Insights into Binary Stars, Stellar Winds, and Astrophysical Plasmas from X-ray Observations of Planetary Nebulae
Rodolfo Montez Jr., Vanderbilt University
Searching for Dwarf Satellites around Milky Way – Analog Galaxies with the SAGA survey
Ben Weiner, Steward Observatory
Dwarf satellites of massive galaxies are a probe of many issues in galaxy evolution and cosmology, including the nature of low-mass galaxies, star formation at early times, accretion into halos, and the abundance of low-mass dark matter halos. Much attention has been devoted to the number and nature of Milky Way and M31 dwarf satellites, especially the “missing satellites problem.” However, we know very little about dwarf satellites outside the Local Group below the mass of the LMC, and we don’t know if the MW and M31 satellite systems are typical. The SAGA (Satellites Around Galactic Analogs) survey collaboration aims to address this with both observational and theoretical studies of satellite abundances and properties around Milky Way analog central galaxies. I will present results from our MMT/Hectospec wide field spectroscopic surveys for satellites. We have surveyed the fields of several nearby galaxies that are similar to the Milky Way to detect and spectroscopically confirm dwarf satellites. We find a range of numbers of satellites, suggesting that there is a significant variance in halo histories. We also find that not all dwarf systems resemble the Milky Way and M31 systems. I will discuss these results and some of the implications on the life cycle of satellites that we can infer from satellite abundances and properties, including their images and spectra.
Galaxy Evolution during the Epoch of Reionization
Steve Finkelstein, University of Texas at Austin
Abstract: The advent of the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope has heralded a new era in our ability to study the earliest phases of galaxy formation and evolution. The number of candidates for galaxies now known at redshifts greater than six has grown to be in the thousands. This allows us to move beyond mere counting of galaxies, to endeavor to understand the detailed physics regulating the growth of galaxies. I will review the recent progress our group in Texas has made in this arena using the exquisite datasets from the CANDELS and Frontier Fields programs. Specifically, our detailed new measurements of both the evolution of the stellar mass function and rest-frame UV luminosity function now allow us to probe the effect of feedback on low-mass galaxies, the star-formation efficiency in high-mass galaxies, and the contribution of galaxies to the reionization of the universe. Our most recent result comes from the Frontier Fields, where we have used an advanced technique to remove the light from the cluster galaxies to uncover z > 6 galaxies as faint as M_UV=-13. Our updated luminosity functions show no sign of a turnover down to these extremely faint levels, providing the first empirical test of reionization models which require such faint galaxies, and is in modest tension with simulations which predict a turnover at brighter levels. I will also discuss our spectroscopic followup efforts, which have yielded two of the four highest redshift confirmed galaxies, and also provide further insight into reionization, by the scattering of Lyman alpha emission by neutral gas in the intergalactic medium. I will conclude with a look ahead to the problems we can expect to tackle with ALMA, JWST, and even more future facilities.
Evolution of Dwarf Galaxy Properties in Local Group Environments
Kenz Arraki, NMSU
Utilizing Planetary Oscillations to Constrain the Interior Structure of the Jovian Planets
Ethan Dederick
Seismology has been the premier tool of study for understanding the
interior structure of the Earth, the Sun, and even other stars. Yet in this
thesis proposal, we wish to utilize these tools to understand the interior
structure of the Jovian planets, Saturn in particular. Recent observations
of spiral density structures in Saturn’s rings caused by its oscillations
have provided insight into which modes exist within Saturn and at what
frequencies. Utilizing these frequencies to compare to probable mode can-
didates calculated from Saturn models will also us to ascertain the interior
profiles of state variables such as density, sound speed, rotation, etc. Using
these profiles in a Saturn model, coupled with tweaking the interior struc-
ture of the model, i.e. the inclusion of stably stratified regions, should
allow us to explain which modes are responsible for the density structures
in the rings, as well as predict where to look to find more such structures.
In doing so, we will not only have a much greater understanding of Sat-
urn’s interior structure, but will have constructed a method that can also
be applied to Jupiter once observations of its mode frequencies become
available. In addition, we seek to explain if moist convection on Jupiter is
responsible for exciting its modes. We aim to do this by modeling Jupiter
as a 2D harmonic oscillator. By creating a resonance between moist con-
vective storms and Jovian modes, we hope to match the expected mode
energies and surface displacements of Jupiter’s oscillations.
Outer Planets Update
Dr. Amy Simon, NASA
The Hubble Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program is a yearly program for observing each of the outer planets over two full rotations. Observations began with Uranus in 2014, adding Neptune and Jupiter in 2015 (Saturn will be included in 2018, after the end of the Cassini mission). These observations have provided interesting new discoveries in their own right, but are also now being combined with observations from a number of facilities, including NASA’s IRTF, Keck, the VLA, as well as the Kepler and Spitzer missions to further expand the breadth of science they contain. This talk will cover the latest observations for each of these planets and what we are learning from these data sets.
Giant Planet Shielding of the Inner Solar System Revisited: Blending Celestial Mechanics with Advanced Computation
Dr. William Newman, UCLA
The Earth has sustained during the last billion years as many as five catastrophic collisions with asteroids and comets which led to widespread species extinctions. Our own atmosphere was literally blown away 4.5 billion years ago by a collision with a Mars-sized impactor. However, collisions with comets originating in the outer solar system accreted much of the present-day atmosphere. Relatively advanced life on our planet is the beneficiary of a number of impact events during Earth’s history which built our atmosphere without destroying a large fraction of terrestrial life. Using very high precision Monte Carlo integration methods to explore the orbital evolution over hundreds of millions of years followed by the application of celestial mechanical techniques, the presentation will explain directly how Earth was shielded by the combined influence of Jupiter and Saturn, assuring that only 1 in 100,000 potential collisions with the Earth will materialize.
The Magnetic Mid-life Crisis of the Sun
Dr. Travis Metcalfe, Space Sciences Institute
After decades of effort, the solar activity cycle is exceptionally well characterized but it remains poorly understood. Pioneering work at the Mount Wilson Observatory demonstrated that other sun-like stars also show regular activity cycles, and suggested two possible relationships between the rotation rate and the length of the cycle. Neither of these relationships correctly describe the properties of the Sun, a peculiarity that demands explanation. Recent discoveries have started to shed light on this issue, suggesting that the Sun’s rotation rate and magnetic field are currently in a transitional phase that occurs in all middle-aged stars. We have recently identified the manifestation of this magnetic transition in the best available data on stellar cycles. The results suggest that the solar cycle may be growing longer on stellar evolutionary timescales, and that the cycle might disappear sometime in the next 0.8-2.4 Gyr. Future tests of this hypothesis will come from ground-based activity monitoring of Kepler targets that span the magnetic transition, and from asteroseismology with the TESS mission to determine precise masses and ages for bright stars with known cycles.
A Multi-Wavelength Study of the Evolution of Solar Flares
Sean Sellers, NMSU