Benjamin is a master’s student in astrophysics at the University of Montreal since Fall 2020 (expected completion in Summer 2022). During his bachelor’s degree at Laval University in Quebec City, he completed two internships to improve his data analysis knowledge and acquire experience in an astrophysics research environment. In 2018, he completed an internship under the supervision of Pr. Hélène Courtois at Claude Bernard Lyon I University in Lyon, France, where he realized the analysis of radio observations of distant galaxies from the Green Bank Telescope with an algorithm developed by Pr. Courtois. Moreover, to gain more connections in the Canadian astrophysics community, Benjamin also performed a student project under the supervision of Pr. Laurent Drissen at Laval University, where he catalogued the planetary nebulae detected by the SITELLE observations of the galaxy Messier 33. This analysis showed that the SITELLE instrument is a powerful tool to uncover faint planetary nebulae that were not visible with other instruments.
The main objective of his research is to carry out the analysis of new high spectral resolution observations of the filamentary nebula surrounding the galaxy NGC1275 obtained with SITELLE. To better understand the phenomena at work in this filamentary nebula, high spectral resolution observations were needed. However, with a resolution this high, new challenges arise in the data analysis. Therefore, a new method using machine learning will be developed within X-Tra’s team to adequately perform this analysis.
Contact information:
benjamin.vigneron@umontreal.ca