MPS-Ascend: Can the Protostellar Magnetic Field be Used as a Signpost for Binary Formation Pathway?

Cox, Erin, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). PI Dr. Erin Cox is awarded a NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences Ascending Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (NSF MPS-Ascend) to conduct a program of research and activities related to broaden participation by groups underrepresented in STEM. This fellowship to Dr. Cox supports her research project entitled "MPS-Ascend: Can the Protostellar Magnetic Field be Used as a Signpost for Binary Formation Pathway?", under the mentorship of a sponsoring scientist. The host institution for the fellowship is Northwestern University, and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. Giles Novak. The star formation rate of the Milky Way is extremely inefficient (~ 1-10%) and the only way to account for this inefficiency in simulations is when magnetic fields are included. Magnetic fields are difficult to observe and thus they remain one of the least understood aspects of the star formation process. This project will establish a new millimeter-wave Legacy Survey-- The Collapsing Magnetic Cores (CMC) Survey-- which will map the magnetic field of ~20 protostellar cores with unprecedented resolution. The CMC survey will provide the field with a revolutionary dataset showing exquisite maps of this unobserved area. The PI will develop an Introduction to Computational Logics class for the Northwestern Prisoners Education Project (NPEP). Black and Hispanic men are disproportionately represented in the US prison population. By developing and teaching this new class to the cohorts in NPEP, the PI will be contributing to the education of these students. NPEP is a degree granting program, and this new class will be directly involving these students in mathematical and physical sciences. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.