Announcements of Opportunity
SURF: Announcements of Opportunity
Below are Announcements of Opportunity posted by Caltech faculty and JPL technical staff for the SURF 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!
Remember: This is just one way that you can go about identifying a suitable project and/or mentor. Click here for more tips on finding a mentor. Announcements for external summer programs are listed here.
*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: | A multi-scale investigation of CGM dynamics | ||||||||
| Disciplines: | Astrophysics, Astronomy | ||||||||
| Mentor: | Mandy Chen, Carnegie-Caltech Brinson Fellow, (PMA), mandyc@caltech.edu | ||||||||
| Mentor URL: | https://mandychen-astro.github.io/ (opens in new window) | ||||||||
| Background: |
The formation and evolution of galaxies are intimately connected to the properties of the circumgalactic medium (CGM). This expansive gas reservoir dominates the baryonic mass of a galaxy, plays an influential role in cosmic structure formation, and records critical information about a galaxy’s past and ongoing interactions with the surrounding environment. Understanding the detailed physical properties of the CGM is a vital step to “Unveiling the Drivers of Galaxy Growth”, a priority area identified by the 2020 Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics. This summer internship presents an opportunity to study the dynamics of the CGM, leveraging the recent advent of high-throughput integral field spectrographs (IFSs). The description below outlines an example project using archival data taken by the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on the Very Large Telescopes (VLT). Interested students are encouraged to get in touch with the mentor to discuss details of this project or other project ideas related to CGM dynamics. This SURF research project will be hosted at Carnegie Observatories, which is located roughly a mile north of Caltech campus. Carnegie hosts undergraduate research summer students from a variety of colleges and universities across California. In addition to research, Carnegie summer interns (including those from the SURF program) participate in a wide variety of professional development activities, including a coding bootcamp at the beginning of the summer, scientific communication workshops throughout the program, and seminars on issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in science. Upon successful completion of the program, all students will also be given the opportunity to attend the American Astronomical Society meeting and present their research the following January. For information about the Carnegie Summer program please visit our website: https://carnegiescience.edu/about/working/interns/cassi. |
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| Description: | The intern will work on characterizing the gas motions in the CGM of a nearby active galaxy UGC 7342 at z=0.05. This galaxy exhibits extensive gaseous structures in several non-resonant lines including H-beta, [OIII], and H-alpha. With strong emission spanning the whole MUSE field of view, this source will allow a detailed characterization of the dynamic state of the gas across scales of 0.6–80 kpc, enabling studies on several key processes in the low-density halo environment, including turbulent energy cascade from large to scale scales in diffuse gas and the energy coupling between AGN/star-formation feedback and gas motions. | ||||||||
| References: |
General background on the CGM and baryon cycle: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017ARA&;A..55..389T/abstract; https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023ARA&;A..61..131F/abstract Studying CGM turbulence with IFS data: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023MNRAS.518.2354C/abstract https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025ApJ...978L..18C/abstract |
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| Student Requirements: | Position available to Caltech students only. Research will be conducted at Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena as part of the Carnegie Astrophysics Summer Student Internship (CASSI) program which runs from June 16th - August 22nd, 2025. Students must be present for the full duration of the program and are expected to be on campus at Carnegie daily. | ||||||||
| Programs: |
This AO can be done under the following programs:
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