Star Formation in the Extreme Environments of Milky Way Massive Star Clusters

银河系大质量星团极端环境中的恒星形成

• 批准号: 1102791
• 负责人: Jessica Lu
• 金额: $ 8.3万
• 依托单位: Lu Jessica R
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-01 至 2014-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1102791&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Star; Formation; Extreme; Environments; Milky

Dr. Jessica Lu is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship to carry out a program of research and education at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy (IfA). Dr. Lu will study young Milky Way star clusters that are more massive than most well-studied nearby star forming regions, like Orion and Taurus, in an effort to understand whether star formation differs in these more extreme environments. Study of such regions will advance our understanding of star formation not only in our own Galaxy, but in other galaxies and to higher redshift where such extreme environments are much more common. High spatial resolution near-infrared observations will be used to penetrate the dust and gas that obscures these distant and embedded clusters and resolve individual stars in the dense cluster cores. Precision astrometric measurements of the stars over a 1-2 year time baseline will enable individual cluster members to be distinguished from the sea of contaminating field stars. Furthermore, extending the time-baseline for existing astrometric observations of one cluster in the W51 molecular cloud will allow me to measure the internal kinematics of the cluster. This will provide an estimate of the total cluster mass, constrain the dissipation timescale of the cluster, enable a search for kinematic sub-structure as evidence for dissolving sub-clusters, and reveal the importance of competitive accretion between stars as they move through their parent molecular cloud.Dr. Lu will also address education, outreach, and diversity on two fronts. First, the PI will broaden current and future astronomy teachers' exposure to inquiry-based teaching methods at IfA by developing and offering teacher training for several inquiry-based introductory astronomy labs. The PI plans to work with willing faculty to review their curriculum in order to find suitable points at which an inquiry-based activity could be incorporated. Second, the PI will advise individual students from minority or under-represented sectors in scientific research projects during the IfA's Research Experience for Undergraduates summer program. With these projects, the PI aims to bridge the gap between the smaller community focused on astronomy education research and diversity issues and the larger community of astronomers who teach, but do not follow education research in depth.

Jessica Lu博士被授予NSF天文学和天体物理学博士后奖学金，在夏威夷大学天文学研究所（IfA）开展研究和教育计划。卢博士将研究年轻的银河系星星团，这些星团比猎户座和金牛座等大多数被充分研究的附近星星形成区域更大，以了解星星的形成是否在这些更极端的环境中有所不同。对这些区域的研究将促进我们对星星形成的理解，不仅在我们自己的星系，而且在其他星系和更高的红移，这种极端环境更为常见。高空间分辨率的近红外观测将用于穿透掩盖这些遥远和嵌入的星团的尘埃和气体，并分辨致密星团核心中的单个恒星。在1-2年的时间基线上对恒星进行精确的天体测量，将使单个星团成员能够与污染场恒星的海洋区分开来。此外，延长现有的天体测量观测的时间基线在W51分子云中的一个集群将允许我测量集群的内部运动学。这将提供一个总的集群质量的估计，限制集群的耗散时标，使搜索的运动学子结构作为证据溶解子集群，并揭示恒星之间的竞争吸积的重要性，因为他们通过他们的父分子云移动。卢博士还将在两个方面解决教育，推广和多样性。首先，PI将通过为几个基于探究的入门天文学实验室开发和提供教师培训，扩大当前和未来天文学教师对IfA基于探究的教学方法的接触。PI计划与有意愿的教师合作，审查他们的课程，以找到合适的点，在那里可以纳入一个基于调查的活动。其次，PI将在IfA的本科生暑期项目研究经验期间为来自少数民族或代表性不足部门的个别学生提供科学研究项目的建议。通过这些项目，PI旨在弥合专注于天文学教育研究和多样性问题的较小社区与从事教学但不深入关注教育研究的较大天文学家社区之间的差距。