During my time in the Five College Astronomy Department I’ve had the privilege of working with a number of very talented students on projects of their own design, many of which become senior thesis and some of which are currently being developed into publications.
Laura Hunter (Mount Holyoke ’17) is using our VIRUS-P spectra to examine the ISM metallicity gradients in LSB galaxies; initial findings indicate that flatter gradients than those found in typical spiral galaxies.
- Bishop Grimm (Amherst College ’18) is searching the Illustris Simulation for LSB galaxies. Most simulations to-dates do not produce LSB galaxies, however Bishop’s initial findings suggest that this new simulation produces at least some LSB galaxies, allowing us to compare their histories to those that our program derives for real galaxies.
- Pa Chia Thao (Mount Holyoke ’17) used Spitzer IRAC images to search for hot dust in LSB galaxies for her senior thesis. Hot dust observations provide a direct window into obscured star formation, dust content, and metal enrichment over the disks of these galaxies.
- Alexander Campbell (Hampshire College ’17) searched x-ray images of LSB galaxies for his senior thesis, and detected a faint x-ray excess from one galaxy; this is likely due to star formation, and may provide insights and/or constraints on IMF variations across galaxy types.
- Avery Hanlon (Mount Holyoke ’18) examined the luminosity function of H II regions in LSB galaxies. Early results show a steep luminosity function, implying that the structure of H II regions is more connected to gas content and/or morphology than to the
overall star-formation rate.