Taylor Aralis
California Institute of Technology
Supernovae are the energetic cosmic source of heavy elements, which spread through the universe and partake in the creation of planets, stars, and other astronomical objects. Understanding the physics of supernovae is an important step in explaining the structure of our universe as well as predicting its ongoing development. I propose to work on a new type of hard X-ray detector with improved energy resolution for mapping the spatial and velocity distributions of Ti within observable supernova remnants. Such observations will be a valuable diagnostic tool for testing and improving supernova models. The devices will be phonon-mediated detectors using microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) technology to measure the phonons produced by incident X-ray photons. My goal is to achieve 0.1 keV FWHM resolution in the hard X-ray band by improving the readout electronics and analysis software for upgraded versions of previously successful detector prototypes. Planned improvements include optimizing the MKID number per detector, removing correlated amplifier noise, obtaining optimal driving powers, and adjusting for the position dependence of sensitivity. High-resolution detectors like the ones I propose to construct will allow future NuSTAR-style space telescopes to image our universe in previously impossible ways.