The Molloy Student Literary Magazine Volume 9

The Molloy Student Literary Magazine, sponsored by Molloy College’s Office of Student Affairs, is devoted to publishing the best previously unpublished works of prose, poetry, drama, literary review, criticism, and other literary genres, that the Molloy student community has to offer. The journal welcomes submissions, for possible publication, from currently enrolled Molloy students at all levels. All submitted work will undergo a review process initiated by the Managing Editor prior to a decision being made regarding publication of said work. Given sufficient content, The Molloy Student Literary Magazine is published twice annually in Spring and Fall. Interested contributors from the currently enrolled Molloy student community should send work via e-mail attachment and brief cover letter (including a two-sentence biographical statement) to: Dr. Damian Ward Hey, Managing Editor, The Molloy Student Literary Magazine: [email protected]. Enrolled students who are interested in becoming members of The Molloy Student Literary Magazine staff may e-mail letters of inquiry. Excelsior!https://digitalcommons.molloy.edu/eng_litmag/1001/thumbnail.jp

The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe

Throughout the history of astronomy, humanity\u27s advancements in observing technology have allowed us to look further and further into the depths of the Universe, leading us to discover the types of structures that make it up. In order to build an accurate map of the Universe, we must establish reliable ways of measuring distances to objects. This paper details several different astronomical distance measurement techniques and discusses how they are used in modern galactic surveys. From there, it steps through quantitative ways of addressing and classifying galaxy clustering and velocity and also the formation of larger structure in the context of the history of the Universe. A concluding summary of our immediate galactic neighborhood is given, detailing the nearby large-scale structures, how they move, and where our galaxy resides in the Universe

Modeling Asymmetry in the Rotation of Disk Galaxies

Galaxy rotation has been studied for over a century, using spectroscopic measurements to construct rotational models that describe the motions of their gas and stars. However, only a small subset of this work has recognized that galaxies are not entirely radially symmetrical, but are instead often disrupted in ways that simple velocity field models cannot capture. In this dissertation, I describe my work modelling nonaxisymmetric galaxy rotation and the astrophysical insights gained from these models.Gravitational lensing distorts a galaxy's velocity field in a manner distinct from the distortions of its photometric shape, an effect called kinematic weak lensing. This allows for the construction of a model that uses this difference to extract lensing information about the system. I detail the properties and strengths of such a model, finding that for mock observations of source galaxies at moderate redshifts, the signal-to-noise of the lensing measurements improves by up to a factor of six over previous works, enabling the possibility of future lensing studies independent of current weak lensing systematic constraints.I also describe the development of Nirvana, a Bayesian nonparametric velocity field fitting code designed to describe the bisymmetric motions present in barred galaxies. Using a sample of barred galaxies from the MaNGA survey, I construct the Nirvana-MaNGA sample, which is comprised of velocity field models of >1000 local barred galaxies, as well as a matched control sample of unbarred galaxies. Nirvana determines bar strength and location independent of imaging, providing an independent and direct test of dynamical models of higher-order noncircular motions in bars, agreeing with visual bar classifications on bar angle. I also find direct evidence of flattening in stellar population gradients along bar kinematic axes as compared to surrounding disk regions at the same radii, verifying results reliant on visual classifications and affirming the dynamic connection between the presence of bars and radial mixing of stellar populations