Daily Image
19-08-2025
Summer student project: Param Joshi
| Submitter: | Sanne Bloot |
| Description: | Hello! I am Param Joshi, a physics master's student from India. I was an ASTRON/JIVE summer student for 2025 and I worked with Sanne Bloot, David Konijn and Joe Callingham on studying radio emissions of M dwarf stars. For this project, I targeted a particular M dwarf V374 Peg, as it is behaving strangely in its radio emissions and we cannot fully understand the emission mechanism involved with these emissions. I used the VLA archival datasets to analyse the star's emissions, and we did detect atleast 3 confirmed radio bursts. The images at the bottom show the clear star detection after reducing, calibrating and imaging the data using CASA, and subsequent radio lightcurves which shows the bursts from the star. Note that we detect the bursts in only stokes I, but not stokes V, which shows the peculiar behaviour of the emissions as it is not usual to see circularly unpolarized bursts from an M dwarf as they mostly produce ECMI emissions which are highly circularly polarised. Our interpretation of what might be going on is that, as per a study on massive stars, there can be frequency dependence of the detection of circular polarisation fraction from radio emissions due to perfect alignment of the Left and the Right circularly polarised bursts (originating from the dipoles of the star's magnetic field independently at both locations) at higher frequency which looks like having a total circularly unpolarised burst. There's definitely a need for further diving into the properties and analysis of the radio emissions to understand the theory properly. Apart from the project and work, I also got to roam around various cities nearby in the Netherlands as well as France, Brussels and Germany, along with lots of amazing trips with all the summer students, organised by the program coordinators. Overall, it was a lot of fun and learning in the summer and I would like to thank my supervisors and the program coordinators for giving me such a wonderful opportunity! |
| Copyright: | Param Joshi |
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