We'd like there to be ample time for discussion after each presentation. The times listed after the talks indicate the talk time + discussion time (in units of minutes). Speakers should make sure that their talks are no longer than the talk time.

All oral presentations will be in LSP Room 142.

Morning Oral Session

8:15 - 9:00 a.m.: Registration and Breakfast in LSP Lobby

9:00 - 9:15 a.m.: Welcome to Franklin and Marshall College

9:15 - 9:35 a.m.: Steven Clark (Hood College), "Ascertaining the Primordial Matter Power Spectrum Through Gravitational Waves and Primordial Black Holes" (15+5)

The primordial matter power spectrum is a description of how matter was distributed in the early universe. Due to its location in cosmological history, it is difficult to measure, but future gravitational wave experiments offer a possible path through the stochastic background. Primordial black holes on the other hand are produced in the early universe due to large curvature perturbations and can provide another possible avenue through measurements of their electromagnetic signature. By correlating both signals, very precise measurements of the matter power spectrum can be achieved.

9:35 - 9:55 a.m.: Stephanie Douglas (Lafayette College), "Constraining Stellar Rotation at the Zero-Age Main Sequence" (15+5)

As stars approach the main sequence, they contract and spin more rapidly; once they reach the main sequence, they stop contracting and their spin speed decreases. This spin-down is widely considered to be caused by angular momentum lost via stellar winds. At and beyond the zero-age main sequence (ZAMS), internal angular momentum transport between the core and outer envelope is thought to be crucial for understanding surface spin rates. We present the first robust observational constraints on rotation for FGK stars at this critical age. We analyze TESS light curves for 1410 members of five young open clusters with ages between 25 and 55 Myr. In total, we measure 868 rotation periods, including 96 new, high-quality periods for stars around 1 M_sun. This is an increase of ten times the existing literature sample at the ZAMS. We then compare our data to models for stellar angular momentum evolution. Although the ages derived from these rotation models do not match isochronal ages, we show that these observations can clearly discriminate between different models for stellar wind torques. In addition, our results indicate that magnetic braking and/or internal angular momentum transport significantly impact rotational evolution even on the pre-main sequence.

9:55 - 10:15 a.m.: Braden Wolf (Gettysburg College), "The CPALS Algorithm: Accounting for Light Speed in Simulations" (15 +5)

Projecting data from cosmological simulations to match observations of galaxy clusters has traditionally been a computationally expensive method, due to the requirements for running the common light cone algorithms and the storage of additional simulation snapshots. This paper presents a numerical algorithm for creating projections of galaxy clusters from cosmological simulation data using the "onion method" of light cone generation. Our method differs from the typical method in that it can be run on simulation data posteriori, from archived simulation snapshots, rather than at the time of simulation. My talk will describe the underlying method we implement in our algorithm, as well as presenting a comparison of some newly projected data to the original. The resulting projected output data may then be used to compute astrophysical statistics of interest (such as radial velocity dispersion). To illustrate one possible application for the method, we will compare some of those statistics between both the projected and unprojected simulation clusters. I will also provide some performance analyses of our method, which we are calling the Cluster Projection Accounting for Light Speed (CPALS) algorithm.

10:15 - 10:35 a.m.: W. N. Brandt (Penn State), "New Results from the XMM-SERVS X-ray Survey of the LSST Deep-Drilling Fields" (15+5)

Cosmic X-ray surveys over the past two decades have played a critical role in transforming our understanding of growing supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the distant universe. I will describe new results from one key survey advancing this effort: the 13.1 deg^2 XMM-SERVS survey. XMM-SERVS has successfully mapped three LSST Deep-Drilling Fields (DDFs) at 50 ks XMM-Newton depth, focusing on the SERVS areas of W-CDF-S, XMM-LSS, and ELAIS-S1. These fields have first-rate multiwavelength coverage already and are LSST/DES DDFs, MOONS/PFS/4MOST massive spectroscopy fields, prime TolTEC/ALMA fields, and SDSS-V/4MOST multi-object reverberation-mapping fields. About 12,000 X-ray sources have been detected and characterized, the majority of which (86%) are active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and these are presently being studied. I will summarize science investigations including multiwavelength fitting of infrared-to-X-ray spectral energy distributions, identification of the most highly X-ray obscured AGNs, dwarf AGN studies, combined radio/X-ray AGN investigations, and mapping of cosmic SMBH growth as a function of galaxy stellar mass.

10:35 - 10:55 a.m.: Emily Wilson (Lycoming College), "ChatGPT in Advanced Stellar Evolution Course" (15+5)

Generative AI is a tool that our students will be expected to know how to use in the workforce. Though it continues to advance, it will always have limitations. In an upper-level stellar evolution course, students were asked to prompt ChatGPT to write and solve an advanced astrophysics problem related to class concepts, then analyze the solution on their own. During this process, not only were robust student perceptions of ChatGPT recorded, but the critical thinking skills demonstrated by students far exceeded any other assignment submitted throughout the semester. Several anecdotes indicate that assigning this type of ChatGPT project may serve to develop a modern skill and serve as an evaluable demonstration of widely applicable problem solving skills for students.

10:55 - 11:25 a.m.: Coffee Break and Poster Session

11:25 a.m. - 12:25 p.m.: KEYNOTE ADDRESS, Arpita Roy (Schmidt Futures), "The Ecosystem of Astrophysics: Your Science in Context of the World"

Astronomical discovery is an incredibly engaging pursuit, from the quest for life on nearby exoplanets to cosmic questions about the birth and death of the Universe. However, as you step into the world of professional science, it is just as valuable to understand the ecosystem in which our science is enabled. In this talk, I will ask us to look beyond our telescopes and Jupyter notebooks for a moment, to consider the organization and trajectory of the field itself. The ecosystem of astrophysics is created by the priorities and opinions of people within it, and we will discuss how policy decisions and funding mechanisms cascade through the academic hierarchy, ultimately influencing the opportunities available to students and researchers. We will discuss why some subfields thrive while others wait decades for resources and data, and we will challenge ourselves to consider the balance between leading and following the trends within the field. Situating your scientific interest in a global context also allows you to see the profound impact we often have, far from the esoteric core of our work. We will touch on the ambitious observatories and missions that are promised for your use in the coming decades, and how you might navigate this interconnected landscape to make a lasting impact on both the field and the future.

Lunch

12:25 - 1:25 p.m.: Lunch

1:25 - 1:45 p.m.: Charles Reisner (Franklin and Marshall College), "Modeling High-Redshift Emission Lines from the CECILIA Survey" (15+5)
The recent CECILIA survey has demonstrated that JWST will facilitate observations of high-wavelength emission lines from star-forming galaxies at high redshifts (z >= 2). Although observed emission lines provide information about several characteristics of their sources, the values of the parameters that produce them are not fully understood. Matching modeled emission lines of star-forming regions to those observed can provide insight into approximately which chosen parameters may be responsible for the observed data. Using Cloudy photoionization code and spectral synthesis models, I attempt to replicate the conditions that produced the emission lines measured in the CECILIA survey. I vary emission line intensities as a function of the ionization parameter, the nebular and stellar metallicities of the star-forming region, and extinction. I then use Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods to statistically compare the model-generated emission lines to those of CECILIA.

1:45 - 2:05 p.m.: Adib Kabir (Gettysburg College), "Measurement of Proton's Energy Loss Through Thin Gold Film" (15+5)

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) aims to reduce the systematic uncertainties of the energy spectrum in the neutron's lifetime experiment, but the presence of any "dead" layer inside the detector affects the energy spectrum of low-energy ions. In order to take this factor into account, we conducted this experiment to determine energy loss spectra of proton beam within the Gold dead layer and compare this spectra with the Stopping Power (SP) of Gold from the NIST's database. To that end, we generated 50-200 keV energy proton beam in Gettysburg College's 200 keV Van de Graff proton accelerator and collected the proton counts received by the detector, containing Gold layer, for different corresponding energy channels using energy spectra measuring software. As a result, we had to evaporate gold onto different batches of circular glass slides, and Si detector within the Gold Evaporator chamber and determined the thickness of gold layers by utilizing UV-Vis Spectroscopy technology, and AFM Technology. Employing these data, we plotted SP of the Gold dead layer versus the kinetic energy of the proton beam using the thickness function of the Gold and differentiated this plot with the graph of SP of Gold collected from the NIST database.

2:05 - 2:25 p.m.: Melissa Morris (Lycoming College), "What Can Radio AGN with Bent Jets Tell Us About Galactic Environments?" (15+5)

A galaxy's environment has a huge impact on its evolution. This is seen across a wide range of locations, from the densest of galaxy clusters to vast voids of space. How environments affect galaxy evolution largely depends on the amount of gas that permeates these dense regions of space. Galaxy groups, which are typically smaller than clusters, host most of the galaxies in our local universe, yet direct observation of the gas that exists in these environments has proven challenging for modern X-ray observatories. However, by studying the effect this gas can have on galaxies that are embedded within it, we can begin to measure how much gas actually resides in these environments. Radio AGN are unique tools in studying galaxy environments, as their morphologies are particularly sensitive to their surroundings. Specifically, an AGN's jets can be bent back by ram pressure from a surrounding medium. We can use observations of these bent jets to measure the density of the medium through which they are traveling. We've studied a sample of bent and unbent AGN jets to characterize their environments and found that bent AGN tend to exist in denser, larger, dynamically younger environments than other radio AGN, supporting the fact that they are being bent back by a surrounding gaseous medium. Furthermore, we have used a sample of bent AGN in galaxy clusters to estimate the density of the intracluster medium, allowing us to compare our measurements to X-ray measurements. Preliminary results have shown that our method can effectively carry out this measurement, as long as we can estimate the relative velocity between the AGN and the surrounding medium. Current and future work involves using AGN with bent jets to measure the density of gas in a sample of 13 galaxy groups and expanding our sample of AGN with bent jets using the Very Large Array Sky Survey.

2:25 - 2:45 p.m.: Fan Zou (Penn State), "How Do Supermassive Black Holes Grow from z=4 to z=0?" (15+5)

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) grow together with their host galaxies throughout cosmic time, and two growth channels are present - accretion and merger. I will talk about our recent efforts to build a complete picture of the SMBH growth under these two channels. First, regarding the accretion channel, it has been shown that the population mean SMBH accretion rate primarily correlates with galaxy stellar mass and redshift for the general galaxy population. I will present the best measurements of this function with our compilation of an unprecedentedly large sample from nine high-quality survey fields and our development of an advanced semiparametric Bayesian method. I will then combine our observationally constrained accretion channel with modern cosmological simulations, which provide merger information, to illustrate how SMBHs evolve from z=4 to z=0. Our analyses can address multiple issues about the SMBH population, such as their mass function, their scaling relation with their host stellar mass, and the contributions of the two growth channels to the overall SMBH population growth.

2:45 - 3:05 p.m.: Coffee Break and Poster Session

3:05 - 3:25 p.m.: George Carson (Dickinson College), "Photometric Analysis of the Eclipsing Binary KH 15D" (15+5)

The edge-on binary T Tauri star V582 Mon (KH 15D) is surrounded by a tilted disk of dusty material that has occulted one or both stars periodically since first being noticed in 1995. The circumbinary disk has been modeled to have a period of approximately 1000 years. Following the complete obscuration of both stars, which ended in 2012, the trailing edge of the circumbinary disk began to uncover the orbit of star B, and will soon begin to uncover the orbit of star A. We present results from recent (2018-2024) observing campaigns as collected by Dickinson's Britton Observatory as well as data from Lowell Observatory, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), and multiple amateur astronomers. Following an extensive reorganization of this and historical data for future standardization, we have confirmed results on the orbital period of the binary to be 48.37 days through periodogram analysis. Despite star B being mostly unobscured, we were unable to extract a rotation period through a similar periodogram analysis. Currently, we are exploring the inconsistent density of the circumbinary disk, notably the presence of non-uniform clumps of material in the trailing edge compared to the sharpness of the leading edge. Extinction and color changes of the system's light curve allow insight into the size of the particles within the trailing clumps assisting our understanding of the properties of the disk. Using data collected in 2018-2019 and data from 2022-2023, we report on how the morphology of the disk has changed through extinction analysis. In the future, we hope to collect enough data for the period of star B to be resolvable and hopefully begin to view star A. We plan on continuing work on extinction and color analysis for 2019-2022 and for new data collected in 2024 to get a better picture of the changing structure in the outer disk. The clumpiness and transparency of the outer occulting material provide a unique opportunity to study the properties of dust grains in a potential planet-forming zone. Continued observations of the system carry significant importance since, in relatively short order, we will no longer be able to utilize the geometry of the system to probe the disk material.

3:25 - 3:45 p.m.: Phill Reed (Kutztown University), "TESS Reveals Details of KU Cygni's Accretion Disk" (15+5)

KU Cygni is a long-period (~38.4 days) interacting Algol-type eclipsing binary star known to exhibit strong double-peaked hydrogen emission lines due to its relatively persistent accretion disk. However, it has also been shown to undergo episodic dimming events arising from a thickening of the disk, followed by brightening as dust presumably migrates inward through the disk and evaporates. This makes KU Cyg an excellent natural laboratory for observing dynamic physical processes within its accretion disks and for investigating the disk's physical properties such as viscosity. We present high-cadence TESS photometry and identify rapid variability (flickering) that is likely due to transits of high density/opacity disk regions across the line of sight to the primary star, and we support these observations with coinciding ground-based spectroscopy and multi-band photometry. We show that the secondary star is not significantly variable and we identify a correlation between the observed photometric variations and the strengths of certain absorption lines associated with the primary star, such as Fe II.

3:45 - 4:00 p.m.: Concluding Remarks

Matthew Motuz (Lycoming College), "Exomoons Can Survive Stellar Engulfment"

Adib Kabir (Gettysburg College), "Measurement of Proton's Energy Loss Through Thin Gold Film"

Yaman Acharya (Gettysburg College), "Simulating the Cosmic Web with Zeldovich Pancake"

Charles Reisner (Franklin and Marshall College), "Rotation Slicing: Using Astropy to Investigate Tilted Infall Regions"

Menelaos Raptis (Franklin and Marshall College), "CECILIA: A Direct-method Metallicity Calibration for Cosmic Noon through the Epoch of Reionization"

Melanie Ficarra (Franklin and Marshall College), "Monitoring Radio Source NVSS J054710-02319: Image Pipeline Progress Report, Part 1"

Serena Almy (Franklin and Marshall College), "Monitoring Radio Source NVSS J054710-02319: Image Pipeline Progress Report, Part 2 (Fixing Astrometry.Net's Inaccurate Plate Solutions)"

E. Levy, R. Richi, M. Golden, M. Shaw (Franklin and Marshall College), "The AGN of the Mariposa Nebula"

Ginny McSwain (Lehigh University), "Stellar Paternity Tests: Tracing Stars Back to the Cluster of their Birth"

Hannah Peik (Lehigh University), "Machine Learning for Asteroid Classification"

Lincoln Capwell (Lehigh University), "Characterization of TESS Eclipsing Binary Orbital Periods with KELT"

Emma Babula (Lehigh University), "Photometric Study of Centaurs With Sky Surveys"

Catrina Hamilton-Drager (Dickinson College), "Optical Observations of the Eclipsing Binary VZ Psc"