Completing the Galactic Plane Infrared Polarization Survey (GPIPS)

穿过银河系星际介质（ISM）的磁场很难揭示，它在云和星星形成中的作用也不清楚。 丹·克莱门斯博士（波士顿大学）和他的团队正在使用一种强大的仪器（Mimir，一种近红外宽视场成像偏振计），加上亚利桑那州弗拉格斯塔夫外1.8米的帕金斯望远镜的大量观测时间（每年约50个夜晚，具有关键项目状态）来解决这些问题。目前，该团队正在进行包括银河平面红外偏振调查（GPPS）在内的望远镜观测，并将通过该奖项在未来四年内完成所有GPPS观测。 GPIPS将现有的ISM磁场的光学/红外（OIR）探测器扩展了4到5个数量级，达到约500，000个恒星极化，并揭示了比以前使用OIR方法所看到的远5倍的磁场，达到和超过最近的旋臂，并通过乌云达到25个等级的视觉消光。 GPIPS代表了探测银河系磁场的数据的巨大增加。 内中面区域提供了丰富的相关数据，恒星的目标，以及揭示了各种各样的明显不同的环境中的弥漫和密集的ISM。 GPIPS将揭示的新的磁场洞察力将有助于在许多尺寸尺度上测试模型，以衡量磁场在银河系广泛的ISM环境中的作用。公开发布的高质量，校准良好的数据产品将允许其他天文学家挖掘GPIPS数据的新发现，并为其他研究带来重要的洞察力。 GPIPS开创的方法和途径将指导未来的大规模和后续研究。 在调查的前三年，GPIPS和Mimir对研究生的职业发展产生了重大影响，包括迄今为止约30名波士顿大学学生的顶点天文学经验，并使访问者和合作者能够获得各种项目的新数据。 该团队的一套公开可用的软件工具和网站使访问和科学研究Mimir数据变得简单而有效。在接下来的四年里，该团队将通过开发和提供一系列网络广播和播客，为公众提供红外天文学，偏振测量和磁场等主题，并为研究社区（GPIPS数据产品，Mimir仪器和软件）提供更高水平的影响。 最后，该团队的成员将与波士顿大学科学可视化中心合作，开发可导出的工具和/或显示，以查看GPIPS数据集的三维分解及其与ISM其他示踪剂的关系并与之交互。

The magnetic field threading the Galaxy's interstellar medium (ISM) is poorly revealed and its roles in cloud and star formation are unclear. Dr. Dan Clemens (Boston University) and his team are addressing these problems using a powerful instrument (Mimir, a near-infrared wide-field imaging polarimeter) coupled with substantial observing time (about 50 nights per year, with key project status) on the 1.8-meter Perkins telescope outside Flagstaff, Arizona. Presently, the team is about midway through the telescopic observations comprising the Galactic Plane Infrared Polarization Survey (GPIPS) and, through this award, will complete all GPIPS observations over the next four years. GPIPS expands existing optical/infrared (OIR) probes of the ISM magnetic field by four to five orders of magnitude, to about 500,000 stellar polarizations, and reveals the field five times more distant than seen before using OIR methods, to and beyond the nearest spiral arm and through dark clouds to a visual extinction of 25 magnitudes. GPIPS represents a huge increase in the data available for probing the Milky Way's magnetic field. The inner midplane region offers a wealth of correlative data concerning the stellar targets, as well as revealing a wide variety of distinctly different environments in the diffuse and dense ISM. The new magnetic field insight GPIPS will uncover will help test models across many size scales to gauge the role of the magnetic field in a wide range of ISM environments in the Galaxy.The public release of high-quality, well-calibrated data products will allow other astronomers to mine the transformative GPIPS data for new discoveries, and to bring vital insight to other studies. The methods and approaches pioneered by GPIPS will guide future large-scale and follow-up studies. During the first three years of the survey, GPIPS and Mimir have had major impacts on the career development of research students, comprising the capstone astronomical experience for about 30 Boston University students to date, and enabling visitors and collaborators to obtain new data for a wide variety of projects. The team's suite of publically-available software tools and web sites make access to, and science with, Mimir data easy and efficient. Over the next four years, the team will leverage this base to higher levels of impact by developing and serving out a series of webcasts and podcasts, both for the general public on topics such as infrared astronomy, polarimetry, and magnetic fields, and for the research community (the GPIPS data products, the Mimir instrument and software). Finally, members of the team will work with the Boston University Scientific Visualization Center to develop exportable tools and/or shows to view and interact with the three-dimensional decomposition of the GPIPS data set and its relationships to other tracers of the ISM.