Discovering and Characterizing Protoplanetary Systems Using Novel Imaging Techniques

斯蒂芬妮·萨勒姆被授予美国国家科学基金会天文学和天体物理学博士后奖学金，负责加州大学圣克鲁斯分校的研究和教育项目。Sallum将开发方法，尽可能地拍摄附近恒星周围尘埃圆盘的最清晰图像。由于这些圆盘可能是行星的诞生地，这些图像将让天文学家了解行星是如何围绕恒星形成的。除了这项研究，萨勒姆还将为囚犯教育开发一门天文学课程。要了解行星是如何形成的，需要对吸积的原行星进行直接观测。通过开发和改进新的成像方法，可以在望远镜的理论分辨率极限下探测到伴星，Sallum将推进高对比度成像技术来研究原行星盘。然后，她将把这些技术应用于对原行星盘的地面观测，这些原行星盘包含可能表明存在吸积行星的内部间隙。萨勒姆还将利用詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜为未来的行星搜索做准备，该望远镜可以探测到恒星周围近距离的行星伴星，这些恒星的亮度比地面望远镜可以观测到的要暗一个数量级。对于她工作中的教育部分，萨勒姆将在加州大学圣克鲁斯分校的囚犯教育项目中创建并教授一门天文学课程。

Stephanie Sallum is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship to conduct a program of research and education at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Sallum will develop methods to take the sharpest possible images of dusty disks around nearby stars. Because these disks are potential birthplaces of planets, the images will allow astronomers to understand how planets form around stars. Alongside this research, Sallum will develop an astronomy course for inmate education.Understanding how planets form requires direct observations of accreting protoplanets. By developing and refining new imaging methods that can detect companions at a telescope's theoretical resolution limit, Sallum will advance high contrast imaging techniques to study protoplanetary disks. She will then apply these techniques to ground-based observations of protoplanetary disks containing inner clearings that might indicate the presence of accreting planets. Sallum will also prepare for future planet searches with the James Webb Space Telescope, which can detect close-in planetary companions around stars that are orders of magnitude fainter than those observable from ground-based telescopes. For the educational component of her work, Sallum will create and teach an astronomy course at the UC Santa Cruz Program for Inmate Education.