Faculty Award for Women - An Atomic Hydrogen (HI) Image of the Universe

这一女性科学家和工程师学院奖颁发给哥伦比亚大学天文学系的杰奎琳·H·范·戈尔科姆博士。NSF女科学家和女工程师学院奖表彰了获奖者在教学和学术方面的高质量记录，以及继续为科学研究、学术职业和未来科学家的教育做出重大贡献的潜力。研究的重点将是星系的形成和演化以及宇宙的大尺度结构。这些问题将通过拍摄星系内部和星系之间、孤立星系、相互作用的星系、小星系群、星系团以及可能根本不存在星系的区域的空洞的图像来探索。我们今天所知的宇宙的大尺度结构，由大的细丝和薄片组成，几乎完全建立在高光度星系的基础上，在光学波长下可以看到。偏向星系的形成预测了光度(亮星系)和质量(暗物质)之间的分离。矮小星系预计将更加均匀地分布，应该是暗质量的更好追踪者。这些矮星可能太暗，无法列入光学星表。它们将在频谱的射电区域被观测到。其他将解决略有不同问题的类似调查是对九头蛇星系团的容量有限的调查，以及对Bootes空洞中所有光学已知星系的HI观测。九头蛇的调查将把对富含气体星系的空间分布的确定扩展到非常高密度的区域。更有趣的将是九头蛇星系和处女座星系(已经完成)与Bootes空洞星系的HI形态的比较。这将为我们提供有关环境对星系影响的独特材料。将有几个合作者和研究生参与到这些项目中。

This Faculty Award for Women Scientists and Engineers is made to Dr. Jacqueline H. Van Gorkom in the Department of Astronomy at Columbia University. The NSF Faculty Award for Women Scientists and Engineers recognizes the high quality of the awardee's record in teaching and scholarship as well as the potential for continued significant contributions to scientific research, the academic profession, and the education of future scientists. The emphasis of the research will be on the formation and evolution of galaxies and the large scale structure of the universe. These issues will be explored by making images of the atomic hydrogen in and between galaxies, in isolated galaxies, interacting galaxies, small groups of galaxies, clusters of galaxies and in regions where there might be no galaxies at all, the voids. The large-scale structure of the universe as we know it today, with large filaments and sheets is based almost entirely on high luminosity galaxies, seen at optical wavelengths. Biased galaxy formation predicts a separation between luminosity (bright galaxies) and mass (dark matter). Dwarf galaxies are expected to be more uniformly distributed and should be a better tracer of the dark mass. These dwarfs could be too faint to be included in optical catalogs. They will be observed in the radio region of the spectrum. Other similar surveys which will address slightly different questions are a volume limited survey of the Hydra Cluster of galaxies and HI observations of all the optically known galaxies in the Bootes void. The Hydra survey will extend the determination of the spatial distribution of gas rich galaxies to a very high density region. Even more interesting will be a comparison of the HI morphology of the galaxies in Hydra and in Virgo (already completed) with those in the Bootes void. This will provide us with unique material on the effects of the environment on galaxies. There will be several collaborators and graduate students involved in the projects.