About

The Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) in astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Toronto is a unique experience for undergraduate students in astronomy, physics, or engineering to prepare for a career in scientific research.

The 16-week program, which runs annually from early May through mid August, aims to provide research opportunities with astronomers from the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, the David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics (DADDAA), and the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Throughout the program, students will have the opportunity to:

• Collaborate and foster ongoing connections with U of T astronomers,
• Attend Professional Development webinars,
• Learn about research going on at U of T through a weekly Astro 101 Seminar Series,
• Participate in U of T public outreach activities,
• Get to know your colleagues and members of the department through social events.

For summer 2021, SURP will run from May 3 through August 20, provide an estimated stipend of $9,595 for the 16-week period, and be held remotely due to COVID-19. The program will have all components listed above, and specific details will be provided at the start of the program.

SURP 2021: Astro 101 Lecture Schedule

SURP 2021 Projects

Line-intensity mapping (LIM) surveys in the next decade will produce observations of fluctuations in integrated line intensity across large cosmological volumes, targeting various radio and sub-millimetre lines that all trace matter and galaxies in different ways. One key way to maximise the value of LIM surveys will be through cross-correlations between (or even within) surveys, which should allow inference of more information with more confidence compared to analysing only auto-correlations for each target line. However, forecasting such cross-correlations requires self-consistent, physically motivated line-emission models that can be applied to large cosmological simulations. The project will build on existing simulation frameworks to explore potential LIM cross-correlation scenarios, with an eye on their viability for near- and far-future surveys. The student will gain skills related to analysis of numerical simulations, as well as understanding of high-redshift astrophysics and cosmology. Given the wide range of possibilities, details will change to match the student's exact interests.

Final Project Deliverables: Poster / Research Summary

This project will focus on understanding the evolution of our universe across cosmic time, investigating how we can combine measurements from two upcoming instruments to disentangle different kinds of astrophysical signals from galaxies. Combining these measurements, spectra of Carbon Monoxide (CO) from galaxies and infrared images of galaxies, will help us understand the epoch of reionization, when starlight from young galaxies started playing an important role in the evolution of the universe, and the peak of star formation, when galaxies started to resemble the populations we see today.

TIME is an instrument being developed to study the faint objects in our universe using line intensity mapping (LIM). TIME will measure ionized carbon emission from redshift (z) of 5 to 9 to probe the evolution of our universe during the epoch of reionization. TIME will also measure low-redshift CO fluctuations and map molecular gas in the epoch of peak cosmic star formation from redshift 0.5 to 2. The Roman Space Telescope is an upcoming NASA observatory that will take infrared images of tens of millions of galaxies out to z ~= 2, which will overlap spatially with the CO foreground that TIME will observe.This project will look at how many galaxies we expect to see with TIME in each voxel of the lower redshift survey and determine how many of these Roman could detect with its legacy imaging survey. It will explore what we can learn about galaxy formation, large-scale structure, and cosmic evolution by combining these two measurements.

Final Project Deliverables: Poster / Research Summary

In this era of multi-wavelength, wide-field surveys, it's become a challenge to organize and visualize how these different initiatives are related to one another. In this project, we will develop a web-based (HTML/JS/CSS) interface to develop an optimal strategy for visualizing the celestial positions of the locations and properties of the gamut of astronomical surveys on-sky. The project will involve figuring out how to interface with existing information from surveys, through Python, and developing a pipeline to generate the web-based visuals.

Final Project Deliverables: Poster / Research Summary

Galaxies form in the Universe via hierarchical assembly: smaller clumps conglomerate together to form ever larger structures and eventually the galaxies we observe at the present day. The specific way that galaxies assemble (i.e. fast or slow, early or late) likely impacts on the way they look today. For example, we believe that the Milky Way and other disc galaxies must not have many major merging events, since these might disturb the stars in their discs.

In this project, the student will construct the histories of galaxies from the EAGLE simulations of galaxy evolution. Since the simulations track galaxies from their birth up to the present day, they provide a unique way to study how galaxies assemble in a realistic universe. By studying how different histories lead to different populations of galaxies at the present day, the student will determine how well a galaxy’s assembly history can determine its final properties. This project will develop skills in data analysis using Python and the EAGLE SQL galaxy database and provide an introduction to cosmological simulations and observational constraints in the local universe.

Final Project Deliverables: Poster / Research Summary

The Milky Way offers up solutions to the problem of galaxy formation and evolution on a star-by-star basis, allowing us to test models for galaxy evolution in our Galactic back-yard. In order to make these tests as useful as possible, however, we need to properly understand how representative of a ‘typical’ spiral galaxy the Milky Way actually is. Of course, this idea begs the question of what even constitutes a ‘typical’ galaxy? A lot of effort has been made in recent years to approach this problem observationally, by selecting galaxies in large surveys that have similar bulk properties to those we can measure for the Milky Way. However, very few studies have approached this question from the vantage point of simulations of galaxy formation.

In this project the student will use the EAGLE suite of cosmological simulations of galaxy formation to examine the question of what it means for a galaxy to be ‘typical’, and also to examine how we might improve our selection of ‘Milky Way Analogues’ in observational data sets. The project may also involve studying analogues of our near neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy (M31), in the simulations, contrasting them with the Milky Way analogues. The project will develop skills in data analysis using Python and the EAGLE SQL galaxy database and provide an introduction to cosmological simulations and observational constraints from the Milky Way for interested students.

Final Project Deliverables: Poster / Research Summary

It is believed that stars form by gravitational collapse of dense and cold structures located in molecular clouds. However, the process that leads to the formation of these over-densities is still unclear. Radiative condensation of the diffuse warm neutral medium (WNM) is a plausible mechanism for producing the cold neutral medium (CNM), and in turn the CNM, being denser, is thought to be a critical initial step leading the atomic-to-molecular (HI-to-H2) transition. Huge efforts have been made to understand the formation of molecular gas, but the step that led to the formation of the cold HI still remains unclear. Numerical simulations abound. Furthermore, a large amount of data has been collected over the last decade and so we now have access to arcmin spatial resolution observations to study the transition.

Among these data sets, the GHIGLS 21-cm line survey at 10' resolution covers over 1000 deg2 and gives us the possibility to look at different environments of the Galaxy. Some large areas of this have been studied at 1' resolution in the DHIGLS survey. The first goal of this admittedly open-ended project is to analyze the multiphase structure of intermediate latitude HI fields in these surveys. In particular, to get started the student(s) will focus their work on analyzing GHIGLS data on a specific region, e.g., the intermediate velocity clouds G86 or Draco, HI structures located at the disk halo interface that hint at and/or show the formation of CNM and/or molecular (H2) gas.

As a very first step specifically related to honing computing skills, the student(s) will have the opportunity to probe the phase transition in HI by making use of the ROHSA multi-Gaussian decomposition code. This step will familiarize them with handling archival HI spectral data stored in data cubes, extracting spectra, and manipulating spectra (integrals, moments, etc.), as well as visualization. It will also introduce them to the ROHSA optimization tool for inverse problem solving applied to astrophysical observations such as the 21-cm line.

The end result is an original assessment of the distribution of the gas among the thermal phases and their physical properties. Through this scientific investigation, the students will contribute to original research and publish results on some interesting astrophysical questions, while acquiring a wide range of skills, from new statistical tools (ROHSA) to popular programming languages (python, LATEX) and management tools (GitHub, Overleaf, Notion).

In later steps (the open-ended possibilities!), it will be possible to start a comparison with other tracers of the interstellar medium, such as the thermal emission by dust grains seen by the Herschel and Planck satellites (the latter including polarization). This opens up many interesting questions for inquiry, e.g., Does the thermal condensation shaping the neutral interstellar medium reveal any signature of a change in the properties of this dusty fluid (for example, an evolution of the dust emissivity)?

Based on similar projects undertaken by students last winter, last summer, and during this year, we have good evidence that such projects can be quite successful even under the restrictions imposed by COVID-19.

Final Project Deliverables: Poster / Research Summary

Upcoming cosmology experiments require lots of innovative software to coordinate observations, manage data collection and process and understand the data. The Simons Observatory (SO) will be a multi-telescope observatory in Chile for creating large and very sensitive maps of the cosmic microwave background to probe for inflation, measure the total mass of the three neutrino species, study the growth of structure, and much more. The Hydrogen Intensity and Real-Time Analysis eXperiment (HIRAX) will be an array of 1024 six-metre radio dishes in South Africa that will use intensity mapping to make huge, 3D maps of the universe between z = 0.8 and 2.5 in order to study dark energy and characterise pulsars and fast radio bursts. Each of SO and HIRAX will start being deployed in 2021.

There are various opportunities for summer research to contribute to the development of software for collecting, processing and understanding the data on either SO or HIRAX. The project can be tailored based on the applicant’s interests coupled with the needs of the experiment and will involve coding, typically in python and perhaps C++. Programming experience is helpful, but the position also offers the opportunity to develop these software skills, which are increasingly important for astrophysics research.

More information on SO and HIRAX is linked from my webpage: http://www.astro.utoronto.ca/~ahincks/

Final Project Deliverables: Poster / Research Summary Image credit: HIRAX (left), S. Dicker (right)

We have designed the DMD-MOS fed by the 16-inch telescope with F/18 beam in the seeing-limited resolution of 1.5”, including both spectroscopic and imaging modes within one instrument, as a prototype. As part of this project, students will be involved in complex DMD-MOS investigation (understand the science requirements, calculate the parameters, et al.), and system design (join into the design progress from the sketch, and prepare for the delivery design to manufacture.) This process will superbly help students deeply understand the principle of the complex spectrographs. Based on this, students will work on the program and coding for the spectral data reduction. At the same time, the students will join in the real spectrograph alignment and calibration with the equipment in our advanced optical lab. They will have chance to gain the experience of installing the spectrograph onto the telescope and observing spectral images.

The students who have the engineering or optics related background will be better to fit this position.

Final Project Deliverables: Poster / Research Summary