Research Initiation Award: Unraveling the Elemental Abundances and Dust Properties of the Interstellar Medium

研究启动奖：揭示星际介质的元素丰度和尘埃特性

• 批准号: 2000036
• 负责人: Ajay Mishra
• 金额: $ 19.04万
• 依托单位: Lincoln University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-05-15 至 2024-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2000036&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Research; Initiation; Award; Unraveling; Elemental

Research Initiation Awards provide support for junior and mid-career faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities who are building new research programs or redirecting and rebuilding existing research programs. It is expected that the award helps to further the faculty member's research capability and effectiveness, improves research and teaching at the home institution, and involves undergraduate students in research experiences. The award to Lincoln University, Missouri, has potential broader impacts in a number of areas. The goal of this project is to study the relationship between dust properties and the interstellar environments. The project is a collaborative effort with faculty at the University of Missouri-Columbia, involves undergraduate students in the research, and is developing three undergraduate astronomy courses.While it is well recognized that both the Galactic interstellar extinction curves and the gas-phase abundances of carbon, oxygen, and other metal elements exhibit considerable variations from one sightline to another, as yet, most of the dust extinction modeling efforts have been directed to the Galactic average extinction curve which is obtained by averaging over many clouds of different gas and dust properties. Therefore, any details concerning the relationship between the dust properties and the interstellar environments are lost. By utilizing the wealth of extinction and abundance data obtained by the International Ultraviolet Explorer, Hubble Space Telescope, and the Far-Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer, this project explores the dust properties of over one hundred individual sight lines by simultaneously both fitting the observed extinction curve from the near-infrared to the far-ultraviolet and conforming to the observed abundance constraints. Thus insight into the physical nature of interstellar grains and how they are related to the physical and chemical conditions of their environments will be gained. The results of the research will greatly benefit the analysis and understanding of the previously acquired data from various space missions, as well as of future data obtained.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.

研究启动奖为历史悠久的黑人学院和大学的初级和中级教师提供了支持，他们正在构建新的研究计划，或重新指导和重建现有的研究计划。预计该奖项有助于进一步促进教职员工的研究能力和有效性，改善家庭机构的研究和教学，并让本科生参与研究经验。授予密苏里州林肯大学的奖项在许多领域都具有更广泛的影响。该项目的目的是研究灰尘特性与星际环境之间的关系。 该项目是与密苏里州哥伦比亚大学的教师的合作努力，涉及本科生参与研究，并且正在开发三个本科生的天文学课程。众所周知，银河系星际灭绝曲线均与碳，氧气和其他金属的景象的最大景象相吻合，这是一个众所周知的，既定的，又是其他金属的景象。建模工作已针对银河平均灭绝曲线，该曲线是通过在许多不同气体和灰尘特性的云上平均获得的。因此，丢失了有关灰尘特性与星际环境之间关系的任何细节。通过利用国际紫外线探险家，哈勃太空望远镜和Far-Ultraviolet光谱探索者获得的大量灭绝和丰度数据，该项目通过同时探索了一百多个单个视线的灰尘特性，探索了与近汇率相吻合的近距离弯曲曲线，并构造出了对远处群的构造，并构造了对远处的构造。因此，将洞悉星际谷物的物理性质及其与环境的物理和化学条件的关系。该研究的结果将极大地使对以前从各种空间任务的数据以及获得的未来数据的分析和理解有利。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子和更广泛影响的评估评估的评估来支持的。