ned Charlotte Johnson REU 2024

Weeks 7 - 8

Week 7

Midterm!

I hoped for the midterm presentation to have results from the joint modeling with Swift data, but that will have to wait for next time! This week I wrote my own scripts from scratch to pull the data, load it into XSPEC, and apply the correct model based on if it was RXTE, Swift, or if there was overlapping data from both RXTE and Swift for the same day. These have been fun coding challenges and I am feeling a lot more confident, especially considering I couldn't do any of this at the beginning of the summer. It is exciting to see this growth and work paying off! Of course I worked on producing the midterm presentation, and those presentations took place Friday. Mine can be found below.

Now that the rain is done, it is very smoky. The mountains are still visible but if it gets much worse they will be very faded in the distance!


Week 8

Accelerating!!!

Although it is already week 8 and I have just now obtained results on my first target, Maxi J1836-194, things are now speeding up (but isn't that always the story with research!). I am very thankful now that Dr. Lohfink encouraged me to work on my Python skills and automate much of the process at the beginning. Despite the time that took, it was well worth the time it is saving me now. I have moved on to a second source, H1743-322, and am analyzing two outbursts at once! We are optimistic that we will obtain results from this source by the end of the week, and there is the possibility that we will also be able to take a look at GX 339-4. This source is very well known and often studied. I would be excited for the opportunity to investigate it because it was actually a target in my last research project as well!

Below are the results from Maxi J1836-194. Because this was a joint analysis, some points represent data from one telescope or the other, or both. Red points reflect data from RXTE only, blue reflect data from Swift only, and green are data points where there was information from both.