EoR simulation: Furlanetto, Sokasian, and Hernquist, 2004; Dipole element of PAPER-8 in Green Bank	The Precision Array to Probe the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER) is an array designed to work at low frequencies (100 - 200 MHz) to study the Epoch of Reionization. The PI's are Rich Bradley (NRAO NTC) and Don Backer (UC Berkeley), and the team is a growing collaboration including members from UVa, NRAO, UCB, and Curtin University. PAPER will be a wide-field instrument, so it will take advantage of the latest techniques in 3-D imaging with radio interferometers. It's wide bandwidth gives it the advantage of multi-frequency synthesis. We will be building some calibration techniques from scratch, as well as applying existing techniques in new ways. The Epoch of Reionization is the period early in the history of the Universe when the first stars and galaxies formed. The intense ultraviolet light from these systems ionized the neutral atoms in the intergalactic medium. Mapping this will give astronomers a clearer understanding of when and how the first large-scale structures in the Universe formed. PAPER Wiki Don Backer's PAPER page My Tsys codes and files
Artist's depiction of water masers around the central black hole in NGC 4258, from work by Greenhill, Hernstein, Moran, Diamond, Inoue, Miyoshi, and Nakai.	The NRAO is engaged in a "key project" to more accurately measure the value of the Hubble constant than ever before. This involves using water megamasers in disks around AGN to determine the geometrical distance to galaxies. This techniques involves search and monitoring with the Green Bank Telescope and high precision astrometry with the Very Long Baseline Array. Jim Braatz and I conducted a snapshot survey of over 600 galaxies with the GBT, discovering 8 megamasers galaxies, one of which is suitable for the key project. (Braatz & Gugliucci, 2008, submitted) I am also planning a VLBA follow-up one on particular detection which may have water masers associated with the AGN jet.
CSOs with the VLBA, by Greg Taylor	Compact Symmetric Objects (CSOs) are small (less than 1 kpc in extext) and young (~10^4 years) radio galaxies. These may be a key early link in radio-loud AGN evolution and make excellent probes of the interstellar medium of the host galaxy. With Greg Taylor, Allison Peck, and Marcello Giroletti, I investigated the morphology, proper motions, and polarization properties of a sample of CSOs. We were able to measure kinematic ages for a number of these objects, determine rotation measures towards two polarized CSOs, and estimate the angle to the line of sight of one CSO candidate. We are in the process of analyzing more VLBA data on the polarized CSOs from our sample ApJ, 622, 136 (astro-ph) and ApJ, 667, 78 (astro-ph)
3C 273 by Zavala & Taylor	In 2003, I participated in an REU at MIT Haystack Observatory under Joanne M. Attridge and with the help of Robert B. Phillips. My project focused on 43 and 86 GHz VLBP (Very Long Baseline Polarimetry) of the quasar 3C 273. The region around the core can be probed with milliarcsecond resolution by pushing to higher frequencies with the VLBA. We were able to detect polarization in the core of 3C 273 for the first time above error limits (2% at 86 GHz). In another project with the MIT Haystack Observatory, I participated in a search for Class I methanol masers with Preethi Pratap. The project was part of a continuing unbiased search for methanol (CH3OH) masers in molecular clouds with the 37-meter Haystack Radio Telescope in Westford, Massachusetts. Spectra were taken of the low mass star-forming region L1228 and the high mass SFR W 49N at 44 and 36 GHz. No detection was made in L1228, but weak maser emission was found in W 49N.

Nicole Gugliucci
neg9j [at] virginia [dot] edu