Advisor: Aki Takeda
Montana State University(MSU) is home of Hinode/XRT Synoptic Composite Image Archive (SCIA, http://solar.physics.montana.edu/HINODE/XRT/SCIA/latest_month.html), which is the archive of soft X-ray full-Sun images obtained with the X-Ray Telescope on board the Hinode satellite. Our images are posted daily to the SolarMonitor, a popular site for solar researchers to check the current solar condition.
With this archive, we can study solar activity in terms of sun's radiation in solar soft X-rays. In this project, we will process the XRT/SCIA images taken from 2006 to date to derive solar soft X-ray irradiance during this period. The student will learn how to handle Hinode/XRT FITS data for quantitative analysis: selection of data files and area of interest, derivation of temperature and emission measure, calculation of the XRT irradiance in the physical unit comparable with other instruments. Since the XRT is an imager, we can derive unique spatial variations of irradiance, which have never be obtained with other instruments that only measure the full-Sun integrated flux. We will characterize dependence of the irradiance on solar latitudes, or its association with particular solar structures, etc.
As a bonus, the student will have a few opportunities to watch and learn how an international satellite project like Hinode is operated. MSU will have two duty weeks of Hinode/XRT operation in June and July, in which we actually take control of the XRT observation.