Faculty Award for Women - Energetic Winds and Disk Accretionin Low Mass Young Stars

女性教师奖 - 低质量年轻恒星的能量风和盘吸积

• 批准号: 9023554
• 负责人: Suzan Edwards
• 金额: $ 25万
• 依托单位: Smith College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1991
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1991-11-01 至 1998-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9023554&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Faculty; Award; Women; Energetic; Winds

This faculty award for Women Scientists and Engineers is made to Dr. Suzan Edwards of the Five College Astronomy Department at Smith College. The NSF Faculty Award for Women Scientists and Engineers recognizes the high quality of the awardee's record in teaching and scholarship as well as the potential for continued significant contributions to scientific research, the academic profession, and the education of future scientists. Dr. Edwards will carry out research on energetic winds and disk accretion in low mass young stars. Current observational and theoretical work on star formation suggests that the gravitational collapse of dense, rotating cores in molecular clouds results in an initial configuration of a protostar which is dominated by a flattened spinning disk of roughly solar system dimension. During the first hundred thousand years, the simultaneous processes of mass infall onto the outer part of the disk and accretion of material through the disk and onto the central stellar object are hidden from direct view by the opaque screen provided by dust in the infalling remnant core material. Very early in this process, however, observations show that the protostellar system turns on an energetic bipolar wind. While the driving mechanism for this wind is not yet understood, theoretical arguments suggest that such a wind is required in order for the central object to shed sufficient angular momentum to grow to stellar dimensions. After several hundred thousand years, the energetic wind has removed enough of the remnant infalling core material that the star/energetic wind/accretion disk system becomes optically revealed as a T Tauri "star". A high resolution optical spectroscopic survey of T Tauri systems will be carried out at the 4m telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in a double-pronged study to investigate atomic lines formed in two distinct regions. Data from Observations of spectral lines formed in the energetic winds will be used to probe the wind origin and collimation mechanism, and to better constrain wind mass loss rates. Observations of lines formed in regions where mass accretion onto the stellar surface is occurring will be used to determine whether mass transfer from disk to star is conducted through a classical equatorial boundary layer or whether the stellar magnetic field interrupts the disk and channels disk material along field lines to the stellar surface.

该女性科学家和工程师奖授予了史密斯学院五学院天文学系的苏珊·爱德华兹博士。 美国国家科学基金会女科学家和工程师学院奖表彰获奖者在教学和学术方面的高质量记录，以及对科学研究、学术职业和未来科学家教育持续做出重大贡献的潜力。 爱德华兹博士将研究低质量年轻恒星的高能风和盘吸积。 目前关于恒星形成的观测和理论工作表明，分子云中致密旋转核心的引力塌缩导致了原恒星的初始构型，该构型主要由大约太阳系尺寸的扁平旋转盘主导。 在最初的十万年里，质量落入圆盘外部以及物质通过圆盘吸积到中心恒星物体上的同时发生的过程，被落入的残余核心物质中的尘埃提供的不透明屏幕所隐藏，无法直接看到。 然而，在这个过程的早期，观测表明原恒星系统开启了充满活力的双极风。 虽然这种风的驱动机制尚不清楚，但理论论证表明，为了使中心物体释放足够的角动量以生长到恒星尺寸，需要这种风。 几十万年后，能量风已经清除了足够多的残留的落入核心物质，使得恒星/能量风/吸积盘系统在光学上显示为一颗金牛座“恒星”。 金牛座 T 系统的高分辨率光学光谱调查将在基特峰国家天文台的 4m 望远镜上进行，这是一项双管齐下的研究，以调查在两个不同区域形成的原子线。 对高能风中形成的谱线的观测数据将用于探测风的起源和准直机制，并更好地限制风质量损失率。 对恒星表面发生质量吸积的区域中形成的线的观测将用于确定从盘到恒星的质量传递是否通过经典的赤道边界层进行，或者恒星磁场是否中断盘并将盘材料沿着场线引导到恒星表面。