Jeremy Heyl [Student/Postdoc Projects - To Do]
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Uncle Sam
Sam is indeed my middle name, but I'm probably not your uncle.  

Projects Looking for People

The scopes of the various projects are merely suggestive. Here is a key:

  • U - Undergraduate, a year or less, part-time
  • M - Master's, a couple of years, part-time
  • D - Doctoral, a couple of years, full-time
I suspect that some of the smaller projects could either be combined or expanded into something bigger. Alternatively, some of the larger projects could be broken down into smaller ones. Finally, I could have made a big error in estimating the size of the project.

Title Scope Type Summary
The first project examines the implications of strong magnetic fields for white dwarf stars.
Structure of Magnetized White Dwarfs M/D TC

A natural extension of my work with neutron-star envelopes and atmospheres is the determination of the structure of strongly magnetized white dwarfs. Some questions that need to be answered include:

  • How does a strong magnetic field affect the structure of a white dwarf?
  • Does the strong magnetic field cause the temperature of the surface to vary?
  • Is the emission from the surface polarized?
These next three projects focus on young neutron stars.
Old AXPs U P How do AXPs die? Do they go out with a burst (lots of them as in the soft-gamma repeaters) or do they fade away? What does the relative numbers of AXPs and SGRs tell us about the connection between these populations?
These next two projects focus on Type-I X-ray bursts.
Nucleosynthesis in X-ray Bursts? U/M P,TA  
Oscillations in Type-I X-ray Bursts U/M P  
Although these next projects are connected intimately with the previous three, they each have a much larger scope.
Neutron-Star Seismology M/D TC/TA  
Hydrodynamic Modelling of X-ray Bursts D TC  
Stability of Nuclear Burning on White Dwarfs M/D TC/TA  
This project has to do with axions, plasmas and strong magnetic fields.
Axions in the Double Pulsar U/M TC/TA  
These projects have to do with more fundamental physics but there are a variety of applications for compact objects.
Effective Action of Flux Tubes in Neutron Stars M/D TC/TA This builds on calculation by my former doctoral student, Dan Mazur.
Strong Magnetized Atoms U/M TC My former doctoral student, Anand Thirumalai, developed a versitile atomic structure program. The project would be use this software to perform calculations for large atoms that may be present in neutron-star and white-dwarf atmospheres.
Reconnection in Strongly Magnetized Plasmas U/M/D TC/TA My former doctoral student, Ramandeep Gill, examined several possible triggers for soft-gamma repeater bursts. The project would be develop a plasma physics simulation of reconnection in magnetar magnetospheres.

The project types denote what type of project it is. O is mainly observational. Because I don't have any pending proposals right now, this means the analysis of existing observations rather than going to the telescope. P denotes phenomenological. These projects are focussed on the interpretation of observations and predictions of future observations. The T, theoretical, projects examine various issues from the perspective of the physical processes, rather than to answer a specific observational question. These projects hopefully can make observational predictions, but this is gravy. C says that the project will probably be rather computational, while A indicates that significant progress may be possible with an analytic treatment.

If you don't see anything that interests you, let me know as we could probably come up with something together.

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Jeremy Heyl <heyl@physics.ubc.ca>
Last modified: 30 November 2012
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