Western Reserve University’s Burrell Schmidt telescope, we add to the narrowband data set of the M101 Group, consisting of Hα, Hβ, and [O iii] emission lines and the blue [O ii] λ3727 emission line for the first time. This allows for complete spatial coverage of the oxygen abundance of the entire M101 Group. We used the strong-line ratio R 23 to estimate oxygen abundances for the H ii regions in our sample, utilizing three …