Is this project an undergraduate, graduate, or faculty project?
Undergraduate
Project Type
individual
Campus
Daytona Beach
Authors' Class Standing
Philip Mann, Senior
Lead Presenter's Name
Philip Mann
Lead Presenter's College
DB College of Arts and Sciences
Faculty Mentor Name
Ashley Kehoe
Abstract
The zodiacal cloud is the Solar System debris disk in which the Earth’s orbit is located. The dust that comprises the cloud comes from cometary, asteroidal, interstellar, and other source populations, but the relative ratios have proven hard to determine. However, asteroidal and cometary particles typically have different types of orbits, with asteroidal particles having more circular and lower inclination orbits than cometary particles. Accordingly, the relative velocities of these groups of particles with respect to Earth are also different, and measurements of these relative velocities can help distinguish between the sources. The spectrum of the zodiacal light contains solar absorption lines that are Doppler-shifted by moving dust particles. It is possible to determine dust particle velocities by observing the Doppler-shifted zodiacal light using the Wisconsin H-alpha Mapper (WHAM) — a specialized Fabry-Perot spectrometer. Focusing on a pair of scattered solar Mg I Fraunhofer lines, we have recently begun a three-year observing campaign with WHAM. In order to interpret these observations, we need to produce synthetic observations of how different orbital distributions of dust particles would shift and modify the observed spectral lines. Comparing these synthetic spectra to the actual observations will allow us to constrain the sources of the dust composing the zodiacal cloud. Here I present an overview of this new project and my work in analyzing the Ipatov et al (2008) code that will be altered to generate the synthetic spectra.
Did this research project receive funding support (Spark, SURF, Research Abroad, Student Internal Grants, Collaborative, Climbing, or Ignite Grants) from the Office of Undergraduate Research?
Yes, SURF
Determining the Sources of the Zodiacal Cloud Using Relative Velocities of Dust Particles from High-Resolution Spectroscopy
The zodiacal cloud is the Solar System debris disk in which the Earth’s orbit is located. The dust that comprises the cloud comes from cometary, asteroidal, interstellar, and other source populations, but the relative ratios have proven hard to determine. However, asteroidal and cometary particles typically have different types of orbits, with asteroidal particles having more circular and lower inclination orbits than cometary particles. Accordingly, the relative velocities of these groups of particles with respect to Earth are also different, and measurements of these relative velocities can help distinguish between the sources. The spectrum of the zodiacal light contains solar absorption lines that are Doppler-shifted by moving dust particles. It is possible to determine dust particle velocities by observing the Doppler-shifted zodiacal light using the Wisconsin H-alpha Mapper (WHAM) — a specialized Fabry-Perot spectrometer. Focusing on a pair of scattered solar Mg I Fraunhofer lines, we have recently begun a three-year observing campaign with WHAM. In order to interpret these observations, we need to produce synthetic observations of how different orbital distributions of dust particles would shift and modify the observed spectral lines. Comparing these synthetic spectra to the actual observations will allow us to constrain the sources of the dust composing the zodiacal cloud. Here I present an overview of this new project and my work in analyzing the Ipatov et al (2008) code that will be altered to generate the synthetic spectra.