Collaborative Research: Exploring the Nearest Stars on Solar System Scales

合作研究：探索太阳系尺度上最近的恒星

• 批准号: 1517824
• 负责人: Elliott Horch
• 金额: $ 33.53万
• 依托单位: Southern Connecticut State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-10-01 至 2019-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1517824&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Exploring; Nearest; Stars

This project will explore the environments of more than 2000 of the nearest star systems to the Sun. The objectives are to (a) discover how unusual our Sun is in its stellar solitude, (b) understand how many stars of different types are multiples, (c) provide fundamental statistics that will drive our knowledge of how stars form, and (d) provide a list of stars where analogues of our Solar System might be found. The project allows us to place our own Sun in context in our Galaxy, answering the broad question, "How does our Sun compare to other stars?" It will also provide important information about the likelihood of habitable worlds. The project provides opportunities for graduate and undergraduate student training at both institutions, each of which includes significant fractions of minority students. Both institutions will develop supplemental observing programs for students and general public using local facilities, and they will integrate these with their educational programs.Two high-resolution imaging surveys will be completed using the Differential Speckle Survey Instrument (DSSI), a unique speckle imaging system that provides diffraction-limited imaging in two colors simultaneously. Observations will primarily be taken at Lowell Observatory's 4.3-meter Discovery Channel Telescope and at the Gemini North 8.1-meter Telescope. The first survey will target more than 1500 stars within 25 parsecs with V magnitudes brighter than 16. Observing nearby stars with DSSI will enable mapping of their stellar environments down to separations smaller than the distance of Mercury to the Sun, even at the horizon of the sample. The results will provide crucial insight into the star formation process, and the statistics of stellar multiplicity will be the benchmark for other types of multiplicity studies, with an emphasis on the Solar System scales crucial for planet formation. The second survey will target more than a thousand K-dwarfs within 50 parsecs in an equatorial sample that can be observed from both the northern and southern hemispheres. Incorporating other techniques together with DSSI images, these stars will be surveyed for companions down to Jovian masses to provide a unique data set of companions spanning a mass range of 1000 for this specific spectral type, providing a legacy data set that can be referenced for decades to come.

该项目将探索2000多个离太阳最近的星星系统的环境。其目标是：（a）发现太阳在其恒星孤独中是多么的不寻常;（B）了解有多少不同类型的恒星是倍数;（c）提供基本的统计数据，以推动我们对恒星如何形成的认识;以及（d）提供一个可能找到太阳系类似物的恒星列表。该项目使我们能够将我们自己的太阳置于银河系中，回答这个广泛的问题，“我们的太阳与其他恒星相比如何？”“它还将提供有关宜居世界可能性的重要信息。该项目为这两个机构的研究生和本科生提供培训机会，每个机构都有很大一部分少数民族学生。 两家机构将利用当地设施为学生和公众开发补充观测项目，并将这些项目与教育项目相结合。两项高分辨率成像调查将使用差分散斑调查仪器（DSSI）完成，这是一种独特的散斑成像系统，可同时提供两种颜色的衍射限制成像。观测将主要在洛厄尔天文台的4.3米发现频道望远镜和双子座北8.1米望远镜进行。第一次巡天将瞄准25秒差距内的1500多颗恒星，这些恒星的V星等超过16等。用DSSI观测附近的恒星将使它们的恒星环境映射到小于水星到太阳的距离的距离，即使在样品的地平线上。这些结果将为星星形成过程提供重要的见解，恒星多样性的统计数据将成为其他类型多样性研究的基准，重点是对行星形成至关重要的太阳系尺度。第二次巡天的目标将是在赤道样本中50秒差距内的1000多颗K矮星，这些样本可以从北方和南半球观测到。将其他技术与DSSI图像一起使用，这些恒星将被调查到木星质量的同伴，为这种特定的光谱类型提供跨越1000质量范围的同伴的独特数据集，提供可以在未来几十年参考的遗留数据集。