Project:	Interactive orbital dynamics in 3D virtual reality
Disciplines:	Astrophysics, Computer Science
Mentor:	Ana Bonaca, Staff Scientist, (PMA), abonaca@carnegiescience.edu
Background:	History of science is filled with discoveries being done through data visualization and exploration, from an x-ray image leading to the double-helix model of DNA to a scatter plot revealing how stars evolve. In astrophysics, the last couple of decades saw large international collaborations, like Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Gaia, measure properties for billions of stars and produce datasets which push the limits of current visualization techniques. With appropriate tools, these data would allow us for the first time to directly study not just the current 3D distribution of stars in the Milky Way galaxy, but also their past orbits. The Visualization Laboratory (VizLab) is an immersive virtual reality (VR) studio built at Carnegie Observatories for interactive exploration of large 3D datasets. The VizLab features a 45-megapixel display assembled in a half-pipe configuration, powered by 4 NVIDIA Quadro P6000 GPUs, and allows stereo rendering and tracked VR inputs. Using a custom software stack, the VizLab is able to run software written in Unity and C#. The goal of this SURF project is to develop a dynamics module for the VizLab that performs orbit integrations and allows exploring dynamical systems as diverse as dark matter subhalos impacting stellar streams and supermassive black holes launching hypervelocity stars. 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.
Description:	Tracing back the orbits of stars in the Milky Way can reveal their origin. While most stars orbit in the disk at speeds of ~200 km/s, hypervelocity stars are moving through the halo at speeds of ~300-1,000 km/s. Their origin is still uncertain, with possible scenarios including ejection by a supermassive black hole, a supernova explosion, dynamical interactions in globular clusters. In a known gravitational potential, it is possible to calculate past orbital trajectory of an object with well-measured present-day 3D position and 3D velocity coordinates. To explore the origin of hypervelocity stars, the student will develop a VizLab module that includes: 1) a symplectic integrator for calculating orbits of tracer particles in a background gravitational potential 2) an option to interactively adjust parameters of the gravitational potential 3) an option to sample observational uncertainties in positions and velocities 4) a catalog of known hypervelocity stars, and other objects of interest in the Milky Way Depending on student's interests, any of these aspects can be developed in much more detail. Interested students should email abonaca@carnegiescience.edu with a CV and a brief statement about their experience in research (if any). Please email as soon as possible, and at the latest by February 13.
References:	VizLab: https://ctac.carnegiescience.edu/visualization-laboratory Gaia: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Gaia Hypervelocity stars: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ApJ...866...39B/abstract https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.00102 Leapfrog integration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leapfrog_integration
Student Requirements:	Interest in computational physics and observational astrophysics is encouraged. Familiarity with C# is helpful, but not required. 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:   Program    Available To        SURF    Caltech students only  Click on a program name for program info and application requirements.