NSF Award
2009816
The principal investigator and her students at Amherst College will develop the techniques required to detect and characterize planets forming around young, nearby stars. Thousands of planets have been discovered around other stars, yet there are still many mysteries about how planets form. One powerful way to begin solving these mysteries is to observe planets as they are being born. These ?protoplanets? are extremely dim relative to the stars they orbit, and therefore extremely difficult to detect. This investigation will improve techniques for separating tiny glimmers of protoplanet light from the bright glare of their stars. Materials will be developed to help students master important research skills not typically taught in science courses. These skills include how to decipher scientific results and how to manage time when working on big open-ended projects. <br/><br/>Protoplanet direct imaging is a new and a hotly debated topic in the field of high-contrast imaging. Novel hardware and software techniques are required to isolate the light of forming planets and disentangle it from morphologically complex co-located circumstellar disk features. A two-pronged approach will be conducted to advance the state of the art in validation and interpretation of potential protoplanet detections. (1) A fully developed and tested algorithm will be applied to rigorous, data-driven optimization of tunable parameters for point-spread function subtraction. (2) Multiwavelength observations of low mass accreting objects will be utilized to develop and calibrate accretion diagnostics appropriate for the substellar mass regime. This foundational work will inform planet formation processes, planetary accretion processes, and accretion variability timescales. The research team will also address an important issue in undergraduate research mentoring ? the lack of rigorously developed and validated mentoring materials. Beginning undergraduate researchers must learn not only the scientific context and data analysis skills necessary to complete a research project, but also how to efficiently digest and rigorously analyze published scientific results, oral and written scientific communication, time and task management, and leadership and group work skills, among others.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
