I am currently working with Professor Larry Rudnick on a multiwavelength analysis of the supernova remnant (SNR) Kepler. Kepler's SNR exploded in 1604, and today it is akin to an expanding fireball. It's located in our galaxy, but above the galactic plane. I use X-ray (from Chandra), optical (from Hubble Space Telescope), and radio (from the VLA) images to identify which material in the remnant was ejected when the star exploded (ejecta) and which was sitting around the star before it exploded as a result of the stellar wind (circum stellar material, or CSM). To do this, I make different kinds of images, including equivalent width images, and tomography images.
Equivalent width images, made for X-ray data, is a process of compensating for the background continuum emission by dividing the line emission by the continuum emission.
Tomography images are produces by scaling one image and subtracting it by another. The scaling factor is changed until an optimal factor or factors is discovered. This separates components with different spectral indicies. Tomography images can be made for any wavelength of data, although I primarily work with radio and X-ray tomography.
I am also doing some continuing research with Dr. Julie McEnery fo NASA GSFC on optical monitoring of blazars. Blazars are a class of active galactic nuclei (AGN) for which one of the bipolar jets is directed towards the Earth. Among the blazars I have studied are MRK421 and PKS1406-076. MRK421 is the most widly studied blazar, while PKS1406-076 is an almost-unstudied blazar with an interesting spectrum.
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