Marcos V's Senior Project Blog
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Project Title: Investigating Magnetic Fields in V Hydrae’s Plasma Bullets BASIS Advisor: Melanie Murphy Internship Location: Independent Onsite Mentor: Mallory Newell, Embry-Riddle |
Project Abstract
In my research project, I aim to analyze and understand the role of magnetic fields in the formation, collimation, and acceleration of plasma bullets ejected from the system V Hydrae. I aim to dig deep into a specific aspect of their inner workings, hopefully shining light on the way magnetic fields form in and influence other systems. I also want my research to contribute to the larger study of binary star systems. With V Hya’s unusual, hidden binary companion, analyzing the magnetic fields, which could be due in part to said companion, could help further detection of similar companions in other systems based on the presence of similar magnetic fields, as well as further understanding of the role of magnetic fields in celestial dynamics, namely coronal mass ejections from our sun. While I am not working at a physical site placement, I am working closely with my offsite mentor, Madison Newell, a current undergraduate student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. I intend to use large public databases such as those provided by the Hubble Space Telescope or ALMA to collect relevant data, namely emission lines, polarimetric data, or evidence of synchrotron radiation. From there, I will analyze each dataset using the appropriate mathematical formulas or digital modeling tools to discover the role magnetic fields play in influencing the behavior of the plasma bullets.
Conclusion
This will be the final blog post for my senior research project. Thank you for all the support and all the questions along the way! While my results were technically inconclusive, I found the experience of the research project as a whole to be incredibly enriching and educational. As I discussed in my project presentation,... Read More
Week 10
Hello and welcome to week 10 of my senior project! As the project comes to a close, I want to discuss something that I've been sort of putting off until the end. I've just now gotten together my ideas for my final product. This can be anything from a formal research paper to a marketable... Read More
Week 9
Hello and welcome to week 9 of my senior project! As we approach the end of the senior project timeline, I want to do something to get any sort of results out. After some investigation and consideration, I have decided to use a model of the system to run a simulation and extract "synthetic" data... Read More
Week 8
Hello and welcome to week 8 of my senior project! The future is grim. After hours of searching, exploring, querying, examining past projects and datasets, my efforts have borne no fruit. I am simply unable to find any polarization data that I could use to measure the strength or structure of magnetic fields in and... Read More
Week 7
Hello and welcome to week 7 of my senior project! This week was a lot of preliminary research again. Starting over with a new analysis method is taking a good amount of time. The issue I was facing previously was that none of the data I found had the correct Stokes parameters. Stokes I, Q/U,... Read More
Week 6
Hello and welcome to week 6 of my project! This week I experienced a pretty significant setback. In order to perform an analysis of Zeeman splitting, like I intended, my data needs to include circular polarization data, so that I can compare the shifts between right and left polarization. Despite an extensive search, I was... Read More
Week 5
Hello and welcome to week 5 of my senior project! I am continuing to work on my first numerical analysis on Zeeman splitting. I've gotten a lot of questions about what exactly it is, so I'll do my best to explain it in simple terms. For this analysis, I'll be looking at spectral line data.... Read More
Week 4
Hello and welcome to week 4 of my senior project! This was a big week, as I've finally begun rolling out the code for my first major analysis. A lot of my time has been and will continue to be spent on getting more familiar with Python and SQL, but I have begun to get... Read More
Week 3
Hello and welcome to week 3 of my project! This week was largely dominated by travel. As some of you may know, the senior trip to Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm happened from Monday to Wednesday. Before that, I was in Las Vegas for a family trip. These back to back trips both cut into... Read More
Week 2
Hello and welcome to week 2 of my project! Since my last post I've been working hard on putting together a detailed roadmap for the progression of my project. I've also started looking at large public datasets from which to pull data for my analysis. Large telescopes, such as ALMA in the Atacama Desert of... Read More
Week 1
Hello and welcome to the first week of my senior project! As much as I would love to dive straight into crunching numbers, I have to understand what they mean first. This week I'm doing a lot of background research and studying, specifically investigating the physical processes and measurements that I'll be taking, things like... Read More
Introduction
Stars are violent creatures. Their insides seethe and roil, and their surfaces are plagued by storms and flares. In the constellation Hydra, the largest in the night sky, lies one such monster. Large "bullets" of plasma shoot out from the surface of V Hydrae, tearing through dust clouds and depleting the mass of the star.... Read More