Collaborative Research: Submillimeter Studies of the Cosmological Star Formation and AGN Histories

宇宙学恒星形成和AGN历史的亚毫米研究这项工作的目标是分析最近在夏威夷15米詹姆斯克拉克麦克斯韦望远镜（JCMT）上的亚毫米普通用户辐射热计阵列（SCUBA）发现的关于高红移的尘埃遮蔽恒星形成和AGN活动的新信息。该项目的科学家们计划扩展他们的观测范围，以覆盖亚毫米波波长范围在0.5到20毫米波的星系数量。他们预计这些低通量光源构成了远红外背景中看到的大部分光。他们将使用来自VLA的深厘米射电图和来自钱德拉卫星的高分辨率硬x射线图像来确定这些遥远的、严重被尘埃遮蔽的源的多波长特性。这些数据将被用来识别物体，以便凯克、斯巴鲁和双子座望远镜进行进一步的研究。这些研究集中在我们今天看到的大多数恒星形成的宇宙时间间隔内星系的特性。在形成的早期阶段，恒星被尘埃包裹着，这些尘埃阻挡了可见光。然而，非常高能的电磁辐射，如x射线，或非常低能量的辐射，如亚毫米（远红外线）或无线电波，可以穿透尘埃，让我们“看到”恒星形成的过程。夏威夷15米JCMT上新开发的“SCUBA”探测器可以用来探测非常微弱的亚毫米源，这些源可能是尘埃包裹的恒星（星暴），也可能是活动的星系核（agn），通过使用中间的星系团来“透镜”或增强微弱源的亮度。通过将这些观测结果与x射线区域的观测结果（来自钱德拉卫星）和无线电区域的其他观测结果（使用VLA）相结合，Cowie和Barger将能够从agn中分类出恒星爆发，并确定这两种类型的活动对星系演化早期阶段的相对重要性。本项目由美国国家科学基金会星系外天文学和宇宙学项目（AST/EXC）资助

AST-0084816Cowie, Lennox L.Submillimeter Studies of the Cosmological Star Formation and AGN HistoriesThis work has as its goal the analysis of new information about the dust-obscured star formation and AGN activity at high-redshifts which was recently discovered with the Submillimeter Common User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) on the 15 m James Clark Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii. The project scientists plan to extend their observations to cover galaxy counts for sources in the flux range of 0.5 to 20 mJy at submillimeter wavelengths. They expect these low flux sources to comprise the bulk of the light seen in the far infrared background. They will use deep centimeter radio maps from the VLA and hi-resolution, hard x-ray images from the Chandra satellite to determine the multi-wavelength properties of these distant, heavily dust-obscured sources. This data in turn will be used to identify objects for further study with the Keck, Subaru, and Gemini telescopes.These studies focus on the properties of galaxies during an interval of cosmic time when most of the stars we see today were being formed. In the early stages of formation, stars are enshrouded in dust and this dust blocks visible light. However, very energetic electromagnetic radiation, such as X-rays, or very low energy radiation, such as submillimeter (far infrared) or radio waves can penetrate the dust and allow us to "see" the stars as they form. The newly developed "SCUBA" detector at the 15 m JCMT in Hawaii can be used to detect very faint submillimeter sources, which may be dust enshrouded stars (starbursts) or may be active galactic nuclei (AGNs), by using intervening clusters of galaxies to "lens", or enhance the brightness, of the faint sources. By combining these observations with ones in the X-ray region (from the Chandra satellite) and other observations in the radio region (using the VLA) Cowie and Barger will be able to sort out the starbursts from the AGNs and determine the relative importance of the two types of activity for galaxies in the early stages of evolution.Funding for this project was provided by the NSF program for Extragalactic Astronomy & Cosmology (AST/EXC).***