An investigation of the physical parameters of young stellar objects

textStudies of the temporal evolution of young stars and their associated properties rely upon the ability of astronomers to determine ages and masses of objects in different evolutionary states. The best method for determining the age and mass of a young stellar object is to place the object on the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram and to compare to theoretical evolutionary tracks. Accurate ages allow the investigation of the temporal evolution of properties associated with stellar youth (accretion rates, X-ray activity, circumstellar excess, etc...). One property intimately linked with stellar youth is the presence (or absence) of an optically thick primordial circumstellar disk. Objects in "young" star forming regions are more likely to show evidence for a disk than objects in "older" clusters. Within a single cluster, the picture is not as clear. There exist objects in very young clusters (~1 Myr) which show no evidence for circumstellar disks, and there exist objects in very old clusters (~10 Myr), which show evidence for robust disks, suggesting a variable other than stellar age is driving the evolution of the disks. To investigate whether these outliers are due to age spreads, initial conditions, or simply appear anomalous due to erroneous age determinations, we must determine better placements in the HR diagram by carefully transforming observable quantities (spectral type and apparent magnitude) into the quantities necessary for comparison evolutionary models (effective temperature and luminosity). In the Ophiuchus star forming region, I investigate whether or not objects with disks are younger than disk-less objects. I find no difference in the ages of the two populations, but the systematic and random uncertainties are large enough to mask all but the largest age differences. In the hope of better determining the physical parameters of young stellar objects, I embark on a spectral synthesis campaign to produce comparison synthetic spectra which account for the effects of magnetic fields. This requires the modification of the MOOG spectral synthesis program to handle the full Stokes vector treatment for polarized radiation through a magnetized medium. I create a grid of synthetic spectra covering ranges in effective temperature, surface gravity, and average magnetic field strength relevant for studies of young stellar objects, and develop a Chi-squared minimization routine to determine the best fit synthetic spectrum for a given observed spectrum at an arbitrary resolving power. This grid of synthetic spectra will be an invaluable complement to future near infrared, large band-pass, high-resolving power spectrographs (i.e. IGRINS). In addition to these observational and theoretical attempts to reduce systematic errors, I also helped to develop a suite of silicon and KRS-5 grisms for use in the FORCAST instrument, a mid infrared camera on the SOFIA telescope. These grisms will afford the imaging instrument a mid infrared spectroscopic capability at wavelengths normally inaccessible from the ground. I also report on my work to help write FG Widget, the quick-look reduction software package developed to support grism observations.Astronom

Home-made and improved apparatus and materials in general science instruction

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1936. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

X-ray fluorescence spectrometry using synchrotron radiation with applications in unmanned aircraft environmental sensing

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2015In this thesis I present an analytical optimization of the Synchrotron Radiation X-Ray Fluorescence (SR-XRF) technique for applications in unmanned aircraft aerosol studies. In environmental and atmospheric science, there is a pressing need for aerosol measurements at various altitudes in the atmosphere and spanning large regions. This need is currently either ignored, or met to a limited degree by studies that employ manned aircraft. There is, however, a great deal of opportunity to improve and expand on these studies using the emerging technology of unmanned aircraft systems. A newly developed aerosol sampler makes this opportunity a near-reality by its ability to collect aerosol samples in-situ from unmanned aircraft platforms. The challenge lies in analyzing these samples for elemental composition. In airborne aerosol studies, the ability to resolve where a sample was collected both spatially and temporally is limited by the sensitivity of the analysis technique. In aircraft-based aerosol collection, the length of the aerosol sample spot corresponds to distance. Thus the spatial resolution of an airborne study is limited by the amount of mass that must be collected for analysis. The SR-XRF optimizations outlined in this thesis decrease the amount of sample mass required for detectable elemental concentrations, allowing aerosol samples to be analyzed in smaller areas corresponding to smaller time steps. Since, in a flight path, time steps are directly correlated with distance, analysis of smaller time steps results in the ability to measure aerosols at higher spatial resolution. Four SR-XRF analysis configurations were experimentally tested: monochromatic beam, white beam, filtered white beam, and filtered white beam-filtered detector to determine which configuration gave the highest elemental sensitivity and selectivity. Of these tested methods, the straight polychromatic white beam configuration resulted in the best sensitivity for elements across a large range of x-ray energies for small amounts of mass collected on thin film substrates. The research in this thesis provides researchers with an optimized method for non-destructively analyzing a wide variety of environmental samples with high elemental sensitivity and selectivity. This research also has important implications for the ability to perform in-situ aerosol studies with unmanned aircraft on a systematic basis

Skylab experiments. Volume 5: Astronomy and space physics

The astronomy and space physics investigations conducted in the Skylab program include over 20 experiments in four categories to explore space phenomena that cannot be observed from earth. The categories of space research are as follows: (1) phenomena within the solar system, such as the effect of solar energy on Earth's atmosphere, the composition of interplanetary space, the possibility of an inner planet, and the X-ray radiation from Jupiter, (2) analysis of energetic particles such as cosmic rays and neutrons in the near-earth space, (3) stellar and galactic astronomy, and (4) self-induced environment surrounding the Skylab spacecraft

Design report of the KISS-II facility for exploring the origin of uranium

One of the critical longstanding issues in nuclear physics is the origin of the heavy elements such as platinum and uranium. The r-process hypothesis is generally supported as the process through which heavy elements are formed via explosive rapid neutron capture. Many of the nuclei involved in heavy-element synthesis are unidentified, short-lived, neutron-rich nuclei, and experimental data on their masses, half-lives, excited states, decay modes, and reaction rates with neutron etc., are incredibly scarce. The ultimate goal is to understand the origin of uranium. The nuclei along the pathway to uranium in the r-process are in "Terra Incognita". In principle, as many of these nuclides have more neutrons than 238U, this region is inaccessible via the in-flight fragmentation reactions and in-flight fission reactions used at the present major facilities worldwide. Therefore, the multi-nucleon transfer (MNT) reaction, which has been studied at the KEK Isotope Separation System (KISS), is attracting attention. However, in contrast to in-flight fission and fragmentation, the nuclei produced by the MNT reaction have characteristic kinematics with broad angular distribution and relatively low energies which makes them non-amenable to in-flight separation techniques. KISS-II would be the first facility to effectively connect production, separation, and analysis of nuclides along the r-process path leading to uranium. This will be accomplished by the use of a large solenoid to collect MNT products while rejecting the intense primary beam, a large helium gas catcher to thermalize the MNT products, and an MRTOF mass spectrograph to perform mass analysis and isobaric purification of subsequent spectroscopic studies. The facility will finally allow us to explore the neutron-rich nuclides in this Terra Incognita.Comment: Editors: Yutaka Watanabe and Yoshikazu Hirayam

Mary Somerville and Margaret Huggins: a collaborative voice at the embryonic stages of nineteenth-century astronomical specializations

"This dissertation investigates the authorial presence of two practitioners at the embryonic stages of two specializations in nineteenth-century astronomical research. Mary Somerville used prismatic analysis to separate solar rays and Margaret Huggins applied photography to spectrum analysis. How these scientific persons wrote about their experiments and outcomes in scientific papers will be assessed. My work will demonstrate that both Somerville and Huggins wrote most effectively in a collaborative voice although they wrote for different audiences. Their voices linked their own work with that of their peers as spectrum analysis provided a more ""intimate"" way to look at the stars.

Novel Approaches for Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation

Nondestructive testing and evaluation (NDT&E) is one of the most important techniques for determining the quality and safety of materials, components, devices, and structures. NDT&E technologies include ultrasonic testing (UT), magnetic particle testing (MT), magnetic flux leakage testing (MFLT), eddy current testing (ECT), radiation testing (RT), penetrant testing (PT), and visual testing (VT), and these are widely used throughout the modern industry. However, some NDT processes, such as those for cleaning specimens and removing paint, cause environmental pollution and must only be considered in limited environments (time, space, and sensor selection). Thus, NDT&E is classified as a typical 3D (dirty, dangerous, and difficult) job. In addition, NDT operators judge the presence of damage based on experience and subjective judgment, so in some cases, a flaw may not be detected during the test. Therefore, to obtain clearer test results, a means for the operator to determine flaws more easily should be provided. In addition, the test results should be organized systemically in order to identify the cause of the abnormality in the test specimen and to identify the progress of the damage quantitatively