CAREER: Developing High Resolution Infrared Instrumentation to Explore Solar Activity

首席调查员(PI)将升级大熊太阳天文台(BBSO)现已退役的65厘米望远镜的焦平面仪器套件(特别是红外成像磁强计，或IRIM)。升级后仪器的灵活结构设计将允许IRIM与BBSO即将完成的新太阳望远镜(NST)一起使用，以及在NST不可用时与其他太阳望远镜一起使用。IRIM拥有一个基于Fabry-Pérot的窄带可调谐滤光器，可在近红外(NIR)提供高分辨率的2D光谱和偏振成像。考虑到NST一旦投入使用，预期的自适应光学能力，PI将在NST上安装IRIM，目标是提高NST对太阳的光谱和偏振测量的空间分辨率和时间节奏。在太阳物理学中，高分辨率和高塞曼灵敏度的近红外成像观测是罕见的。IRIM是为数不多的能够以运动模式向太阳能社区提供此类科学数据的工具之一。通过升级的红外光斑成像仪，PI将研究近红外白光耀斑中的能量传输机制和能量释放过程，以及近红外光斑对比度的中心到边缘的变化及其与磁通量密度的关系。国际天文学联合会希望他的观测结果有助于验证目前的太阳和恒星耀斑模型，并改进小尺度磁对流模型。为了加强天文学和普通科学方面的本科生和研究生教育，国际天文学联合会将在NJIT园区建立一个天文仪器教学实验室。这个新实验室将让学生参与天文仪器设计、开发、组装、校准和调试的整个过程。国际天文学联合会还将通过增加“天文仪器和观测技术”课程来加强现有的NJIT天文学和天体物理学课程，这将鼓励物理学、光学科学和工程、计算机科学和计算机工程的跨学科教育。国际和平研究所的研究小组将包括两名本科生和一名研究生，他们每个人都将参与这个项目的仪器开发和科学目标。因此，这项工作将利用NJIT和BBSO独特的观测和实验室设施，教育和培训下一代太阳物理学家和仪器工程师。PI的团队还将通过在BBSO的公共暑期旅行期间提供的太阳和空间物理演示以及通过NJIT校园的教学实验室，为社区教育和外联做出贡献。

The Principal Investigator (PI) will upgrade the focal plane instrumentation suite (specifically the InfraRed Imaging Magnetograph, or IRIM) from the now-retired 65-cm telescope at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO). The flexible structural design of the upgraded instruments would allow the IRIM to be available for use with BBSO's New Solar Telescope (NST) now nearing completion, as well as with other solar telescopes whenever NST is not available. IRIM possesses a Fabry-Pérot based narrow-band tunable filter to provide high resolution 2D spectroscopic and polarimetric imaging in the near infrared (NIR). Given the NST's expected adaptive optics capability once it is operational, the PI will install IRIM on the NST with the objective of increasing the spatial resolution and temporal cadence of the NST's spectroscopic and polarimetric measurements of the Sun.NIR imaging observations with high resolution and high Zeeman sensitivity are rare in solar physics. The IRIM is one of the few instruments able to provide such scientific data to the solar community in campaign mode. With the upgraded IRIM, the PI will study energy transport mechanisms and energy release processes in white light flares in the NIR, as well as center-to-limb variations of facular contrast in the NIR and their relationship to magnetic flux density. The PI expects his observational results to help validate current models of solar and stellar flares, as well as improve small-scale magneto-convection modeling.To enhance undergraduate and graduate education in astronomy and general science, the PI will create an astronomical instrument teaching laboratory on the NJIT campus. This new laboratory will involve students in the entire process of astronomical instrument design, development, assembly, calibration, and commissioning. The PI will also enhance the existing NJIT astronomy and astrophysics curriculum by adding a course on "Astronomical Instruments and Observational Techniques," which will encourage cross-disciplinary education in Physics, Optical Science and Engineering, Computer Science, and Computer Engineering. The PI's research group will include two undergraduate students and one graduate student, each of whom will participate in this project's instrumental development and scientific objectives. This effort will thereby educate and train the next generation of solar physicists and instrument engineers, using unique observing and laboratory facilities at NJIT and BBSO. The PI's team will also contribute to community education and outreach through solar and space physics presentations provided during the BBSO's public summer tours and through the teaching laboratory on the NJIT campus.