The Seyfert Prize Fellowship for Undergraduate Research
Physics and astronomy undergraduates who are currently
sophomores or
juniors are invited to apply for the Seyfert Prize Fellowship in the
Department of Astronomy at Case Western Reserve University.
The Fellowship will support one student each summer to
come to
Cleveland and work on cutting-edge astronomical research with a CWRU
faculty member. The Seyfert Fellowship will be awarded based on a
national competition early each spring, and the term of the award will
run from late May - early August, 2009.
This application
form
should be mailed or emailed no later than February 15, 2009 to:
Undergraduate Astronomy Research Program
attn: Agnes Torontali
Sears Library, 5th Floor
10900 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44106-7215
agnes@case.edu
Applicants should also arrange to have an official
transcript plus
three confidential letters of recommendation sent separately to the
same address.
The fellowship will provide travel costs, accommodation
on campus at "The
Village at 115" and a
stipend of $4800 for the 10-week fellowship.
The Fellowship's namesake, Dr. Carl Seyfert (1911-1960),
was a
Cleveland-born astronomer who worked on a variety of subjects,
including stellar and galactic astronomy, and astronomical
instrumentation. He was a pioneer in the study of spiral galaxies with
bright emission-line nuclei. Such galaxies are now referred to as
"Seyfert galaxies," and are believed to host supermassive black holes
at their centers which drive their nuclear activity.
Questions? Send email to agnes@case.edu
Potential Seyfert Fellowship Projects
Mapping the Galaxy in Four
Dimensions: Heather Morrison's research focuses on the
structure and evolution of galaxies, particularly the Milky Way.
Students will be involved with the enormous dataset from the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey, using both imaging and spectroscopy to trace the
origins of the different parts of the Milky Way, including the debris
of satellites that have been cannibalized by our Galaxy. Students will
learn data mining and general programming skills and the astronomical
links between the data and the origins of galaxies.
Observations and
Simulations of Galaxy Clusters: Chris Mihos's research focuses
on the evolution of galaxies in galaxy clusters, and a variety of
projects are available for students. Using supercomputer simulations of
galaxy clusters, students can study how gravitational interactions
affect the cluster galaxies, and how the kinematic properties and
spatial distribution of gravitationally stripped intracluster stars
evolve as the cluster grows. Students can also participate in
observational studies of the diffuse intracluster starlight, learning
data reduction and image analysis techniques to quantify the observed
properties of the intracluster starlight in nearby galaxy clusters.
Large-scale structure and
galaxy clustering (w/ Idit Zehavi): The research field of
large-scale structure explores and characterizes the distributions of
matter and light on the largest scales in the universe. Galaxy sky
surveys have yielded much information on the content and spatial
distribution of the universe's structure. One of the main foci of Dr.
Zehavi's research is studying galaxy clustering using the Sloan Digital
Sky Survey (SDSS), an ambitious survey mapping a quarter of the sky.
She is primarily interested in studying the clustering properties of
galaxies and their implications on cosmological models, galaxy
formation and evolution, and the relationship between galaxies and dark
matter. Students will get experience in mining the extensive SDSS
galaxy database and making related inferences.
High resolution
spectroscopy (w/ Earle Luck): the origins of the elements in
individual stars and their distribution in the Galaxy's disk are the
focus of Prof Luck's work. One project is to evaluate the reliability
of stellar masses as derived from isochrone versus evolutionary track
fitting. The basic techniques are well understood but there are
claims that the two techniques yield systematically different masses
even though the input observational data to each method are
identical. The problem may be that the assumed evolutionary
tracks and isochones are not commensurate; that is, they in general
drawn from different theoretical calculations. Our project is to
find theoretical calculations which have both isochrone and track data
available and then calculate masses from a single theoretical
source. If the masses are the same, then there is no problem.
However, if they are different we must then examine the mathematical
fitting and interpolation models used in the mass determinations.
Past Seyfert Fellows and Projects
2008 Seyfert Fellow Ed Montiel (U Arizona)
I worked with Professor Heather
Morrison on the Ring
Around the Galaxy, which is a
ring-like feature stretching 100 degrees around the outside of our
Galaxy's disk, using SDSS imaging and
spectroscopy, to try to decide between two different theories. One
theory has the Ring formed by an accreting
satellite which leaves tidal streams woven around the disk, the other
theory says that the Ring is just some
feature of the outer disk, which is not well studied at all.
Our results indicate that the outer disk origin is more likely.
Prof Morrison presented our work at an international conference in
Chicago in September 2008, and it was
received with interest.
