Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons^™

Fermion-Induced Electroweak Symmetry Non-Restoration Via Temperature-Dependent Masses, Yu Hang Ng

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Standard Model (SM) and many extensions of SM predict that the electroweak (EW) symmetry was restored in the early universe when the temperature was around 160 GeV. However, recent studies showed that the interactions between some new scalars and SU(2)_L Higgs doublet(s) can cause the EW symmetry to remain broken at temperatures well above the EW scale in certain renormalizable extensions of SM. In this study, we found that new fermions from renormalizable models can also induce this EW symmetry non-restoration effect, provided that they have the appropriate temperature-dependent masses. These masses can arise naturally from the interactions between the …

Galapagos-2/Galfitm/Gama – Multi-Wavelength Measurement Of Galaxy Structure: Separating The Properties Of Spheroid And Disk Components In Modern Surveys, Boris Häußler, Marina Vika, Steven P. Bamford, Evelyn J. Johnston, Sarah Brough, Sarah Casura, Benne Holwerda, Lee S. Kelvin, Cristina Popescu

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Aims. We present the capabilities of GALAPAGOS-2 and GALFITM in the context of fitting two-component profiles – bulge–disk decompositions – to galaxies, with the ultimate goal of providing complete multi-band, multi-component fitting of large samples of galaxies in future surveys. We also release both the code and the fit results to 234 239 objects from the DR3 of the GAMA survey, a sample significantly deeper than in previous works.

Methods. We use stringent tests on both simulated and real data, as well as comparison to public catalogues to evaluate the advantages of using multi-band over single-band data.

Results. We show …

The Pursuit For Gamma-Ray Emitting Pulsar Wind Nebulae With The Fermi-Large Area Telescope, Jordan Eagle

All Dissertations

Pulsar wind nebulae are highly magnetized particle winds, descending from core collapse supernovae (CC SNe), and each powered by an energetic, rapidly rotating neutron star. There are at least 125 Galactic pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) that have been discovered from radio wavelengths to TeV gamma-rays, the majority of which were first identified in radio or X-ray surveys. An increasing number of PWNe are being identified in the TeV band by ground-based air Cherenkov Telescopes such as HESS, MAGIC, and VERITAS such that they constitute the dominant source class of Galactic TeV emitters. High-energy sources like PWNe may be responsible for …

Co Molecular Spectroscopy And Spectro-Astrometry Of Protoplanetary Disks, Stanley Jensen

All Dissertations

Until relatively recently, the only known planets were those in our own solar system (Mayor & Queloz, 1995). However modern instruments and techniques have revealed that planets are ubiquitous around main sequence stars over the last three decades. From this we have obtained a multitude of insights into planetary populations. For instance, while the terrestrial and gas giant planet types are both well accounted for in extra-solar systems, the arrangement of our own system with inner terrestrial planets and outer gas giants is not clearly the typical organization (van der Marel & Mulders, 2021). In fact we see that in …

The Cosmic History Of X-Ray Binary Evolution, Woodrow Gilbertson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Chandra Deep Fields provide an extraordinary window into the high-energy history of the cosmos. Observations of non-active galaxies within the deep fields can be leveraged to extract information about the formation and evolution of X-ray binaries (XRBs). Previous studies have suggested that the evolution of XRB luminosity can be expressed a function of physical parameters such as star formation rate, stellar mass, stellar age, and metallicity. The goal of this work is to develop and implement a complete physical parameterization for the luminosity of XRB populations, which can be utilized for a variety of further studies.

Chapter 1 provides …

Understanding Martian Salts And Their Implications For Liquid Water, Rachel Slank

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Water is one of the key components for life as we know it. The existence of salts on Mars has been a large contributing factor to the possibility of habitability, due to their ability to allow liquid water to remain stable at colder temperatures. Salts, including perchlorates, chlorates, and chlorides, have been detected by multiple landers, rovers, and orbiters, and are now believed to be ubiquitous on Mars. One of the pathways to liquid brine solutions is through deliquescence. Deliquescence is the transition from a solid salt crystal into an aqueous solution when exposed to a humid atmosphere. This research …

A Comparison Of Relict And Active Terrestrial Patterned Ground As An Analog For Mars, John Paul Knightly Jr.

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Patterned ground is a ubiquitous landform in periglacial regions of Earth and is also present across the mid to high latitudes of Mars. The association of terrestrial patterned ground to the presence of subsurface water ice in the form of permafrost that develops a seasonal ‘wet’ active layer during the summer thaw prompted further investigation of patterned ground on Mars. The Phoenix spacecraft was sent to the surface of the north polar plains of Mars to investigate an area of patterned ground where water ice was predicted to occur. The confirmation of subsurface water ice at the Phoenix landing site …

Polar Alignment Of Massive Retrograde Circumbinary Discs, Charles Abod

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

To understand the observed circumbinary planetary systems, we must first explain the dynamics of the circumbinary discs in which they formed. Observations of circumbinary discs show that misalignments to the binary orbital plane may be common. Here we investigate these systems by exploring the orbital dynamics of three-body systems and circumbinary discs. A test particle orbit around an eccentric binary has two stationary states in which there is no nodal precession: coplanar and polar. Nodal precession of a misaligned test particle orbit centres on one of these stationary states. A low mass circumbinary disc undergoes the same precession and moves …

The Total Solar Eclipse Of 1869 In Iowa: What Remains Today, Jacob P. Baskin

Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) Symposium

On August 7th, 1869, a total solar eclipse was visible in the United States. It carved a path through the heartland, nearly bisecting the state of Iowa as it ran from the northwest corner of the state, through Des Moines, and down through the southeast. As the scientists of the day flocked from universities and observatories on the east coast to the Midwest for a chance to make observations and measurements, many of the teams chose to set up in Iowa. Along the path of the eclipse, the parties built temporary observatories to house their telescopes, or simply picked buildings …

Revisit Of Open Clusters Upk 39, Upk 41 And Phoc 39 : A New Binary Open Cluster Found, Xianhao Ye, Terry D. Oswalt, Jingkun Zhao, Yong Yang, Gang Zhao

Publications

We investigate the three open clusters near Aquila Rift cloud, named as UPK 39 (c1 hereafter), UPK 41 (c2 hereafter) in Sim et al. (2019) and PHOC 39 (c3 hereafter) in Hunt & Reffert (2021), respectively. Using photometric passpands, reddening, and extinction from Gaia DR3, we construct the color-absolute-magnitude diagram (CAMD). Using isochrone fits their ages are estimated as 6.3 ± 0.9, 8.1 ± 1.4 and 21.8 ± 2.2 Myr, respectively. Their proper motions and radial velocities, estimated using data from Gaia and LAMOST are very similar. From their orbits, relative distances among them at different times, kinematics, ages, and …

Hydroponically Growing A Holistic Superfood Diet For Mars Exploration, Marianna Pezzella, Ruben A. Rosa Polonia

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

In “Hydroponically Growing a Holistic Superfood Diet for Mars Exploration,” Project H.O.M.E. members conducted an experiment to help determine ways to provide future astronauts with a complete, balanced diet on a planet that does not receive as much sunlight as Earth. Sending massive amounts of food into space is incredibly expensive, takes up valuable spacecraft area, and is, overall, not a feasible way to provide astronauts with sustenance. Project H.O.M.E. has thus developed a hydroponic system to evaluate the growth and yield of various superfoods - including Moringa Oleifera, goji berries, and kale - under simulated Mars lighting conditions. Data …

Phase Transitions And Resilience Of The Magnetic Dual Chiral Density Wave Phase At Finite Temperature And Density, William Gyory, Vivian De La Incera

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

We study the phase transitions at finite temperature and density of the magnetic dual chiral density wave (MDCDW) phase. This spatially inhomogeneous phase emerges in cold, dense QCD in the presence of a strong magnetic field. Starting from the generalized Ginzburg-Landau (GL) expansion of the free energy, we derive several analytical formulas that enable fast numerical computation of the expansion coefficients to arbitrary order, allowing high levels of precision in the determination of the physical dynamical parameters, as well as in the transition curves in the temperature vs chemical potential plane at different magnetic fields. At magnetic fields and temperatures …

Hst/Wfc3 Hα Direct-Imaging Detection Of A Pointlike Source In The Disk Cavity Of Ab Aur, Yifan Zhou, Aniket Sanghi, Brendan P. Bowler, Ya-Lin Wu, Laird M. Close, Feng Long, Kimberly Ward-Duong, Zhaohuan Zhu, Adam L. Kraus, Jaehan Bae

Astronomy: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Deep Extragalactic Visible Legacy Survey (Devils): The Emergence Of Bulges And Decline Of Disc Growth Since Z = 1, Abdolhosein Hashemizadeh, Simon P. Driver, Luke J M Davies, Aaron S G Robotham, Sabine Bellstedt, Caroline Foster, Benne Holwerda, Matt Jarvis, Steven Phillipps, Malgorzata Siudek, Jessica E. Thorne, Rogier A. Windhorst, Christian Wolf

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

We present a complete structural analysis of the ellipticals (E), diffuse bulges (dB), compact bulges (cB), and discs (D) within a redshift range 0 < z < 1, and stellar mass log₁₀(M_*/M_⊙) ≥ 9.5 volume-limited sample drawn from the combined DEVILS and HST-COSMOS region. We use the PROFIT code to profile over ∼35 000 galaxies for which visual classification into single or double component was pre-defined in Paper-I. Over this redshift range, we see a growth in the total stellar mass density (SMD) of a factor of 1.5. At all epochs we find that the dominant structure, contributing to the …

The Disk Of Fu Orionis Viewed With Matisse/Vlti: First Interferometric Observations In L And M Bands, Foteini Lykou, P. Ábrahám, L. Chen, J. Varga, Á. Kóspál, A. Matter, M. Siwak, Zs. M. Szabo, Z. Zhu, H. B. Liu, B. Lopez, F. Allouche, J.-C. Augereau, P. Berio, P. Cruzalebes, C. Dominik, Th Henning, K.-H. Hofmann, M. Hogerheijde, W. J. Jaffe, E. Kokulina, S. Lagarde, A. Meilland, F. Millour, E. Pantin, R. Petrov, S. Robbe-Dubois, D. Schertl, M. Scheuck, R. Van Boekel, L. B. F. M. Waters, G. Weigelt, S. Wolf

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

Aims. We studied the accretion disk of the archetypal eruptive young star FU Orionis with the use of mid-infrared interferometry, which enabled us to resolve the innermost regions of the disk down to a spatial resolution of 3 milliarcseconds (mas) in the L band, that is, within 1 au of the protostar. Methods. We used the interferometric instrument MATISSE/VLTI to obtain observations of FU Ori’s disk in the L, M, and N bands with multiple baseline configurations. We also obtained contemporaneous photometry in the optical (UBVRIri ; SAAO and Konkoly Observatory) and near-infrared (JHKs; NOT). Our results were compared with …

Scintillation Light Detection In The 6-M Drift-Length Protodune Dual Phase Liquid Argon Tpc, A. Abed, B. Abi, R. Acciarri, M. A. Acero, M. R. Adames, G. Adamov, M. Adamowski, D. Adams, M. Adinolfi, A. Aduszkiewicz, J. Aguilar, Z. Ahmad, J. Ahmed, B. Aimard, B. Ali-Mohammadzadeh, T. Alion, K. Allison, S. Alonso Monsalve, M. Alrashed, C. Alt, Roberto Petti, Sanjib R. Mishra Ph.D., Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

DUNE is a dual-site experiment for long-baseline neutrino oscillation studies, neutrino astrophysics and nucleon decay searches. ProtoDUNE Dual Phase (DP) is a 6×6×6 m³ liquid argon time-projection-chamber (LArTPC) that recorded cosmic-muon data at the CERN Neutrino Platform in 2019–2020 as a prototype of the DUNE Far Detector. Charged particles propagating through the LArTPC produce ionization and scintillation light. The scintillation light signal in these detectors can provide the trigger for non-beam events. In addition, it adds precise timing capabilities and improves the calorimetry measurements. In ProtoDUNE-DP, scintillation and electroluminescence light produced by cosmic muons in the LArTPC is collected …

Reducing Leakage Current And Enhancing Polarization In Multiferroic 3d Super-Nanocomposites By Microstructure Engineering, Erik Enriquez, Ping Lu, Leigang Li, Bruce Zhang, Haiyan Wang, Quanxi Jia, Aiping Chen

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

Multiferroic materials have generated great interest due to their potential as functional device materials. Nanocomposites have been increasingly used to design and generate new functionalities by pairing dissimilar ferroic materials, though the combination often introduces new complexity and challenges unforeseeable in single-phase counterparts. The recently developed approaches to fabricate 3D super-nanocomposites (3D‐sNC) open new avenues to control and enhance functional properties. In this work, we develop a new 3D‐sNC with CoFe2O4 (CFO) short nanopillar arrays embedded in BaTiO3 (BTO) film matrix via microstructure engineering by alternatively depositing BTO:CFO vertically-aligned nanocomposite layers and single-phase BTO layers. This microstructure engineering method allows …

The Photoionization Dynamics, Electronic Spectroscopy, And Excited State Photochemistry Of Alco And Aloc, Vincent J. Esposito, Joseph S. Francisco

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

The high cosmic abundance of carbon monoxide (CO) and the ubiquitous nature of aluminum-coated dust grains sets the stage for the production of weakly bound triatomic molecules AlCO (X ²Π) and AlOC (X ²Π) in circumstellar envelopes of evolved stars. Following desorption of cold AlCO and AlOC from the dust grain surface, incoming stellar radiation in the 2–9 eV wavelength range (visible to vacuum ultraviolet) will drive various photochemical processes. Ionization to the singlet cation state will cause an immediate Al–X (X = C, O) bond dissociation to form Al⁺ (¹S) and CO (X ^{1 …}

Asymmetric Localization Of Light By Second-Harmonic Generation, Hamed Ghaemi-Dizicheh, Amir Targholizadeh, Bao-Feng Feng, Hamidreza Ramezani

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

We introduce a nonlinear photonic system that enables asymmetric localization and unidirectional transfer of an electromagnetic wave through the second-harmonic generation process. Our proposed scattering setup consists of a noncentrosymmetric nonlinear slab with nonlinear susceptibility χ(2) placed to the left side of a one-dimensional periodic linear photonic crystal with an embedded defect. We engineered the linear lattice to allow the localization of a selected frequency 2ω⋆ while frequency ω⋆ is in the gap. Thus in our proposed scattering setup, a left-incident coherent transverse electric wave with frequency ω⋆ partially converts to frequency 2ω⋆ and becomes localized at the defect layer …

Exploring The Effect Of Baryons On The Radial Distribution Of Satellite Galaxies With Gama And Illustristng, Stephen D. Riggs, Jon Loveday, Peter A. Thomas, Annalisa Pillepich, Dylan Nelson, Benne W. Holwerda

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

We explore the radial distribution of satellite galaxies in groups in the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey and the IllustrisTNG simulations. Considering groups with masses 12.0≤log10⁡(Mh/h−1M⊙)<14.8" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: normal; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; position: relative;">12.0≤log10(Mh/h−1M⊙)<14.812.0≤log10⁡(Mh/h−1M⊙)<14.8 at z < 0.267, we find a good agreement between GAMA and a sample of TNG300 groups and galaxies designed to match the GAMA selection. Both display a flat profile in the centre of groups, followed by a decline that becomes steeper towards the group edge, and normalized profiles show no dependence on group mass. Using matched satellites from TNG and dark matter-only TNG-Dark runs we investigate the effect of baryons on satellite radial location. At z = 0, we find that the matched subhaloes from the TNG-Dark runs display a much flatter radial profile: namely, satellites selected above a minimum stellar mass exhibit both smaller halocentric distances and longer survival times in the full-physics simulations compared to their dark-matter only analogues. We then divide the TNG satellites into those which possess TNG-Dark counterparts and those which do not, and develop models for the radial positions of …