Thesis Description & Objectives
Politecnico di Torino recently collaborated with internationally renowned astronomers to create AETHER, a software developed in Godot that allows the behavior of cometary comas to be modeled in three dimensions by applying known physical principles such as the effect of core rotation and solar radiation pressure.
At present, the variables for modeling cometary comas are partially defined as input by the operator using a trial-and-test procedure, following the analysis of two-dimensional digital telescopic images. The numerical model generated (or, rather, the synthetic image obtained from its orthographic projection onto the two-dimensional plane) is then superimposed on the image to allow a comparison of the correspondence of details. However, since this comparison is purely visual, the verification of the match is subjective and therefore subject to error.
The purpose of this thesis proposal is to modify the existing software, AETHER, in order to automate the comparison and objectively evaluate the synthetic results obtainable from the numerical model with respect to its real counterparts, captured through a telescope. This objective can be achieved using various techniques: for example, by identifying key points on the image that can serve as references for the development of the numerical model, followed by the software generating a series of models within user-definable ranges of the variables that affect the calculation of dust trajectories (Monte Carlo method). Following this operation, the software can verify the correlation between the trajectories generated by the model and those traced on the real image, choosing the best match on a statistical-mathematical basis.
For further information, contact Bartolomeo Montrucchio and Antonio Marceddu at the following email addresses:
bartolomeo.montrucchio@polito.it
antonio.marceddu@polito.it
