Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2012
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21943201s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #432.01
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
I'm currently working to build a high-resolution map of the interstellar medium within the Kepler field. All Kepler Objects of Interest are being observed spectroscopically, both for confirmation of planet detection by radial velocity and to characterize the star. In some of the HIRES spectra of Kepler stars, absorption lines from interstellar clouds are clearly visible. In particular, the sodium D doublet, a 3p to 3s transition in neutral sodium split due to spin-orbit coupling, is apparent. The Na D lines have a very high Einstein A coefficient, and thus make it easy to observe and quantify columns of neutral sodium in the ISM. Since neutral sodium is a good tracer of the neutral ISM, Na D observations are used by the ISM community to estimate column densities of HI and map the neutral ISM. My task is to build a pipeline that identifies clouds along the sightline to each star and determines their velocities and the column density of sodium in each. Sodium D absorption has also proved useful to the supernova community. Dust columns are correlated with neutral hydrogen, so Na D absorption should be a proxy for extinction. Often, the extinction on the line-of-sight to a supernova is unknown and thus we can't determine the true, unreddened color of the supernova. Na D absorption and reddening laws are therefore used to estimate the true colors of supernovae. However, this method has been called into question recently when the correlation between Na D columns toward Type Ia supernovae and extinction was shown to be tenuous. These Na D columns, which are not at risk of being contaminated with galactic light like the columns to supernovae, can be used to check again whether a Na D-extinction correlation exists.
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