2001 Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program

National Radio Astronomy Observatory
2001 is the 42nd Anniversary of the NRAO Summer Student Program!
Research Projects by NRAO Site

• Charlottesville
• Socorro
• Green Bank
• Tucson

Charlottesville, Virginia (NRAO Headquarters)

There are five students in the 2001 Summer Student Research Program, four of them under the NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program at NRAO-Charlottesville. Highlights of the program included a series of introductory level lectures on aspects of astronomy, particularly radio astronomy, spread over a few weeks. These lectures are intended to aquaint the students with the research which various staff members carry out. The lectures are listed below.
 
 

2001 Summer students from Green Bank traveled to Charlottesville to tour the CDL, U. Va. and NRAO HQ. (l-r) Paul Robinson, Matt Lister, Michael Wallace, Richard Simon, Emily Freeland, Julie Rupert, Zach Manganello, Melissa Williams, John Hibbard and Al Wootten.
 

Many of the students in the NRAO-Green Bank program visit Charlottesville for a tour of the Central Development Laboratory , and of the University of Virginia's facility for the fabrication of the Semiconductor-Insulator-Semiconductor detectors used in millimeter wave receivers, the Applied Electrophysics Laboratory.
 
 

Students in the Clean Room where SIS mixers are made. (l-r) Michael Wallace, Tim Thacker (second generation NRAO summer student), Skip Thacker (NRAO Summer Student 196?), Paul Robinson, K. Saini and A. Lichtenberger.
 

2001 Summer students from Green Bank and Charlottesville met at a pizza lunch get-together with mentors and lecturers and U. Va. personnel in Charlottesville.
 

The 2001 students enjoy an informal get-together with astronomers from the University of Virginia and NRAO at lunch. followed by a visit with graduate students from the University's Astronomy Department.
 
 

Later in the summer, the Charlottesville students visited Green Bank again to tour the NRAO telescopes located there, to meet members of the Green Bank staff, and to attend the annual picnic on 28 July.

One highlight will be initial operations of the Green Bank telescope ( GBT ), the world's largest steerable telescope. It is an offset parabaloid, 110m across the longest axis, incorporating 16 million lbs of steel in the moving structure.

The 40 ft telescope there is a student telescope, open for any project which students would like to carry out on it (though its instrumentation is limited). If there is interest, we may carry out, probably remotely, a project on the VLA.

We're very excited about the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, which was selected as the top priority for a new astronomical instrument in the 90s back at the beginning of the decade by the Astronomy Survey Committee. Students got to see it take shape as the fourth year of design and development gets underway.

The students give a series of 15 minute talks on their projects during a lunch symposium in Charlottesville before they begin leaving for the summer. They produce short reports describing their summer research.
 
 

CV Summer Student Schedule, Summer 2001

Emily Freeland of Indiana University  
works with Matt Lister
on

Circular Polarization Imaging of Active Galactic Nuclei at 43 GHz

Models of intrinsic circular polarization predict a higher amount of C.P. at 43 GHz than at lower frequencies due to reduced opacity and other effects. These data can therefore provide a useful means of distinguishing between competing intrinsic C.P. and Faraday conversion mechanisms in AGNs. Using the multiple epochs available for 3C 279, it will be possible to check for variations of C.P. in this source at 43 GHz.  Homan et al. (1999) found 3C 279's C.P. to be highly stable at 15 GHz, which is unusual given its large variations in linear polarization and intensity. This project is best suited for an advanced undergraduate student or graduating senior who is interested in learning about AGNs and cutting-edge VLBI research. The work is likely to be data-intensive, with a smaller amount of time spent on theory.

Megan Kohring, of The University of Virginia
will work with John Hibbard
in collaboration with  J. Barnes (IfA) on

Tidal Dwarf Formation in Tidal Tails

The goal of the present project is to identify bound clumps within tidal tails generated via numerical simulations of merging galaxies, and to quantify their expected observatial characteristics. Simulated maps of the integrated intensity, velocity field, and velocity dispersion will be generated and examined to see if the location of the bound clumps distinguish themselves from projected (but unbound) enhancements. Next, the student will make simulated measurements of the dynamical mass of the clumps (from the half-light profiles and "observed" velocity dispersion), and compare these values to their "true" mass. Finally, the student will examine high-resolution HI observations of the nearest and most famous tailed merger, NGC 4038/9
("The Antennae") to see if any of the regions within its tails exhibit the expected behavior of bound clumps.
  A report on this research may be read.
 

2001 Summer students Zach Manganello and Tim Thacker mount the Charlottesville Telescope (CVT) between NRAO and U. Va. Astronomy.
 

Zachary Manganello , of Middlebury College  

works with Lynn Matthews and John Effland
on

The Small Radio Telescope

Juliette Rupert , of  The University of Oklahoma  
works with Richard Simon
on

Identifying Promising Target Stars for the Terrestrial Planet Finder Mission

Timothy Thacker, of Virginia Tech  
works with John Effland 
on

SIS Mixer Test System

NRAO/Socorro 2001 Research Experience for 
Undergraduates (REU) Program

2001 Summer students from Socorro in a VLA antenna (photo courtesy of J. Anderson).
 
 

The summer REU program at NRAO/Socorro in 2000 consists of 4 main categories of activity:

1 - student research projects, in collaboration with an NRAO advisor
2 - lectures to the students by NRAO staff members
3 - a joint student project, involving observations with the Very Large Array (VLA)
4 - guided tours of the VLA, given by the students on weekends
 
 

The 2001 REU program at NRAO/Socorro is under the direction of Tracy Clarke and Greg Taylor. Dr. Clarke is Jansky Postdoctoral Researcher at NRAO/Socorro, and Dr. Taylor is a member of the scientific research staff.
 
 

Lectures, etc...
 
 

Several lectures about radio astronomy and interferometry will be presented, allowing the students to obtain a good understanding of the technique. Talks were also given on general topics in astronomy, presented by members of the scientific staff. The astronomy talks were designed to give the students an understanding of what sort of research goes on at NRAO, and in radio astronomy in general. The detailed list of lectures and events for the summer is in the following table and at the AOC WWW site .
 
 

Preliminary 2001 Summer Student Calendar of Events

May 2001

June 2001

July 2001

August 2001

Joint Student Research Project
 
 

The VLA is in its CnB and C configurations this summer. Some telescope time will be allocated to the summer students to pursue group projects.

Note that last summer one of the NRAO student projects resulted in an exciting discovery of the first radio emission detected from a brown dwarf star! This discovery resulted in a paper in Nature. More details are available on the NRAO press release web page.

Planned Trips

Apache Point - July 28

Other Stuff

Student Research Projects

Each of the REU students will work with one or more advisors on one or more projects throughout the summer. This is the main focus of the program, and the majority of the students' time will be spent on these research endeavors. These projects involved observing, data reduction and analysis, equipment development, and theoretical studies. At the end of the program, each student gave a lunch talk explaining the main project(s) he or she worked on during the summer. The possibility exists for the students to present their original research at scientific meetings deemed appropriate by their advisor(s). Following is a detailed list of the specific projects carried out by the NRAO/Socorro REU students:

Jason Adelstein of Columbia University                         

works with Steve Myers
on

The CLASS Survey

James Anderson of New Mexico Tech
works with Jim Ulvestad
on

The Flare in NGC 7582--AGN or Supernova?

Aaron Boley of Mount Union College                    
works with Mark Claussen
on

Methanol Maser Sources--Disks Around Young Stars?

The summer student project would be to calibrate and image as many sources from the 12.1 GHz VLBA project as possible in the available time and to examine the structure/velocities of the maser sources to determine if they fit a possible disk model.

Kathryn Devine, of Carleton College               
works with Miller Goss 
on

OH Masers in the High Excitation 6cm Line Observed with the VLBA

Jennifer Donley, of Penn State University  

works with Henrique Schmitt
on

Radio and Optical Narrow Band Imaging of Seyfert Galaxies

Marjorie Frankel , of Wellesley College                    
works with Tracy Clarke
on

Magnetic Fields Threading Galaxy Cluster Gas

Matthew Kunz of University of Virginia
works with Claire Chandler
on

The formation and evolution of high-mass protostars is not well understood. Study is hindered by the difficulty of observing the innermost 100 AU around high-mass protostars; these regions are distant, heavily obscured, and dynamically complicated. However, the archetypal high-mass star forming region, Orion BN/KL, exhibits uniquely strong SiO maser emission from several transitions, and the brightness distributions have been mapped with VLBI.

SiO maser emission from the two brightest transitions (7 mm wavelength) traces a biconical outflow from a 100,000 Lsun protostar. The masers lie 20 - 60 AU from the protostar and their proper motions, easily observed with the VLBA, are uniquely well suited to the study of outflow (and possibly accretion) dynamics so close to a high-mass protostar. In projects BG98 and BG118 we have begun a several year-long proper motion study of the SiO masers, with observations scheduled monthly. The project is challenging because data calibration and imaging of the maser source are extremely demanding; dynamic ranges of many thousand must be achieved and the source structure is complex, with dozens of emission components in each < 1 km/s spectral channel.

We propose to work with a student to measure maser proper motions from three epochs of data, to model motions, and to examine in detail deviations from the current simple biconical outflow model in several sub-regions. We will train the student in the necessary VLBI data reduction and post-reduction analysis. In the first four to six weeks, the student will reduce the first epoch of data and construct scripts that will make possible automated reduction of the second two epochs (2 weeks). Experience with scripted reduction at the CfA has demonstrated the feasibility of this schedule. Estimation and analysis of proper motions for a small fraction of the maser components spread throughout the source and for all of the maser components in several sub-regions (4 weeks) will generate results suitable for AAS presentation.

Laura Lindenmayer, of New Mexico Tech,
works with David Thilker
on

Neutral Atomic Hydrogen (HI) in M33

Bhasker Moorthyof New Mexico State University
works with Vivek Dhawan
on

Motion of the Galactic Black Hole Binary GRS1915+105

Cristina Murrayof The University of New Mexico
and Michael Fine, of Colgate University
work with Frazer Owen
on

Deep Radio/Optical Surveys of Distant Rich Galaxy Cluster Regions

Daniel Stark, of The University of Wisconsin                      
works with Debra Shepherd 
on

The W75N Molecular Outflow

Stacy Teng, of The University of Maryland
works with Jim Ulvestad 
on

An Age-ordered Sequence of Merger Galaxies

Diane Wong, of Cornell University
works with Greg Taylor and Jim Ulvestad 
on

"Sub-parsec radio structure in NGC 4151."

Green Bank, West Virginia (NRAO 43m and 100m Telescopes)

1999 Summer Student Steve Hicks meets Senator Robert Byrd on the occasion of his visit to the Observatory.
 
 

2001 Calendar of Events -- West Virginia

June 2001

July 2001

Melissa Williams, of Valdosta State University                      

works with Jay Lockman
on

Hydrogen in Ursa Major

Paul Robinson, of Appalachian State University                   
works with Jay Lockman
on

Hydrogen in Ursa Major

Michael Wallace, of Hampden-Sydney College
works with Dave Parker
on

Accurate Control of the GBT

I worked for Dave Parker in the Laser Metrology Group. I built a computer interface to the HP-5528A Laser Measurement System to perform automated distance measurements accurately to a tenth of a micron. I also participated in recalibrating parts of the laser range finder and monuments. In addition to laser work I helped to produce plots of data concerning the motion and relative strain in the azimuth track on the GBT. I also helped to produce plots of the vertical and horizontal runout data for the Green Bank Telescope's Elevation Gear. These two sets of data were used to check if both the azimuth track and elevation gear met design specs. Most importantly I learned a considerable amount about the engineering required to produce a radio telescope.

Thomas Freismuth , of College of Charleston                        
works with Glen Langston 
on

The Second Plane Survey and Transient Sources

Tucson, Arizona (NRAO VLBA Telescope and ALMA Development)

2001 Summer students Rebecca Rosengard, Daisy Raymondson, Sarah Flynn, and Virginia Valentine
 

In addition to the general activities carried out at the KPNO/NOAO offices, the NRAO and KPNO/NOAO REU students participate in group activities organized by the NRAO staff.

One activity will be a lecture series on millimeter wavelength astronomy given by members of the NRAO scientific staff. Four lectures were given, as listed below. Students also visited the Array Operations Center and Very Large Array in Socorro, NM.
 
 
 
 

2001 NRAO Tucson Summer Student Calendar of Events

June 2001

July 2001

 July 12: 10:00 am. "Radio Astronomical Observations of the Solar System and Star Formation" by Jeff Mangum

 July 19: 10:00 am. "The Cosmic Microwave Background" by Simon Radford

 July 24: 10:00 am. "Radio Astronomical Observing Techniques" by Darrel Emerson
 
 

August 2001

2001 Summer students get a tour of the VLA antenna from Jeff Mangum.
 

The following are sketches describing the work to be done by each REU student at NRAO Tucson.
 
 

 Sarah Flynn, of State University of New York at Stony Brook          
works with Jeff Mangum

Molecular Outflow Properties

Daisy Raymondson , of The University of California at Davis       
works with Jeff Mangum and Simon Radford on

ALMA Amplitude Calibration System

Rebecca Rosengard, of Wellesley College                               
works with Simon Radford and Jeff Kingsleyon

The ALMA Nutator Control System

Virginia Valentine, of University of Southern California         
works with Simon Radford
on

The ALMA Site