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期教师提供支持，他们正在建立新的研究项目或重新调整和重建现有的研究项目。预计该奖项有助于提高教师的研究能力和效率，改善所在机构的研究和教学，并让本科生参与研究经验。密苏里州林肯大学的获奖可能在许多领域产生更广泛的影响。该项目的目标是研究尘埃特性与星际环境之间的关系。 该项目是与密苏里大学哥伦比亚分校教师的合作项目，让本科生参与研究，并正在开发三门本科天文学课程。虽然众所周知，银河系星际消光曲线和气相丰度碳、氧和其他金属元素从一个视线到另一个视线表现出相当大的变化，到目前为止，大多数尘埃消光建模工作都针对银河系平均消光曲线，该曲线是通过对许多不同的云进行平均而获得的。气体和粉尘的特性。因此，有关尘埃特性和星际环境之间关系的任何细节都会丢失。通过利用国际紫外线探测器、哈勃太空望远镜和远紫外光谱探测器获得的丰富的消光和丰度数据，该项目通过同时拟合观测到的消光曲线，探索了一百多个单独视线的尘埃特性。近红外到远紫外，符合观测到的丰度限制。因此，我们将深入了解星际颗粒的物理性质以及它们与其环境的物理和化学条件的关系。研究结果将极大地有助于分析和理解之前从各种太空任务中获得的数据以及未来获得的数据。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过利用基金会的智力价值进行评估，认为值得支持以及更广泛的影响审查标准。