See the syllabus for more details about the different options for the paper/project. No matter the type of activity chosen (review, calculation, data analysis, paper critique), the topic should be relevant to the overall scope of the course, but going beyond the material given in the lecture notes.
The following topics are just suggestions. Please feel free to choose something else. Other ideas are spread throughout the books and lecture notes linked on the course web page.
- In the lectures about coronagraph diffraction, we mentioned that going beyong a "straight-edge" occulter often gives much better stray-light suppression. Use the equations developed in the lectures to simulate the intensity diffracted around a serrated-edge (i.e., sawtooth-shaped edge) occulter. Can you optimize the serration pattern for a given wavelength of light?
- Explore the sensitivity of various EUV and X-ray imaging instruments (e.g., SOHO/EIT, SDO/AIA, Hinode/XRT) to plasma temperature in the solar corona. How well can one determine the differential emission measure (DEM) distribution if one is limited to just one instrument? How is the situation improved when including other instruments?
- Most of the off-limb spectroscopy we discussed was space-based. However, ground-based spectroscopy (of forbidden lines in the visible and IR) has yielded some uniquely valuable results. See, e.g., eclipse results from Shadia Habbal or coronagraph observations from the CoMP instrument. Survey these results, and speculate about what DKIST might do to improve matters.
- Check out some reviews of what kinds of plasma measurements are possible with radio sounding (i.e., here or here or here) and explore whether in-situ instruments like Solar Probe Plus will put the radio people out of business... or not?
- Identify a well-understood analytic form for spectral line formation (e.g., the Milne-Eddington model) and write a code to synthesize all 4 Stokes parameters for an input stellar atmosphere. Explore the behavior of the Stokes profiles as you change each of the free parameters of the model.
- Use an existing spectral line inversion code (as above, probably limiting yourself to a specific model like Milne-Eddington) to study the sensitivity of the derived magnetic field vector to the noise level in the observations. "How much telescope" do you need to measure the magnetic field vector to a given accuracy?