At present, at the Department of Astrophysics the following student projects are offered:

We are currently building a scintillator array for the LOFAR radio observatory. Within the student project the read out software for the scintillation counters will be developed.
Contact: Jörg Hörandel

Objective of the LOFAR key science project cosmic rays is the detection of radio emission from air showers. For this purpose the read-out of the LOFAR antennas will be triggered by information from an air shower detector - LORA. Aim of the student project is to analyze the data taken with the radio antennas of the LOFAR telescope and to infer the properties of the radio emission from extensive air showers.
Contact: Jörg Hörandel

The radio emission of Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) originates by accretion of matter in the super-massive black hole (BH) located at the center of the hosting galaxy. Here a pair of jets forms, injecting in the intra galactic medium (IGM) relativistic particles, which accumulation inflate the characteristic radio lobes. The study of the spectral properties radio AGNs at different red-shift, with different liner scales or luminosity, can give us crucial information about their formation, evolution and the end of their life cycle. Data from several interferometer are available (WSRT, VLA, GMRT and LOFAR). The project can be focus both on technical/observational and the interpretative/scientific aspects.
Contact: Emanuela Orru

The European Galactic Plane Survey (EGAPS) will soon have broad and narrow band photometric colours on over one million objects within our own Milky Way Galaxy. In order to take full advantage of this dataset, and maximise the scientific output of the survey, classifications are required for all detected sources. These include main sequence stars, young stellar objects, compact binaries and galaxies. This project will combine techniques taken from computer science with astrophysical modelling in order to achieve this goal. Various machine learning algorithms such as neural networks, swarm optimisation and Bayesian classification will be used and tested to achieve the best classification on the EGAPS dataset. Particular emphasis will be devoted to correctly identify main sequence stars, as these can be used for a variety of applications in astrophysics, like for example mapping the gas and dust within our Milky Way. The project will begin by using the most contemporary models of stellar spectra to create a reliable training set. This training set will then be used to 'teach' the developed classification algorithm to recognise stars within the survey, and finally produce a robust method for stellar identification for EGAPS. This new method will then be continuously used to identify more and more stars as more and more data is gathered by the survey in the future.
Contact: Simone Scaringi

The LOFAR Cosmic Rays Key Science Project (CR KSP) aims to use LOFAR to detect a variety of transient phenomena, including energetic particles interacting with the Moon and in the Earth's atmosphere, pulsar giant pulses, lightning (on both Earth and Saturn), Solar and Jovian bursts, and unusual radio-frequency interference (RFI). We have a number of projects available related to these LOFAR transients, which can be computational, theoretical, and/or experimental in nature.
Contact: Heino Falcke

The department of astrophysics has two radio antennas on the roof of the building. These two antennas can be used as a radio interferometer. The idea of this project is to use this telescope for a radio survey. It will have two major parts: In the first part of this project the telescope software has to be improved so that larger scale observations are possible (e.g., real time analysis of incoming data, transfer of data to standard astronomical software packages). In the second part of the project the radio survey will be conducted.
Contact: Pim Schellart, Elmar Koerding, Marijke Haverkorn

Onlangs heeft het ELM-survey een aantal nieuwe witte dwergen waargenomen, waarmee het totale aantal witte dwergen rond de 30 komt te liggen. De nieuwe witte dwergen hebben erg lage massa's en de vraag is hoe deze gevormd kunnen zijn. Met behulp van het programma SeBa, een code om de evolutie van dubbelsterren uit te rekenen, zullen mogelijke evolutiepaden naar de waargenomen systemen gezocht worden en de waarschijnlijkheid van deze paden onderzocht worden.
Contact Silvia Toonen, Gijs Nelemans

Low-mass X-ray binaries are double stars where one of the stars transfers mass to the companion, which is a neutron star or a black hole. As the matter approaches the compact star it is heated to high temperatures and it emits strong X-ray radiation. In globular clusters the density of stars is very high, and low-mass X-ray binaries are formed through random stellar encounters. In this project, the student will analyze X-ray data of these low-mass X-ray binaries observed with the Chandra X-ray observatory.
Contact: Rasmus Voss

The existence of many compact binaries is attributed Common Envelope (CE) evolution. The orbital shrinkage during a CE is often determined by assuming that the difference in orbital energy equals the binding enery of the donor's envelope. We have obtained simple fits that give the envelope binding energy of a star as a function of basic stellar parameters, and in this project a student can implement these prescriptions into the population-synthesis code SeBa and determine how the outcome of CEs is affected.
Contact: Marc van der Sluys

Many extragalactic radio sources emit polarized synchrotron radiation. The polarization properties of this radiation are altered by Faraday rotation while the radiation propagates through our own Milky Way Galaxy. This effect rotates polarization angles under the influence of the Milky Way's magnetic field. Hence, polarization data of extragalactic radio sources enables study of the magnetic field in the Milky Way. The student will use polarization data of extragalactic sources in a latitude-strip from the Galactic plane to the Southern Galactic pole. He/she will determine the Faraday rotation from these sources, and study their latitude dependence. The data will be compared to models of the large-scale field of the Milky Way, and estimates can be made of the turbulent component of the magnetic field.
Contact: Marijke Haverkorn

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is an instrument that will be able to detect gravitational waves (GWs) from galactic compact binaries, such as double white dwarfs and AM CVn systems. In Nijmegen, we study the effect of using existing electromagnetic observations to assist in the complex GW data analysis. This is possible because correlations exist between the parameters that describe a binary. The goal of this project is to map for which binaries such (strong) correlations exist, and how these correlations depend on the binary parameters (such as inclination, sky position, et cetera).
Contact: Marc van der Sluys

When two galaxies merge, the super-massive black holes in the centers may also merge. According to numerical calculations, this will result in a single black hole that is (temporarily) kicked out of the central part of the galaxy. The recoiing black hole will drag along a cluster of stars. Sometimes these fall into the black hole and will be tidally disrupted emitting UV and X-ray radiation. We will calculate the expected rate and investigate if we can find candidates by correlating existing UV (GALEX) and X-ray data.
Contact: Peter Jonker, Gijs Nelemans, Sjoert van Velzen

Recently, we finished the installation of an air shower detector in the core of the LOFAR experiment, the LOFAR Radboud Air shower array. It is a set-up comprising 20 scintillator stations. Aim of the student project is to use the data taken with this experiment to derive the energy spectrum of primary cosmic rays.
Contact: Jörg Hörandel

Objective of the LOFAR key science project cosmic rays is the detection of radio emission from air showers. For this purpose the read-out of the LOFAR antennas will be triggered by information from an air shower detector - LORA. Aim of the student project is to analyze the data taken with the radio antennas of the LOFAR telescope and to infer the properties of the radio emission from extensive air showers.
Contact: Jörg Hörandel

With the surface detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory the flux of muons is premanently monitored. These particles originate from low energy cosmic rays, they are modulated by the heliospheric magnetic fields. The measured rates will be analyzed on different time scales and will be correlated with data from the world-wide neutron monitor network.
Contact: Jörg Hörandel

We plan to fly a small cosmic-ray detector on a mini satellite (CUBESAT). Aim of the student project is to develop and test a small instrument to measure cosmic rays. Goal of the project is to verify the correct operation of the detector with measurements of secondary cosmic rays at ground level.
Contact: Jörg Hörandel

The LOFAR Cosmic Rays Key Science Project (CR KSP) aims to use LOFAR to detect a variety of transient phenomena, including energetic particles interacting with the Moon and in the Earth's atmosphere, pulsar giant pulses, lightning (on both Earth and Saturn), Solar and Jovian bursts, and unusual radio-frequency interference (RFI). We have a number of projects available related to these LOFAR transients, which can be computational, theoretical, and/or experimental in nature.
Contact: Heino Falcke

The existence of many compact binaries is attributed to their evolution through a so-called Common Envelope (CE) phase. The orbital shrinkage during a CE is often determined by assuming that the difference in orbital energy equals the binding energy of the donor's envelope. Though this binding energy can be computed from detailed stellar-evolution models, such detailed models are often not present when doing population synthesis, where the evolution of millions of binaries must be computed. Hence, simple fits for the binding energies of envelopes of especially massive stars are needed.
Contact: Marc van der Sluys

We know that AM CVn systems, ultracompact binaries with orbital periods less than an hour, can contain white-dwarf and helium-star donors. An intriguing possibility is the existence of evolved main-sequence star donors, where the binary orbit has become ultrashort through angular-momentum loss due to magnetic braking. Combining earlier studies on ultracompact X-ray binaries and AM CVn stars, and using new results in the theory of magnetic braking, this project will look in detail at whether and in which quantities AM CVn systems can form through this channel, and whether we should observe hydrogen in them.
Contact: Marc van der Sluys

Many extragalactic radio sources emit polarized synchrotron radiation. The polarization properties of this radiation are altered by Faraday rotation as the radiation propagates through our own Milky Way Galaxy. This effect rotates polarization angles under the influence of the Milky Way's magnetic fields. Hence, polarization data of extragalactic radio sources enables study of the magnetic field in the Milky Way. A polarization survey of extragalactic radio sources in the entire Southern sky has recently been finished. In this project, these data will be processed and the Faraday rotation of the extragalactic sources calculated. With this information, the student can study the large-scale properties of the data set and infer information about the structure of the Milky Way magnetic field.
Contact: Marijke Haverkorn