CAREER: Developing High Resolution Infrared Instrumentation to Explore Solar Activity

首席研究员（PI）将从大熊太阳天文台（BBSO）现已退役的65厘米望远镜上升级焦平面仪器套件（特别是红外成像磁仪，或IRIM）。升级后仪器的灵活结构设计将允许IRIM可用于BBSO即将完工的新太阳望远镜（NST），以及当NST无法使用时的其他太阳望远镜。IRIM拥有一个基于fabry - p<s:1>的窄带可调谐滤波器，可在近红外（NIR）中提供高分辨率的二维光谱和偏振成像。考虑到NST预期的自适应光学能力，一旦它投入使用，PI将在NST上安装IRIM，目的是提高NST对太阳的光谱和偏振测量的空间分辨率和时间节奏。具有高分辨率和高塞曼灵敏度的近红外成像观测在太阳物理学中是罕见的。IRIM是为数不多的能够在活动模式下为太阳能社区提供此类科学数据的仪器之一。利用升级后的IRIM， PI将研究近红外白光耀斑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变化及其与磁通密度的关系。PI希望他的观测结果能够帮助验证当前的太阳和恒星耀斑模型，以及改进小尺度磁对流模型。为了加强天文学和普通科学的本科和研究生教育，PI将在新泽西理工大学校园内建立一个天文仪器教学实验室。这个新的实验室将让学生参与天文仪器的设计、开发、组装、校准和调试的全过程。PI还将加强现有的NJIT天文学和天体物理学课程，增加一门“天文仪器和观测技术”课程，这将鼓励物理学、光学科学与工程、计算机科学和计算机工程的跨学科教育。PI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该项目的工具开发和科学目标。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的公共夏季旅游期间以及在新泽西理工大学校园的教学实验室提供的太阳能和空间物理讲座，为社区教育和推广做出贡献。

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.