Using machine learning techniques to advance our understanding of brown dwarf atmospheres
The hottest brown dwarfs are the L Dwarfs. These objects are so hot that their skies host clouds made out of materials we think of as rocks here on Earth like quartz. In order to understand these and other brown dwarfs, scientists create models based on their best understanding of the physics taking place in their atmospheres. By comparing the models with observations of real brown dwarfs, scientists can refine their understanding and discover new physics.
Scientists have made advances in understanding how the clouds in L dwarf atmospheres impact our observations of them. However, past observations have focused on two wavelength ranges: from 1 to 2.5 microns and from 5 to 15 microns. There have been very few telescopes which have observed how L dwarfs look at 2.5 - 5 microns, but the few observations we do have sometimes don't match very well with the models.
The purpose of this project is to test if the bad matches in the 2.5 to 5 micron range are related to these quartz clouds in L dwarf atmospheres. It also proposes a method for how to quantify uncertainty in the models we use to describe brown dwarf atmospheres.
Out of the billions of brown dwarfs out in the universe, we have been able to collect data on a couple thousand. That number is likely to explode in the future as more and more powerful telescopes come online. These telescopes will generate massive amounts of data that will be impossible for scientists to sift through it all on their own. We will need sophisticated computer algorithms to help us know where we (and citizen scientists) should focus our efforts.
This project aims to adapt the Red-Dragon code originally used to classify different populations of galaxies to identify potential brown dwarfs only using their colors.
Recent advances in telescope technology have allowed us to find brown dwarfs that are as cold as Earth. While Earth doesn't seem cold to us, its temperature is much lower than many of the other objects we observe beyond our solar system. These brown dwarfs are special because they are predicted to host clouds made out of water and ice in their atmospheres.
The trouble is that we're not 100% sure how these clouds work (or if they are even clouds at all!).
This multi-part project hopes to expand our knowledge of how these clouds work by investigating how they interact with wind, the broader composition of the atmosphere, and the rotation of the planet.