What is the structure of the interstellar medium?
Discipline: Astrophysics/Physics Location: Sydney Description: The radio waves we receive from pulsars are affected by their travel through the interstellar medium – the gas between the stars. The analysis of pulsar data can therefore give us information about the interstellar medium. We have recently developed software to enable us to study these effects in more detail. Your job would be to analyse real pulsar data to determine the properties of the interstellar medium. At the same time you will generate a model interstellar medium and some “fake” data and see how well this compares to the real data. A knowledge of programming (C, Fortran or IDL) will be necessary. Project D: The space motion of radio pulsars Discipline: Astrophysics/Physics Location: Sydney Description: The observed motion of a pulsar through space is a combination of its true velocity, the general rotation of stars around the centre of our Galaxy and the gravitational potential in which it moves. We have recently ob
