ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Physics
- Creators: Scannapieco, Evan
In this work I present an improved model for following the formation of Pop III stars, their effects on early galaxy evolution, and how we might search for them. I make use of a new subgrid model of turbulent mixing to accurately follow the time scales required to mix supernova (SN) ejecta -- enriched with heavy elements -- into the pristine gas. I implement this model within a large-scale cosmological simulation and follow the fraction of gas with metallicity below a critical value marking the boundary between Pop III and metal enriched Population II (Pop II) star formation. I demonstrate that accounting for subgrid mixing results in a Pop III stars formation rate that is 2-3 times higher than standard models with the same physical resolution.
I also implement and track a new "Primordial metals" (PM) scalar that tracks the metals generated by Pop III SNe. These metals are taken up by second generation stars and likely result in a subclass of carbon-enhanced, metal-poor (CEMP) stars. By tracking both regular metals and PM, I can model, in post-processing, the elemental abundances of simulation stars. I find good agreement between observations of CEMP-no Milky Way halo stars and second generation stars within the simulation when assuming the first stars had a typical mass of 60 M☉, providing clues as to the Pop III initial mass function.
Uncovering the intrinsic variability of GRBs constrains the size of the GRB emission region, and ejecta velocity, in turn provides hints on the nature of GRBs and their progenitors. We develop a novel method which ties together wavelet and structure-function analyses to measure, for the first time, the actual minimum variability timescale, Delta t_min, of GRB light curves. Implementing our technique to the largest sample of GRBs collected by Swift and Fermi instruments reveals that only less than 10% of GRBs exhibit evidence for variability on timescales below 2 ms. Investigation on various energy bands of the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) onboard Fermi shows that the tightest constraints on progenitor radii derive from timescales obtained from the hardest energy channel of light curves (299--1000 keV). Our derivations for the minimum Lorentz factor, Gamma_min, and the minimum emission radius, R = 2c Gamma_min^2 Delta t_min / (1+z), find Gamma < 400 which imply typical emission radii R ~ 1 X 10^14 cm for long-duration GRBs and R ~ 3 X 10^13 cm for short-duration GRBs (sGRBs).
I present the Reionization and Transients InfraRed (RATIR) followup of LIGO/Virgo Gravitational-wave events especially for the G194575 trigger. I show that expanding our pipeline to search for either optical riZ or near-infrared YJH detections (3 or more bands)
should result in a false-alarm-rate ~1% (one candidate in the vast 100 deg^2 LIGO error region) and an efficiency ~90%.
I also present the results of a 5-year comprehensive SN search by the Palomar Transient Factory aimed to measure the SN rates in the local Luminous Infrared Galaxies. We find that the SN rate of the sample, 0.05 +/- 0.02 1/yr (per galaxy), is consistent with that expected from the theoretical prediction, 0.060 +/- 0.002 1/yr (per galaxy).