Announcements of Opportunity
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SURF@JPL: Announcements of Opportunity
Announcements of Opportunity are posted by JPL technical staff for the SURF@JPL program. Each AO indicates whether or not it is open to non-Caltech students. If an AO is NOT open to non-Caltech students, please DO NOT contact the mentor.
Announcements of Opportunity are posted as they are received. Please check back regularly for new AO submissions!
**Students applying for JPL projects should complete a SURF@JPL application instead of a "regular" SURF application.
**Students pursuing opportunities at JPL must be U.S. citizens or U.S. permanent residents.
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| Project: |
Circumstellar Matter (Jets, Disks and Torii) in Young and Dying Stars
(JPL AO No. 14247)
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| Disciplines: | Astronomy/Astrophysics, Computational/Programming | ||||||||
| Mentor: |
Raghvendra Sahai,
(JPL),
Raghvendra.Sahai@jpl.nasa.gov, |
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| Mentor URL: | https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Sahai/ (opens in new window) | ||||||||
| Background: |
The research opportunities offered here cover three diverse studies as follows: (1) the formation of young stars, (2) the death of Sun-like stars, and (3) the ultraviolet properties of planet-hosting Sun-like stars. (1) Low and intermediate mass stars are born in rotating clouds of gas and dust, and many aspects of this evolutionary phase are poorly understood. We are studying a newly-discovered class of isolated stellar nurseries, free-floating Evaporating gaseous Globules (frEGGs), that are remarkable astrophysical laboratories for studying the physics of star-formation processes in irradiated environments. (2) As these stars reach the end of their lives (as red giant stars), they carry out much of their interesting nucleosynthesis (e.g. production of the biogenic elements C & N), and through extensive mass-loss, disperse nucleosynthetic products and dust into the interstellar medium. The red giants then transform into planetary nebulae with a dazzling variety of shapes that not only pose a serious challenge to professional astronomers in finding a mechanism to produce their shapes, but also make them immensely appealing to the public (as evident by their frequent appearance in popular astronomy magazines). Many of these results have attracted wide public attention and have been published in public media. An outstanding example of these phenomena is the coldest object in the Universe, the Boomerang Nebula. (3) A new area of my research is focussed on the planets found in extra-solar systems interacting with their host star: this star-planet interaction (SPI) is poorly understood, but quite important. Archival UV observations are being used to investigate this process. |
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| Description: |
In support of my research on these stars, I have a large number of past and current observational programs on radio and mm-wave interferometers such as the JVLA and ALMA, and NASA's space observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO), GALEX, and more recently, TESS. These programs are generating a large amount of high-quality data, and opportunities exist for motivated students to help with the analysis and modelling of these data for addressing important scientific questions related to the birth and deaths of Sun-like stars, and the star-planet interaction in planet-hosting stars. Motivated and energetic students can expect to be co-authors on papers presented at the bi-annual meetings of the AAS, and peer-reviewed journal papers related to their research. In recent years, 9 students have been co-authors on such papers. One student is a co-author on one, and lead author on a 2nd follow-up paper in the Astrophysical Journal, and continues scientific collaboration with me after joining graduate school, which is expected to lead to more major publications. Specific research goals include work on: (1) the physical and chemical structure of free-floating evaporating gaseous globules that birth stars in irradiated environments. (2) the role and origin of highly collimated jets in stellar death (jets are an exciting, dramatic and integral feature of many astrophysical environments, yet are very poorly understood), and the formation of large masses of mm-sized grains in equatorial disks or torii. (3) the star-planet interaction (SPI) and the temporal variability of the UV fluxes of stars with detected planets. |
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| References: |
1. "A collimated, high-speed outflow from the dying star V Hydrae", Sahai, R.; Morris, M.; Knapp, G. R.; Young, K.; Barnbaum, C. 2003, Nature, 426, 261 2. "Sculpting a Pre-planetary Nebula with a Precessing Jet: IRAS 16342-3814 Sahai, R. et al. 2005, ApJ, 622, L53 3. "Preplanetary Nebulae: An HST Imaging Survey and a New Morphological Classification System", Sahai, R., Morris, M., S'anchez Contreras, C., & Claussen, M. 2007,AJ, 134, 2200 4. "Binarity in Cool Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars: A Galex Search for Ultraviolet Excesses", Sahai, R., Findeisen, K., Gil de Paz, A., & S'anchez Contreras, C. 2008, ApJ, 689, 1274 5. "High-Velocity Interstellar Bullets in IRAS05506+2414: A Very Young Protostar?", Sahai, R., Claussen, M., S'anchez Contreras, C., Morris, M. & Sarkar, G. 2008, ApJ, 680, 483 6. "An EVLA and CARMA study of dusty disks and torii with large grains in dying stars", Sahai, R., Claussen, M.J., Schnee, S., Morris, M.R., & S'anchez Contreras, C. 2011, ApJ, 739, L3 7. "Shocked and Scorched: The Tail of a Tadpole in an Interstellar Pond", Sahai, R., Morris, M.R., & Claussen, M.J. 2012, ApJ, ApJ, 751, 69 9. "Are Large, Cometary-shaped Proplyds Really (Free-floating) Evaporating Gas Globules?", Sahai, R., Guesten, R., & Morris, M.R. 2012, ApJ, 761, L21 10. "An Extreme High-Velocity Bipolar Outflow in the Pre-Planetary Nebula IRAS 08005-2356", Sahai, R., & Patel, N.A. 2015, ApJ, 810, L8 11. "A Pilot Deep Survey for X-Ray Emission from fuvAGB Stars", Sahai, R., Sanz-Forcada,J., Sanchez Contreras, C. & Stute, M. 2015, ApJ, 810, 77 12. "The Coldest Place in the Universe: Probing the Ultra-Cold Outflow and Dusty Disk in the Boomerang Nebula", Sahai, R., Vlemmings, W.~H.~T., Nyman, L.-A.2017, ApJ, 841, 110 13. "A molecular-line study of the interstellar bullet engine IRAS 05506+2414", Sahai, R., Lee, C.-F., Sanchez Contreras, C. , et al. 2017, ApJ, 850, 158 14. "Observing Planetary and Pre-Planetary Nebulae with the James Webb Space Telescope", Sahai, R., 2020, Galaxies 8, 61 15. "The Rapidly Evolving Asymptotic Giant Branch Star, V Hya: ALMA Finds a Multiring Circus with High-velocity Outflows", Sahai, R., Huang, P.-S., Scibelli, S., et al. 2022, ApJ, 929 SELECTED WEB REFERENCES 1. "Boomerang Nebula- the naturally coldest place currently known in the Universe" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomerang_Nebula 2. "Hubble Finds Stars That Go Ballistic" http://www.physorg.com/news150562469.html 3. "ALMA REVEALS GHOSTLY SHAPE OF COLDEST PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE" 2013, Oct. 24, National Radio Astronomy Observatory https://public.nrao.edu/news/pressreleases/alma-reveals-coldest-place-in-the-universe |
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| Student Requirements: |
1) basic background in Physics and/or Astronomy 2) a reasonable level of computational skill is preferred (e.g., some programming language like Fortran, C, C+, IDL, python) |
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| Location / Safety: | Project building and/or room locations: . Student will need special safety training: . | ||||||||
| Programs: |
This AO can be done under the following programs:
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