Precovery of Eclipsing Binaries: Identifying Eclipse Timing Variation among Kepler Eclipsing Binaries in KELT

The Asakura-Oosawa (AO) model describes the effective attractive interaction induced when two large colloidal bodies are immersed in a solvent consisting of smaller macromolecules. The effective interaction is induced due to an unbalanced osmotic pressure arising from the depletion of the macromolecules in the region between the two bodies. We model amelogenin, a hydrophobic protein and with a charged hydrophilic tail, and the polyether compound polyethylene glycol (PEG). Amelogenin molecules are well described by a simplified model consisting of a colloidal spherical monomer and tethered point charge. The point charges interact through a screened Coulomb repulsion. Moreover, PEG-colloid interactions are modeled by the AO interaction, which describes the depletion interaction between amelogenin particles due to PEG. Since many particles in nature are charged, e.g. amelogenin, we study the effects of Coulomb repulsion on the phase diagram of the AO model. To observe this effect, we vary the magnitude of the point charges and compare the phase diagrams generated from simulations. This work has been supported by the National Science Foundation grant PHY-1359195. Pump and Probe Analysis of Excited State Lifetimes Hannah Shriver Advisor: Dr. Biaggio Graduate Students: Vincent Zoutenbier and Michael Erickson