Eight students were selected for the 2004 REU Summer Student program at the Arecibo Observatory from a pool of 114 applicants. This year’s students were from different universities in the mainland. In addition NAIC supported one student (Regina Flores, a graduate), and we had 2 visiting undergraduate students (José Casillas and Giselle Miranda) who were funded by the Partnership for Space Science Education and Research (PaSSER) UPR-Mayagüez. We had a one-week visit by Laura Chomiuk, a former REU student at the Arecibo Observatory and recently graduated from Wesleyan College. The “Fundación Comunitaria de Puerto Rico” funded Laura’s participation. Our teacher in residence this year, Linda V. Santiago, is a science teacher from the Ricardo Laracuente High School at Dorado, PR.
All of the students were able to acquire experience with observations, either as part of their individual research projects or during the hands-on project of their choice. The amount of telescope time scheduled for particular research projects varied. The hands-on projects meant that all the students worked through the process of preparing for observations, data taking, data reduction and interpretation. Each hands-on project was scheduled 2hr of telescope time.
The staff prepared a series of lectures, which gave the students an introduction to Radio Astronomy and Atmospheric Sciences. The lectures were complemented with guided tours of the Observatory facilities that gave them a unique opportunity to see the applications and instrumentation referred to in the lectures. Each student received two textbooks: “An Introduction to Radio Astronomy” by Burke and Graham-Smith and “The Solar-Terrestrial Environment: An Introduction to Geospace the Science of the Terrestrial Upper Atmosphere, Ionosphere and Magnetosphere” by Hargreaves. During this summer, we had the visit of Dr. Venkataraman Radhakrishnan from the Raman Research Institute. Students and staff enjoyed his talk on the “Physics of Sailing Craft”. Another visitor to the Observatory was Professor Loris Magnani, currently at University of Georgia. Loris gave the students a wonderful review on Molecular Astrophysics.
This summer the students had the opportunity to improve their writing skills. They met on several sessions (depending upon need) with Angela Hagen (Journalist and English Language Teacher). At the end of the summer each student completed a written report with abstract. They also prepared short presentations of the results of the hand-on projects and their individual research projects. The students in Atmospheric Sciences participated of the 2004 Cedar Workshop. The astronomy students will present the results of their summer research at the 205th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Diego, California, in January 2005.
All members of the Observatory staff were helpful with the extra activities for the students, in particular Mayra Lebrón, José Alonso, Carmen Segarra, Myrna Gerena, Lucy López and Ángel Rodriguez. At the beginning of the summer, the students and staff participated in an activity to observe the transit of Venus at the Arecibo Observatory Visitor Center. We had small optical telescopes and binoculars with solar filters and observations were also made by projecting the solar image. This activity was nicely complemented with a visit to the control room during Don Campbell and Lynn Carter’s (both of Cornell University) radar observations of Venus. Each Thursday evening students were welcome to join the staff for an international film presentation at the Visitor Center auditorium as part of the “Noche de Película” series. This summer group explored the island, including trips to the islands of Vieques and Culebra. The students who already knew Spanish were able to practice their spoken skills with staff and employees. We had a dance instructor come to the Observatory for “Salsa” lessons. The summer students prepared a web page in which they described their activities and projects and shared their pictures. The students from the Arecibo Geosciences Diversity Project invited the REU students for a BBQ and a game of volleyball. This project is an outreach program at the Arecibo Observatory, which gathers high school students, teachers and undergraduates from the Arecibo area. The summer students prepared a star party for this group, which included a short astronomy presentation. We were invited to visit the REU program at the Institute for Tropical Ecosystem Studies at Río Grande. UPR-Arecibo professor Neftalí Sotero joined us for this excursion. At Río Grande, the REU coordinator Alonso Ramírez and the REU students described their projects and gave us a tour of the site. Afterwards, the students from the Institute came to visit the Observatory. For our guests we had a presentation about the History of the Observatory by Dr. Daniel Altschuler. Our students described their projects, gave our guests a tour of the site and finally organized a BBQ by the pool. Another very special activity during this summer, which the students had the opportunity to enjoy, was the Bharathanatyam Dance Performance (Classical Indian Dance) by Sowmya Kumaran and her daughter Bhavya Kumaran. Dr. Arun Venkataraman organized this activity. Staff members and the students enjoyed a wonderful evening at the Visitor Center auditorium with this presentation.
2004 SUMMER STUDENT PROJECTS
Supported by NSF REU Funds:
Megan DeCesar is a fourth-year undergraduate student at Pennsylvania State University. She is working on a double Major in Music and Astronomy. Megan worked with Dr. Murray Lewis on the project: “Constraining the IR and NIR Colors of OH/IR Mimics”. She selected two hands-on projects. One of these projects was: “ Searching for HI Absorption in the Host Galaxies of Extragalactic Radio Sources” under the supervision of Dr. Chris Salter. She also worked on: “A Continuing Search for OH/IR Stars” under the supervision of Dr. Lewis. For Megan’s main project she obtained NIR 2MASS data of OH/IR color mimics, stars that lie in the color range of OH/IR stars but do not exhibit 1612 MHz masers. These stars have been previously examined only in the IR. When their colors were compared to those of OH/IR stars, a blue extension was seen in the H-K color range. This suggested that there was a need to redefine the color constraints on these mimics. Megan found a blue limit of 0.65mm in the H-K color, with no dependence on the value of (25mm-12mm). In addition, a continued search for an evolutionary sequence revealed that most mimics redder than (25mm-12mm)=-0.6mm are stars that have ended their mass-loss and OH/IR phase rather than stars that are about to enter this stage of their lives.
Laura Kinnaman is a third-year undergraduate student at Wittenberg University, OH. She is majoring in Physics. She worked with advisor Dr. Mayra Lebrón. The title of her project was: “Simulating Continuum and Recombination Line Emissions from HII Regions”. Her hands-on project was: “Searching for HI Absorption in the Host Galaxies of Extragalactic Radio Sources” under the supervision of Dr. Chris Salter. For her main project, Laura simulated continuum and recombination line emission from HII regions. For each type of emission, three models were programmed with Fortran 77 and plotted with Super Mongo: a box shape, a sphere, and a sphere surrounded by a thin shell of HI and HII. The most physically realistic model was a sphere with pressure broadened line emission and a shell with Gaussian line emission under non-LTE conditions and in pressure equilibrium, which produced the double peak profile observed from real HII regions. The simulations use the physics of radiative transfer, bremstrahlung, and line emission, and show how different physical parameters effect observed line spectra from HII regions.
Melissa Rice is a senior student at Wellesley College, MA majoring in Astrophysics. She worked with Dr. John Harmon on the project: “Radar Imaging of Mercury”. Her hands-on project was: “Searching for HI Absorption in the Host Galaxies of Extragalactic Radio Sources” under the supervision of Dr. Chris Salter. For her main project, Melissa created radar images of the entire Mercurian surface using the Arecibo S-band radar (wavelength 12.6cm) and the long code delay-Doppler method. She mapped the locations of midlatitude radar-bright craters across all longitudes, and in the Mariner-10 imaged hemisphere found several disagreements between the features that appear freshest in the unpolarized radar images and those that have been classified as most recent by the USGS geologic maps. Polarized radar maps of the Caloris Basin region show a strong correlation between radar features and the southwestern edge of the basin rim. In the Skinakas Basin region of the Mariner-10 unimaged hemisphere, however, little agreement was found between the proposed basin rim locations and the radar features. Using the most recent radar data, taken in April 2004, the South Polar Region was mapped at the highest incidence angle since the Arecibo telescope upgrade. Nineteen “ice” features were identified extending to latitudes as low as 73S with circular polarization inversions (average mc=1.38) that are consistent with volume scattering off cold-trapped volatiles.
Karles Saucedo-McQuade is a third-year undergraduate student at Oberlin College, OH majoring in Physics. He worked under the supervision of Dr. Carmen Pantoja on the project: “HI Observations of HVC’s”. His hands-on project was: “Searching for HI Absorption in the Host Galaxies of Extragalactic Radio Sources” under the supervision of Dr. Chris Salter. For his summer project, Karles reduced data of selected observations of High Velocity Clouds (HVCs). The data were from previous observations of HVC’s made at the Arecibo Observatory using L and C band receivers. For this project, a sample of HVCs was selected from the HI survey by Hartmann and Burton (1997). They were selected so that they also have a strong continuum source near the position of the cloud. Karles studied the data for three sources from this survey. These sources were observed using a cross pattern with 12 minutes ON source and 12 minutes OFF source. The OFF’s taken at positions 1 beamwidth away (NS EW) from the continuum source position. He reduced the associated absorption line spectra using available IDL routines and calculated the column densities for HI and formaldehyde data.
Drew Turner is a senior student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, FL studying Engineering Physics. He worked with advisor Dr. Néstor Aponte. The title of his project was: “Calculating Electron Density Using Dual Frequency GPS”. Drew selected two hands-on projects. The first one was “A Study of Near Earth Asteroids” under the supervision of Dr. Mike Nolan. His second hands-on project was: “Processing Arecibo World Day Data and Data Analysis with Multiple Instruments” under the supervision of Dr. Aponte. Drew Turner’s main project was to develop a system to post real-time total electron content (TEC) images from a dual-frequency GPS receiver online. Drew assisted in setting up the receiver and writing the scripts needed to transfer its files. He then wrote a series of MATLAB scripts to read the files and process TEC values from the data. He ended his main project by setting up a webpage and the files necessary to run the real-time process. As a secondary project, Drew worked with REU student Jan Ulrich on data of the near-earth asteroid 2003YT1. They processed radar data and produced plots. From the plots, they estimated key values of the binary asteroid system such as the masses, densities, angular velocities, and orbital radius and velocity of the secondary body
Jan Ulrich is a second-year undergraduate student at the University of Texas, Austin, TX studying Computer Science. He was supervised by Dr. Arun Venkataraman. The title of his project was: “Parallel Computing on Linux Clusters”. He selected the hands-on project: “A Study of Near Earth Asteroids” under the supervision of Dr. Mike Nolan. His project consisted of building a Linux cluster to speed up data interpretation algorithms using parallel computing. The specific program converted into a parallel algorithm using the MPI standard was the long-code decoder used in planetary radio astronomy. Using 8 CPU’s, the performance was improved by 4.7 times compared to a single processor, enough to make the algorithm much faster then real time. Jan also studied the performance of other FFT algorithms on the cluster, specifically the optimized FFTW package.
Yang Yang is a second-year undergraduate student at Miami University, OH where she studies Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. She worked under the supervision of Dr. Jonathan Friedman on the project: “Processing Arecibo ISR Data for Submission to TIMED Satellite Program Database”. Her hands-on project was: “Processing Arecibo World Day Data and Data Analysis with Multiple Instruments” under the supervision of Dr. Néstor Aponte. Yang learned of the procedures and the techniques currently adopted at the Arecibo Observatory to process the ISR data related to TIMED under configurations of MRACF and power. NASA launched the TIMED mission on December 7, 2001 to study the dynamics of solar activities and their impacts on the Earth. As one of the Ground-Based Investigators collaborating with TIMED, the Arecibo Observatory utilized the world’s largest Incoherent Scatter Radar (ISR) facility to collect instrumental data in 2003 in order to submit this data to the CEDAR Database. The main purpose was to calibrate instrumental data obtained by TIMED satellite. The raw data at Arecibo, depending on the configuration – all experiments were run under three configurations simultaneously, MRACF, power and CLP – were processed separately. Yang worked with procedures that are also generally applicable for processing ISR data related to other ongoing projects at Arecibo such as the World Day. Some source files containing Arecibo ISR data for TIMED in 2003 were missing or incomplete. As a result, by the end of the ten-week REU program, 18 out of 29 experiments for the TIMED in 2003 had completely run through processes to reduce MRACF and power data; 19 were calibrated and 25 were processed to the point that MRACF data were at least-square fitted.
Harus Jabran Zahid is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of California-Berkeley, CA studying Physics and Astronomy. Jabran worked on the project “CO observation of a z=10.0 galaxy” under the supervision of Dr. Steve Torchinsky. Jabran also worked on the hands-on project: “Searching for HI Absorption in the Host Galaxies of Extragalactic Radio Sources” under the supervision of Dr. Chris Salter. Jabran’s main project considered the recent discovery of a lensed galaxy at z=10.0 as an opportunity to study the evolution of the early Universe. A CO detection would allow an estimate of the metallicity of very young galaxies, which is an important parameter in various models of early evolution. Due to the high redshift of this galaxy, CO would appear at 10.47 GHz, which is within the range of the X band receiver at Arecibo. Jabran participated of the observations of this galaxy at the Arecibo Observatory and reduced the corresponding data.
Supported by Other Funds:
José Casillas is a senior at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez. He is studying Electrical Engineering and is interested in Signal Processing and Space Communications. José worked with Dr. Néstor Aponte on the project: “Analysis and Calibration of Arecibo World Day Data. Conversion of Power Profiles into Electron Density”. José worked on two hands-on projects. His first project was: “Processing Arecibo World Day Data and Data Analysis with Multiple Instruments” under the supervision of Dr. Aponte. His second hands-on project was: “A Continuing Search for OH/IR Stars” under the supervision of Dr. Murray Lewis. José worked on the analysis and calibration of Arecibo World Day Program data, specifically in the conversion of the power profile into electron density. There were a total of 66 data files from the years 1999 to 2003. The goal of the calibration is to obtain the electron density from the power data obtained during the World Day Program. MATLAB was the software used for the calibration. The routines used to obtain the electron density and calibration were Aponte’s program pwr2ne_nonf3 and Dr. César Otero’s plotCal. During the calibration some problems were encountered and to make the process of analysis simpler José wrote some small routines. The routine pwr2ne_test identified which type of data was on the files. The program plotne_vs_t helps verify if the data is well calibrated. José added the routine called monotonic to pwr2ne_nonf3 that eliminates the time records that are repeated. There were a total of 24 calibrated files and now there are a total of 44 calibrated files. The last step of José’s work was to organize these calibrated files in a single directory to make the process easier.
Regina Flores is a recent graduate in Physics from Columbia University, NY. She worked under the joint supervision of Drs. Avinash Deshpande and Mayra Lebrón. The title of her project was: “A Multifrequency Study of Molecular Transitions toward W49”. Regina observed the molecular cloud W49A with the NAIC Arecibo telescope across the frequency rangy 327Mhz-10Ghz in order to identify molecular and recombination lines. At L-band detections of the 1665.40 MHz and the 1667.35 MHz masers and the 21cm HI absorption line were made. At higher frequencies, X and S-high bands, an abundance of Hydrogen and Helium recombination lines were observed including high Dn lines never before detected such as H167 h, H157 V, and H172 q. Determining the electron temperature reveals a linear relationship with Dn. However, inabilities to properly estimate the peak intensities of high Dn may have produced systematic underestimations of electron temperature. Further investigation into the regimes where local thermodynamic equilibrium breaks-down could reveal the discrepancy in electron temperature.
Giselle Miranda is a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez. Giselle worked under the supervision of Dr. Mike Nolan and José Rosado on the project: “Determination of the Orbit of the Secondary Asteroid in the Binary System 2003YT1”. For her hands-on project she worked on the project: “Processing Arecibo World Day Data and Data Analysis with Multiple Instruments” under the supervision of Dr. Néstor Aponte. For her main project, Giselle worked on Arecibo data to determine the orbit of the secondary asteroid around the primary of the binary asteroid 2003YT1. She learned how to view the radar images and how to measure separations. Giselle reviewed the ellipse equation, Kepler's laws, and the equations of motion. She then wrote various Matlab programs in order to determine the orbit.
Laura Chomiuk, a previous REU student at Arecibo, recently graduated from Wesleyan University, CT worked at the Observatory for one week under the supervision of Dr. Chris Salter towards the completion of “A Study of the Supernova Remnant, G42.8+06.8”. Laura was sponsored by a grant from the Puerto Rico Community Foundation. This project was initiated during Summer 2002. The supernova remnant (SNR), G42.8+0.6, has two unusual neutron stars projected just outside it; one is the soft-gamma repeater, SGR 1900+14, a magnetar with 5.16-s pulses in the X-ray. The other, J1907+0918, is a young radio pulsar discovered at Arecibo while searching for radio pulses from SGR 1900+14. It is possible that the
SNR marks the birthplace of either or both of these neutron stars. Sadly, distances to all three are rather uncertain. In Summer 2002, Laura's project was to look for connections between the 3 objects. Among the approaches to constrain the distances of PSR J1907+0918 and the SNR was deriving their rotation measures (RMs) from continuum and pulsar observations. The pulsar RM was indeed determined in 2002, (+650 rad/m2). Further, the total intensity L- and S-band continuum data for the SNR were mapped, confirming that the SNR possesses a well-defined shell showing pronounced edge brightening. The distributions of the other continuum Stokes parameters could not be reduced in the time available in 2002. During Laura's visit this summer, software was prepared to image the full Stokes data, and work on the data calibration was begun. The project continues with Laura working from her new home institution, the University of Wisconsin.
Linda V. Santiago is a science teacher from the Ricardo Laracuente High School in Dorado. Mrs. Santiago participated in the “Teacher in Residence Program”, a summer internship at the Arecibo Observatory for qualified high school science teachers. She was selected from a group of 12 applicants. The NSF’s “Teacher Enhancement Program” sponsors this position. Mrs. Santiago became part of our Geoscience Diversity Project staff. She attended all workshop sessions and field trips. Her contributions to the program included development of assessment tools used during the workshop, and translation of the Arecibo Geoscience Diversity Project web site (http://www.naic.edu/aogeo). Her research experience included water quality measurements at the Caño Tiburones wetland and the Camuy River.
2004 NAIC Summer Student Program Talks
June 3 Radar Astronomy [Don Campbell, Cornell/Arecibo Observatory]
June 8 Geology of Puerto Rico [Ellen Howell, Arecibo Observatory]
June 9 Pulsars [Paulo Freire, Arecibo Observatory]
June 9 Physics of Sailing Craft [Venkataraman Radhakrishnan, Raman Research Institute]
June 14 Active Galaxies [Tapasi Ghosh, Arecibo Observatory]
June 15 Signal Processing [Avinash Deshpande, Arecibo Observatory]
June 16 Electronics and Receivers [Lisa Wray, Arecibo Observatory]
June 17 Incoherent Scatter Radar I [Mike Sulzer, Arecibo Observatory]
June 18 Incoherent Scatter Radar II [Mike Sulzer, Arecibo Observatory]
June 21 Interferometry in RA [Emmanuel Momjian, Arecibo Observatory]
June 23 Lidar I [Shikha Raizada, Arecibo Observatory]
June 24 Lidar II [Jonathan Friedman, Arecibo Observatory]
July 8 Molecular Astrophysics [Loris Magnani, University of Georgia]
July 15 NSF National Research Facilities [Robert Brown, NAIC]
July 16 History of the Observatory [Daniel Altschuler, Arecibo Observatory]
Summer Student Presentations:
June 25 Hands-on Project Presentation: “A Study of Near Earth Asteroids” [Jan Ulrich and Drew Turner]
July 21 Parallel Computing on Linux Clusters [Jan Ulrich]
July 21 Calculating Electron Density Using Dual Frequency GPS [Drew Turner]
July 28 Hands-on Project Presentation: “Processing Arecibo World Day Data and Data Analysis with Multiple Instruments” [José Casillas, Giselle Miranda, Yang Yang and Drew Turner]
July 30 Processing Arecibo ISR Data for Submission to TIMED Satellite Program Database [Yang Yang]
August 2 Hands-on Project Presentation: “ HI Absorption in Abell 2390” [Karles Saucedo-McQuade, Megan DeCesar, Melissa Rice, Laura Kinnaman and Jabran Zahid]
August 3 Simulating Continuum and Recombination Line Emissions from HII Regions [Laura Kinnaman]
August 4 Determination of the Orbit of the Secondary Asteroid in the Binary System 2003YT1 [Giselle Miranda]
August 4 Analysis and Calibration of Arecibo World Day Data. Conversion of Power Profiles into Electron Density [José Casillas]
August 10 Hands-on Project Presentation: “A Continuing Search for OH/IR Stars” [Megan DeCesar and José Casillas]
August 11 CO Observation of z=10.0 Galaxy [Jabran Zahid]
August 12 HI Observations of HVC’s [Karles Saucedo-McQuade]
August 12 A Multifrequency Study of Molecular Transitions toward W49 [Regina Flores ]
August 13 Constraining the IR and NIR Colors of OH/IR Mimics [Megan DeCesar]
August 13 Radar Imaging of Mercury [Melissa Rice]
Other Activities:
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Venus Transit Observation, June 8
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Welcome BBQ by the Pool, June 21
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BBQ and Volleyball with students from the Arecibo Geoscience Diversity Project, June 24
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Starparty (organized by REU students for Geosciences students), June 30
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Bharathanatyam Dance Performance, July 8
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Trip to the Institute for Tropical Ecosystem Studies (UPR) and El Yunque rainforest, July 9
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Tour of AO and BBQ with students from REU site in Tropical Ecology and Evolution, July 16