Poster Session

The poster session takes place from 4:00 to 5:30 PM on January 21st. Posters may be set up before the session during lunch. Give yourself at least fifteen minutes to set up. We will supply poster boards, pins and binder clips for displaying posters. Posters must be removed no later than 6:00 PM on January 21st. Any poster left after this time will be removed by conference staff and discarded.

If you are presenting a poster, please check if your home institution has poster printing capabilities.

• Your poster must be electronically generated and printed in advance of the conference. If your institution does not have poster printing services on site, we suggest using one of the following services:

  • FedEx Office. During checkout, specify that you will pick up at your local FedEx storefront.

  • postersmith.com. These posters are printed on durable fabric instead of paper and shipped to you.

• Your poster must be no larger than 4' (48") in either dimension. We suggest a landscape format, 48" wide and 36" high.

• Your poster must include your name, your institution, your research advisor's name, and the names of any collaborators or other contributors.

Printing assistance from UCSC CUWiP is available upon request. If requesting printing assistance through the conference, poster files must be submitted to the conference no later than Monday, January 10th.

I. CONTENT

The poster should testify to the careful design and execution of the research and present clear results that are well interpreted. It should include the following:

• • • • A short title

      • Student’s name

      • Collaborators, adviser(s), and department(s)

      • Funding sources

      • Research objectives

      • Scientific background and significance of research to the field

      • Methods

      • Results/findings (where possible, use graphs rather than tables to present your data)

      • Interpretation of results and conclusions

      • Directions for future research

      • Author contributions: If the student worked with collaborators on the project, including their adviser, this presentation should clearly describe the student’s role in the project.

      • Important references: typically, one includes three to five of the most relevant references; a citation to your own posting/publication would also be appropriate if such posting/publication exists.

II. SUGGESTIONS ON PRESENTATION STYLE

The poster should attract attention and convey information. Language should be simple and descriptions brief. Unnecessary jargon should be avoided; necessary technical terms should be defined. CUWiP attendees span many disciplines within physics – don’t assume everyone has the same scientific vocabulary. Remember what it was like when you first started research. Limit the length of text – well thought out pictures, drawings, charts, figures, etc. can convey more information than a large block of text. Pay attention to spelling and grammar. All text should be large enough to be read from a distance of 3 to 5 feet to enable multiple people to view the poster. All components of the poster should be easy to follow even in the absence of the presenter.

If you’ve never made a research poster before, look at examples from your department or online. Practice explaining your poster to friends, labmates, classmates, etc. Get excited!

Here are some resources for creating a good poster:

• • • Guide to Creating Research Posters: https://www.utexas.edu/ugs/our/poster

    • Sigma Xi suggestions for a good poster: http://www.sigmaxi.org/meetings/student/hints.shtml

    • Penn State guide to designing an effective poster: http://www.personal.psu.edu/drs18/postershow/

    • North Carolina State University guider to designing an effective poster: https://projects.ncsu.edu/project/posters/

    • Designing posters and graphs that are accessible to color-blind people:

    • https://designshack.net/articles/accessibility/tips-for-designing-for-colorblind-users/

    • Including safe color palettes: http://www.somersault1824.com/tips-for-designing-scientific-figures-for-color-blind-readers/

    • Additional tips to make an award-winning poster: http://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2013/09/17/make-award-winning-posters/

    • Blog with examples of good posters: http://betterposters.blogspot.com/

III. ORAL SUMMARY/PITCH

Each student should prepare an oral summary of their exhibit. This summary should describe the motivation of the project, the methodology, and the conclusions. The summary should not last more than 5 minutes (without questions); however, be prepared for interruptions and clarification questions from the audience.

• In addition to the suggestions below, we highly recommend reading Colin Purrington's poster guidelines.

• Watch out for the resolution of your images! Graphs that look fine on a computer screen are often fuzzy in print—make sure images are generated with a resolution of at least 300 dpi (dots per inch). Screen grabs are usually 72 dpi, and post-processing them to 300 dpi usually doesn't help.

• Do not use anything smaller than 18-point font. For headings, use at least 48-point font. If you are using PowerPoint or Keynote to make your poster, make sure the size of the slide is set to the correct physical size of the poster.

• Avoid jargon. Keep your audience in mind: fellow undergraduate physics majors who are not specialists in your field. If you must use a technical term that your peers may not know, be sure to define and explain it.

• Keep it brief. Save detailed explanations for your verbal interactions with the people stopping by your poster. Your goal should be to write a scaffold for those conversations, with just enough detail that a visitor can quickly understand the basic idea if you aren't there to explain it.

• Use at most two fonts and three colors. The simpler the design, the better.

• Arrange your poster logically. Your poster should lead a visitor through the story you want to tell. Visually draw attention to both the problem your research addresses and to your conclusions. (Tip: try glancing at your poster out of the corner of your eye and see where your eye lands first.)

The top five posters will be recognized with Outstanding Poster Awards; one award will be for originality (in thesis or method of solution); a second award will be for the best methodology; there will be up to three topical awards for the best poster in each physics subfield. Posters will be judged based on the rubric below.

The detection of GRB170817 has offered a unique insight into the physics of binary neutron star mergers, the production of short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) jets, and their interaction with external media to produce an afterglow. Using a publicly available model of afterglow light curves, named afterglowpy, we implement Monte-Carlo simulations to generate the afterglow modelling parameters. These parameters will then be used to predict afterglow light curves of similar events at arbitrary observing angles. These predictions will guide our interpretation of future multi-messenger observations of these events.

Objects orbiting the Sun at the edge of the solar system are called Kuiper Belt Objects. A small group of these objects are called cold classicals; they are unique because they are pristine, or they have not changed since they were formed in the early solar system. Because of their pristine nature, cold classicals help us gain insight into how the Kuiper Belt was formed. Using our Bayesian data analysis program, Multimoon, we have been able to model the shapes of two of these cold classicals – Borasisi and Sila – by tracking the orbits of their moons. The shapes of Kuiper Belt objects provide important new information about how they formed but are challenging to measure and we provide unique insights for the first time. Borasisi has been found to have a very high J2 value (a measurement of how much the object is squished like a pancake) and a high C22 value (a measurement of how much the object is stretched to look like a football). Sila’s moon Nunam has a more complicated orbit, preventing clear measurements, though there is statistical evidence that Sila also has an elongated shape. Our unique measurement of non-spherical shapes in the cold classical Kuiper belt helps to support the prevailing Kuiper Belt formation theory.

The research this poster shows is about the studies of gamma ray bursts. What's a gamma ray burst? It is one of the most strongest and energetic events in space, one of the brightest is caused by a supernova,one the least brightest is caused by neutron star collision. I had to use a code that would help me retrieve a whole list of gamma ray burst that had happen in the last few days even longer. Our goal for the code was to be able to bring up specific gamma ray burst no matter how old they are. What we did is modify the current code aswell as getting data from older Grbs(Gamma ray burst) and figuring out the flux of the burst that has happened in the past. Which required us in also needing swift-xrt data because we want to cross correlate swift and VERITAS data. with the code being entered we were able to retrieve the data and plot it, with the help of,Veritas and the swift. The code indicates it found a GRB and its giving flux and time data points to create a light curve. The questions i have is How do GRB’s(gamma ray burst) accelerate particles? What kind of particles do they accelerate? To what energies are these particles accelerated?

The Shack-Hartmann Imaging Motion Monitor (SHIMM) is an atmospheric profiler that can quantify turbulent behavior in different levels of the atmosphere, and also calculate a measure of atmospheric conditions known as the Fried parameter. An atmospheric profiler that operates at the telescope site will give astronomers real-time information about atmospheric conditions, allowing observers to optimize their telescope use. The SHIMM device includes both a physical instrument and a data pipeline algorithm to process raw image data. Before installation, we used both simulated and real data to verify that the simulation and algorithm work correctly, as well as verified that the results matched with previously determined atmospheric conditions at the Lick Observatory. We implemented the SHIMM instrument at the Nickel Telescope located at the Lick Observatory, and are in the process of collecting data from the instrument's camera. We will compare the results of on-sky testing with our simulation of atmospheric behavior, and in doing so will determine the real-time atmospheric conditions.

In the modern era of astronomy there are a large number of surveys which generate lists of potential new variable stars. We selected a sample of stars that have previously been classified as short period pulsating stars by ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last-Alert System) which we suspected might be High Amplitude Delta Scuti stars. Using the robotic telescopes of the Orson Pratt Observatory at Brigham Young University, we obtained high density light curves for the stars. Archival data was obtained to increase the baseline of our observations. Using all available data, we performed Fourier analyses for various subsets of the total data string and examined the times of maximum light when possible. In addition, we examined the location of each object on the delta Scuti Period-Luminosity relation to determine the mode of oscillation. From this information we determined that the initial classifications were accurate for the majority of the six stars observed. We will present a full classification of the six stars.

Gravitational waves are disturbances in spacetime. They result from intense processes involving massive bodies, like supernovae or colliding black holes. Despite the immense scale of these events, the strain in spacetime generated by these interactions is around the order of 1 in 10^21. The Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (aLIGO) detects such small-scale perturbations. Because gravitational waves can carry information otherwise undetectable by traditional EM telescopes, LIGO’s results are instrumental to offering new insights into black holes, neutron stars, and other aspects of the universe.

The two aLIGO detectors are Michelson interferometers, and each requires a fixed distance between their mirrors to detect whether a gravitational wave passes through and changes the relative distance between them. To accomplish this, LIGO has implemented a complex system of active and passive motion reduction practices. The Seismic Platform Interferometer (SPI) is a fringe-counting auxiliary interferometer that has been designed to reduce noise at low frequencies, aiming to have subnanometer stability over several hours. In this experiment, the SPI was prototyped and characterized in both air and vacuum.

Galactic cluster NGC 188 is 1.93 kpc away located in the constellation Cepheus. This cluster is one of the oldest clusters that contain W UMa stars (the others are: Praesepe, Wolf 630, and M67). W UMa variables are a type of eclipsing binary but are unique because they share an envelope of material around two stars. According to Simbad there are 741 interacting binaries in NGC 188. 70 of these are eclipsing binaries. The others are spectroscopic binaries and BY Draconis variables. We chose NGC 188 because it is an ideal place to study the evolution of W UMa stars because it is one of the oldest galactic clusters with this type of star. Despite the overabundance of variable stars, few have been studied with data sets that span as much time as ours. The data set used for this research spans thirteen years, from 2004 to 2017, and came from two observatories (Brigham Young University’s West Mountain Observatory & Orson Pratt Observatory on top of the Eyring Science Center). We observed nine variable star candidates and revised or confirmed their previously known periods, in addition to seeing whether there was any variability in the period of the observed stars over the baseline period.

Binary neutron star (BNS) mergers result in short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The number of GRBs as a function of their gamma-ray luminosity is observed to be a "broken" power-law function for both short and long GRBs. For long GRBs, this function can be explained by long GRB jets breaking out from the stellar envelope only if they are powerful enough. This reason does not work for short GRB jets considering the merger surrounding ejecta, so we explore the possibility that this function is an intrinsic property of the resulting central engines in BNS mergers. Our approach begins by calculating the gamma- ray luminosity of short GRBs starting from the two merging objects using results of numerical simulations published in the literature. Following this, we will consider the number of these events in order to determine if their luminosity function is expected to be a broken power-law as observed. This work describes the first steps on this approach.

In 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of spacetime itself — for the first time in history, from a collision between two black holes. Since then, LIGO has detected gravitational waves from dozens more collisions between black holes (BH), as well as between neutron stars (NS) reshaping our understanding of the universe. Collisions between neutron stars and black holes (NSBH) are especially unique astrophysical laboratories. Nuclear physics sets an upper limit on the mass of neutron stars, but quickly-rotating neutron stars can support additional mass. Moreover, it is widely believed that the smallest black holes are much more massive than this upper limit, such that there is a “gap” in the compact object mass distribution. To investigate the impact of extra-massive, neutron stars I created statistical models for their masses and spins. I analyzed the NSBH population for both real, measured LIGO data and simulated future observations. I showed that not modeling extra-massive NS results in bias, but with proper modeling, we can confidently measure the maximum NS mass and detect the “mass gap”, allowing us to probe the universe’s most extreme matter.

Studying Galactic dynamics by comparing observations and simulations is important because we can look at other galaxies from the outside to see how they work, but we see the Milky Way from within, so we have to be more creative. Soler et al. (2022) analyzed filamentary structures in the intensity of neutral hydrogen gas in the Milky Way; we compared their observations to simulated filamentary structures in order to explore possible connections between the angles of the filaments and their locations along the Galactic radius that might give insight into how the observed structures formed.

I found filament angles with respect to the galactic plane for multiple simulated data sets of neutral hydrogen intensity. Using these, I calculated the projected Rayleigh statistic - a measure of the average filament angle - over tiles of data centered at the midplane of each galaxy, and plotted the projected Rayleigh statistics on radius-velocity diagrams. We compared the simulated and observed results and found that the signs of the projected Rayleigh statistics for the simulated data didn’t change with location the way they did for Soler et al.’s observed data, which suggests a need for improved simulations and possibly an updated hypothesis.

Electrons undergo nonlinear Thomson scattering in an intense laser field. Helium atoms in the focus are ionized as they enter the focus of the laser where they undergo figure-eight motion at near-light speeds. As they are moving in the focus, they emit light of specific wavelengths in a radiation pattern. The radiation was measured at points around a sphere concentric with the laser focus for three wavelengths corresponding to the first three harmonics. Laser improvements are also highlighted that allowed us to achieve enough intensity that the electrons move near the speed of light in the focus. This data will verify existing theory about relativistic motion in a laser focus and will provide insight into some of the interactions present during the big bang.

The purpose of this project is to learn how to measure the coherence length of a helium-neon laser beam, which can also be used to measure that of other types of lasers. Cheaper lasers can sometimes have their coherence lengths be mislabeled, so building the interferometer ourselves can help us better understand how to perhaps make the device better for classroom use. Since we are working with a helium-neon laser, we used a long track with a cart to extend the length of the laser path in order to measure the coherence length. Having the path length be adjustable makes it easy to change lengths of lasers with a smaller coherence length. The set up that we have mainly consists of seven mirrors (all positioned to reflect the laser beam from the main source to the photo detectors positioned next to each other), two wave plates (one being a half wave plate, and the other being a quarter wave plate), three polarizers (two of the polarizers being 45 degree polarizers each sitting in front of the photodetectors, and a vertical polarizer sitting in front of the source that is shooting out the laser beam), a non-polarizing beam splitter, and a rectoreflection mirror attached to a moving cart which sits on a track to move back and forth.

We will use Raman spectroscopy to measure the relative concentrations of biochemical analytes in pork with varying concentrations of lipids, proteins, and bone (fatty, meaty, and bony tissue). In addition, we will measure pork cooked to different temperatures. We will analyze these spectra through Principal Component Analysis (PCA), direct comparison of peak areas between spectra from different tissue types, and make biochemical assignments for spectral features based on lookup tables in literature. These measurements lay the groundwork for a forthcoming machine learning model to evaluate the severity of a burn based on Raman spectroscopy measurements.

Using Raman Spectroscopy to locate and identify microplastics requires addressing the challenge of finding a small target inside of a large, uncontrolled medium. We present a comparison of a Monte Carlo simulation and experimental results using yeast cells in agarose phantoms in order to demonstrate that adding a scattering agent increases the range of detectability. In previous experiments, plastic microspheres were used to represent the microplastics; however, due to the complexity of possible contaminants found in microplastic samples, the yeast cell’s weaker signal represents a more accurate model than a plastic bead sample. Controlling the characteristics of a phantom containing yeast allows us to determine the detection range for small targets and suggest possible sample preparation and measurement strategies. While Raman Spectroscopy usually requires very little sample preparation, this work aims to understand how intentionally changing the properties of a sample will enhance the ability to detect small abnormalities from a greater distance than usually practical.

Lorneic Acids are a group of natural products that were isolated from various strands of bacteria, which were extracted from marine sediment in Japan. These biologically active molecules were found to behave as phosphodiesterase 5 inhibitors, which indicates that they have to potential to acts as drug candidates to treat a wide variety of diseases. The objective of this project is to utilize spectroscopic techniques to ensure that each reaction was properly executed for all steps in the first total synthesis of Lorneic Acid F. Interpreting the vibrational motions in an Infrared (IR) spectrum as well as the signals created in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (NMR) yields a unique identifier for these molecules. These intricate techniques utilize physics as well as mathematical concepts/models in order to properly function in analyzing the structure of organic compounds.

Measuring the mechanical forces exerted within living organisms can improve our understanding of physiological and pathological phenomena, but current methods of live (or in vivo) force measurement are often invasive or limited to controlled experimental settings. We address this issue in this project by developing upconverting nanoparticles (UCNPs) embedded in polymers as minimally invasive in vivo force sensors. These nanoscale particles absorb near-infrared light, emit visible light, and exhibit a change in their emission spectra under external applied force. We synthesized lanthanide-based UCNPs doped with varying concentrations of manganese to calibrate and optimize their sensitivity to applied forces. By pressing on the UCNPs embedded in polymer thin films using an atomic force microscopy tip, we found that the manganese-doped UCNPs demonstrated a more dramatic change in their emission spectra than the undoped UCNPs. These preliminary results not only demonstrate a strategy to increase the mechanosensitivity of UCNPs, but also represent a step toward implementing them safely and effectively as intercellular force sensors for biological hosts.

Stem cells are essential in medicine for uses such as stem cell therapy, stroke treatment, and more. Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) are capable of multilineage differentiation, meaning they can specialize into several different types of cells. We can manipulate this heterogeneity to obtain cells for specific therapies and areas of the body. However, we need to be able to isolate the cells of interest so that there is not as much variation of cell types. hMSCs can be sorted to categorize the cells into subpopulations, then differentiated into whichever cell type is needed. Fat and bone marrow cells are isolated in our work using microfluidic devices, in which dielectrophoresis (DEP) is employed. DEP uses a nonuniform electric field to polarize particles, neutral or not. Depending on their electrical properties, different cell types will react differently to certain electrical frequencies. This allows us to sort cells around within the microfluidic device. After polarization, the cells are sorted into separate channels, then collected and plated to be monitored and grown. We observed that DEP is an effective method for cell sorting, as the cells were not permanently altered and were able to continue growing.

Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) have gained recent interest on account of their connection to several human diseases, as well as their abundant presence in eukaryotes. Often, assistance from computer simulations is necessary to model these proteins, and molecular dynamics (MD) provide a remarkable and complementary tool to elucidate characteristics of IDPs. The achievement of a proper sampling of IDPs for MD studies relies considerably on the functionality and accuracy of their underlying representations, specifically their potential energy functions known as force field (FFs) and solvent models. Indeed, the target of most protein FFs is folded globular proteins, and their relevance to IDPs is disputable. I wish to quantify the limits of generic protein FFs in the sampling of IDPs, as well as propose a new method of writing disordered-specific FFs.

Dark matter's identity and behavior is a central question at the cosmological and quantum scales. Potential candidates for dark matter particles are soft unclustered energy patterns (SUEPs), which are spherically symmetric showers of low-energy particles. However, SUEPs are unexplored as their low-energy constituents cannot be distinguished from high-energy background events at the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) particle detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Here, solutions are developed for CMS by investigating Monte Carlo simulations of SUEP and background events, modeled from several SUEP mass benchmarks and LHC Run 2 data, respectively. Both event types were tested before and after boosting, a novel method that changes the frame of reference so that the SUEP's spherical shape is more distinct from background events. At the more challenging lower mass benchmarks, all boosted selections outperformed their unboosted counterparts in SUEP discrimination. At higher mass benchmarks, SUEP candidates were fully separated from the background for all unboosted and boosted selections. The present study is the first to implement and conclude that boosting is necessary for discriminating SUEPs, which will be tested for LHC Run 3.

Approximately 26% of the energy density of the Universe consists of an invisible non-baryonic material called dark matter. It has shaped our universe, including galaxy formation and evolution; however, it is not composed of any known particle. Indirect searches focus on detecting products of dark matter decay in the Galaxy, including electromagnetic radiation and cosmic-ray particles. The General Antiparticle Spectrometer (GAPS) is a NASA balloon mission designed to detect low-energy cosmic-ray antinuclei as a possible signature of dark matter annihilation. The astrophysical background for low-energy antideuterons is suppressed by several orders of magnitude relative to the dark matter signature. GAPS consists of a time of flight system surrounding a large-area silicon tracker cooled by an oscillating heat pipe thermal system. Particle identification is based on energy-loss patterns as incoming particles slow down in the tracker and the formation, de-excitation, and annihilation of anti-nucleonic atoms. This poster focuses on the integration and testing of the tracker data acquisition components at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Lab and their validation for high-altitude application during the first Antarctic flight in late 2023.

CUPID (CUORE with Upgraded Particle IDentification), an update to CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events), is an experiment designed to search for neutrinoless double beta decay using the candidate isotope 100Mo. To analyze the neutron-induced gamma ray background of 100Mo, an experiment was conducted by TUNL (Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory) in which neutron beams ranging from 4-8 MeV were targeted at varying samples of 100Mo, 56Fe, and Cu. Germanium detectors were used to measure the resulting gammas. In order to determine the neutron-100Mo cross sections, we are analyzing the TOF (Time of Flight) data for 100Mo and 56Fe. This is done by fitting the peaks in both 56Fe and 100Mo and using the well-known neutron-56Fe cross sections to extrapolate the 100Mo cross sections. We will be presenting the current results of this analysis.

*This work was supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics under Contract Nos. DE-FG02-00ER41138, DE-FG02-97ER41033, DE-SC0011091, and DE-SC0020423. We thank the CUPID Collaboration for inspiring this work, and the staff of the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL).

The interstellar medium engenders star formation. Stars develop in cold molecular hydrogen (H2) gas enclosed in warmer diffuse neutral hydrogen (HI) gas. However, the formation of molecular gas is poorly understood, despite its significance in the gas's lifecycle. Since H2 absorption line measurements necessitate bright background stars, in this project, we study the diffuse Milky Way gas facing towards the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) galaxies. We characterize the formation of Milky Way molecular gas by examining the correlations between H2 and small-scale HI, where the latter is preferentially aligned with the Galactic magnetic field and therefore probes it well. We find no statistically significant positive correlation between the H2 and small-scale HI column densities, indicating inconsistencies with our hypothesis that, in these regions, diffuse H2  is preferentially in small-scale filamentary structures. However, we uncover many telescopic artifacts which may affect our column density measurements of the small-scale HI. Thus our HI data is currently being re-reduced and cleaned to mitigate these artifacts. Our future steps involve re-analyzing this cleaned data before finalizing our conclusions.

Optics offer a powerful lens for understanding the physical properties of crystalline materials that exhibit exotic phenomena, such as topological insulators and Weyl and Dirac semimetals. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy detects electronic and vibrational transitions in the sample through the absorption or reflection of an incident light beam.

Weyl and Dirac semimetals exhibit a relativistic-like linear energy-momentum relationship. When exposed to a constant magnetic field, the energy states of electrons in crystals become discretized in Landau levels (LLs). FTIR spectroscopy at various magnetic fields show electronic transitions between LLs in similarly discretized peaks. Magnetic field dependence of LL transitions in relativistic-like materials will be uniquely curved unlike linearly dependent transitions in typical materials. The peak widths of these transitions can determine the electron mobility in the sample. The data peaks can be extracted, fitted with Gaussian curves, and analyzed with a Python algorithm. The peak widths of different Dirac semimetals were found to corroborate an increasing correlation between peak widths and LLs as well as magnetic fields.

When working with X-rays to study materials, a key measurement we wish for is the absorbed ionization in the the irradiation sample from our X-ray beam. Monte Carlo simulations are used to predict this quantity in order to provide tangible quantities for experiments to utilize. However, Accurate simulations for low energy X-rays are difficult to come across. For unique geometry, the likelihood of acquiring accurate desired results from simulations is even more unlikely. Using the framework of GEANT4, it is possible to manually build a simulation project to ultimately achieve the desired output variables needed for experiments.

In space, hypervelocity impactors hit spacecraft and generate plasmas, which cause electrical anomalies. To understand the mechanisms of these plasmas, we investigate their motion with the ground-based experiment videos taken at AVGR at NASA. In this project, we focus on the videos from the side-view camera of the seven experiments on aluminum targets to understand the relationship between plasma motion and target biases. First, we analyze the total intensity of each experiment over time. We also choose the peak intensity of each experiment as representative points and plot them against the biases. Second, we use optical flow analysis to quantify the orientation and speed of plasma expansion. Later, we trace the edge and peak velocity of plasmas to understand their relationship with target biases. From these analyses, we observe that the peak total intensity of plasmas increases as the absolute target bias increases, which may indicate that more plasma is generated when the absolute bias of the spacecraft surface is larger. We also learn that the expansion speed of plasmas decreases as the absolute target bias increases, revealing that the higher the absolute bias of the spacecraft surface is, the slower the plasmas might expand.

In my lab-based research, I study ultracold plasmas– seeking to improve density measurements in vacuum chambers by using a simple telescope system with ‘identical lenses.’ Knowing that identical lenses do not exist and that it is impossible to perfectly align optical systems, I quantify the degree of imperfection that can be tolerated while still obtaining reliable 1:1 imaging. Currently, the position of the plasma constantly changes, impacting the required 1:1 imaging. The data from this experiment could allow one to simply move the camera into the correct position, instead of realigning the lenses. I will be presenting my results from this experiment, with a discussion regarding image analysis techniques and how cameras can impact the images you take.

Due to the risk of lightning strikes, fires, and flash flooding, thunderstorm prediction is an important task in our changing climate. Predicting thunderstorms with Regional Climate Models (RCMs) remains elusive as there isn’t a way to predict individual lightning strikes. However, RCMs can predict two types of rainfall: convective precipitation and non-convective precipitation. I compared daily summer convective precipitation from three RCMs to historical data of daily summer rainfall when lightning was observed for eight cities in the Pacific Northwest from 1970-2020. I found there to be a correlation between convective precipitation and historical rainfall when lightning was observed. Additionally, I used the same three RCMs for the same cities and looked at convective precipitation and non-convective precipitation from 1970-2099. I found that some cities had declining amounts of non-convective precipitation, but increasing amounts of convective precipitation. This indicates that there could be an increase in the amount of rainfall due to thunderstorms in these areas.

Sound propagation in an ocean environment is extremely complex. Not only does sound travel faster in water than in air, but many variables, including temperature variation with depth, bottom and surface reflections, and bubbles can lead to many interesting interference patterns for sound traveling in the ocean. There has been a significant amount of research in underwater acoustics, ranging from sound ecology to using SONAR for submarine navigation. In this poster, I will present on the complex variability of sound speed in the ocean and show spectrograms for water environments subject to different temperature gradients. I will then compare these spectrograms to ones plotted from a laboratory water tank to propose that using a tank with anechoic paneling on the sides is a good model for studying sound propagation in the ocean.