Below is a list of project ideas that I think are interesting. Some I will work on, but most I won’t have the time to. I keep this list available online to share the ideas with anyone, especially students who might want to work with me or explore a project for the first time. If you see something you’d like to collaborate on, please reach out!

SETI

  • SETI with Big Surveys
    • Have done lots of projects on Survey SETI. I wrote short intro paper on the idea of SETI with big time domain surveys (Davenport 2019)
    • Collaboration potential with LSST/Rubin, ZTF, TESS, and the Breakthrough Listen teams.
    • Actively looking to develop and collect ideas for signals!
  • Spectroscopy
    • Detecting lasers in spectra. Traditionally done with high resolution, but could be done with low res (e.g. SDSS) data.
    • Many years of Breakthrough Listen intern projects on this!
    • My goal: assemble a complete census of high res spectroscopy for all stars within 100pc!
  • The SETI Ellipsoid
    • A class of projects centered around where and when to look…
    • Searching for signals/alerts in the SETI Ellipsoid (repo)
    • Gaia positions + real-time alerts (e.g. ZTF)
    • specific recent events (e.g. SN 2023ixf)
    • Data for historic events, e.g. SN 1987A and galactic novae
  • Exploring Repeating but Non-Periodic Signals in Data
    • “Sequence Dispersion Minimization” (repo)
    • some interesting algorithm challenges - can we reproduce period-finding techniques using non-periodic patterns?
    • Fun with Fibonacci! Plus MANY other neat integer sequence available (OEIS)
    • Stars like the “Random Transiter” (HD 139139)
  • Searching the Earth Transit Zone
    • Earth Transit Zone
    • good for Alerts, new datasets (e.g. LSST/Rubin)
    • Can we build a time-dependent transit zone “window” in an Alert Broker?
  • VASCO Signals
  • SETI with Gaia
    • Cool idea for finding Dyson spheres using Gaia DR1 + Rave to outliers in distance between parallax and spectro-photometric estimates, from Zackrisson et al.(2018)
      • Especially good for upcoming Gaia DR4
    • Similar game can be played using photometry alone (photometric parallax), but with worse distance precision…
    • Could also search the Gaia Color-Mag diagram for outliers (i.e. points falling below subdwarfs, points between WD and Main Seq tracks)
      • I think this idea is sort of new… and maybe “easy”?
  • Statistical Outliers
    • These might include outliers in spectral energy distribution (multi-color space), unusual variability, correlation between objects…
    • Also other tools for statistical analysis of variability to be explored (e.g. stumpy)
  • Others Ideas?
    • projects could include searches for Dyson spheres / megastructures, oddly moving objects (e.g. interstellar objects), laser pluses or emission…
    • further comparison of optical SETI versus traditional radio efforts (e.g. extending the Haystack volume metric)

Flares

  • Searching for Flare Rate Changes Over Time
    • We’re looking for Activity Cycles
    • The Sun has ~10x change in flare rate between “max” and “min” of Solar Cycle
    • Several ongoing grants and projects on this, but open to new ideas!
  • Fitting the Flare Freq. Distribution (FFD)
    • building out the FFD package for general use
    • how do we properly use 2D errors & incomplete data? Some thoughts here in comparing GJ 1243 to YZ CMi with TESS
    • Lots of work in developing a statistical test for comparing FFD’s
  • Decomposing Complex Flares
    • Look at details of complex flares, like in this paper
    • Improve original version in this paper
    • use new flare model from L. Tovar Mendoza!
    • Good first project!

Binary Stars

  • Which Binaries are the “BEST”?
    • if we have millions of eclipsing binaries, which should we follow up?
    • working on paper draft based on TESS Online Sprint project
  • Disappearing Eclipsing Binary Stars - using TESS data, explore binary stars whose eclipse depths are changing.
    • There are at least TWO very interesting systems I know about that deserve papers based on their TESS data:
      • QX Cas - already disappeared, but TESS discovered new periods!
      • HS Hya - we think TESS observed the last eclipses from this system! (paper in prep)
    • There are more of these systems known, but need targeted analysis of TESS 30-min data
    • Systematic search (e.g. between TESS & Kepler/K2, or just within TESS) a good idea
      • especially using new FFI data from TESS!
    • Good first project!
  • Eclipsing Binaries in Open Clusters
    • Useful for calibrating tidal evolution of stars! (w/ R. Barnes at UW)
    • TESS has many OC’s to search for EB’s! (e.g. this work)
    • K2 still producing new EB’s worth studying (e.g. this paper)
    • Gaia DR4 will be VERY useful here too!!!
    • Look at eccentricity versus period, tidal circularization
  • How many eclipsing binary stars do we expect to see in an open cluster?
    • A straight forward numerical question. Take all known probability distributions of stars/clusters/binaries, as well as observability constraints, and multiply them together.
    • compare to best known catalogs of eclipsing binaries in open clusters (e.g. M67). Do we get roughly the right number?
    • Can we improve constraint on eclipsing binary population statistics (e.g. period distribution) based on results of our forward modeling?
    • a few more details are in this blog post
    • Kepler/K2 data for M67 is now available
    • TESS will provide MANY clusters worth searching for EBs
    • Good first project!
  • Eclipsing Binary Stars across entire galaxies
    • My old idea: use data from e.g. OGLE survey, over 48k binaries in SMC/LMC
      • look for variations in orbit period distribution
      • compare to star formation histories of SMC/LMC, look for connection to age
      • more thoughts on this blog post
    • Could we do this with newer data, e.g. ASAS-SN? <!– - Unresolved binaries from Gaia
    • started sketching idea out on GitHub
    • L. Anderson & D. Hogg doing similar work w/ wide binaries.
    • SO much structure in the CMD w/ Gaia DR2, there must be multiple PhD’s to be done here… –>
  • Tricycle: Looking for eclipsing binary systems with two rotation periods
    • “3 periods, 2 stars, 1 age”
    • Possibly interesting systems from standpoint of “gyrochronology”, as well as binary dynamics!
    • an old idea now, but still a fun search
    • Good project for learning e.g. starry, Gaussian Process modeling, time series analysis

More Star Stuff!

  • Searching for “Boyajian’s Star” analogs
    • Lots of work going on with A. Tzanidakis on various dipper stars, but so many surveys to explore…
  • SALTER: Stellar Active Latitudes with Transiting Exoplanet Residuals
    • with B. Morris (repo)
    • using ensemble of transiting exoplanets to look for active latitudes, like we see on the Sun
  • Recovering differential rotation from Kepler light curves
    • use machine learning to learn features in the periodogram that correlate with differential rotation?
    • some more details are at this blog post
  • Searching for Red Novae
    • can we find another V1309 Sco?
  • Long term behavior of stars
    • many indicators over time for activity cycles
    • so many small amplitude flux changes from e.g. Gaia Alerts… what are they?!
    • could be small fishing expedition, could be a PhD thesis!

Software & Algorithms

  • Creating a Python-based long slit spectroscopy pipeline for KOSMOS @ APO
    • Many coding and data analysis pieces available, big and small!
    • PyKOSMOS is available for install…
    • Old project mantra
    • Active collaboration with Astropy in developing specreduce package!

Attribution

This page was inspired by this blog by D. Hogg.