CAREER: Constraining the Chemical Evolution of Galaxies with MaNGA

职业：用 MaNGA 约束星系的化学演化

• 批准号: 1554877
• 负责人: Christy Tremonti
• 金额: $ 94.89万
• 依托单位: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1554877&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Constraining; Chemical; Evolution; Galaxies

The team will investigate the abundance of an element, oxygen, commonly found in nearby galaxies with star-studded disks of gas. Over time, the gas in a galaxy is chemically enriched by successive generations of stars. Oxygen is used to trace how this "pollution" varies within a galaxy and from one galaxy to another. This information will help solve the important problem of how galaxies evolve. Senior team members will train junior members. The team will also develop a hands-on exhibit for a science museum. The innovative exhibit will mimic the research equipment and use custom software to demonstrate the research technique. In a tour de force, the team will use a cutting-edge observing technique - multi-fiber spectroscopy - to measure oxygen variations within about 3600 galaxies from the just-started survey for Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA). The team's specific goals are to (1) quantify the oxygen gradients, (2) study their relationships to the galaxies' physical properties, (3) study how winds from a galaxy redistribute its oxygen, and (4) search for the abrupt falloffs in oxygen that signal accretion of relatively pristine gas. This research will provide insights into the physical processes that drive chemical enrichment. Those insights will, in turn, lead to important improvements in theorists' simulations of how galaxies evolve.

该小组将调查一种元素的丰度，氧，通常在附近的星系中发现，具有星罗棋布的气体盘。随着时间的推移，星系中的气体在化学上被连续几代恒星所富集。氧气被用来追踪这种“污染”在星系内以及从一个星系到另一个星系的变化。这些信息将有助于解决星系如何演化的重要问题。资深团队成员将培训初级成员。该团队还将为科学博物馆开发一个动手展览。创新展览将模仿研究设备，并使用定制软件来演示研究技术。在一项杰作中，该团队将使用一种尖端的观测技术-多光纤光谱学-来测量大约3600个星系内的氧变化，这些星系来自Apache Point Observatory（MaNGA）刚刚开始的Mapping Nearby Galeries调查。该团队的具体目标是（1）量化氧气梯度，（2）研究它们与星系物理性质的关系，（3）研究来自星系的风如何重新分配其氧气，以及（4）寻找氧气的突然下降，这标志着相对原始气体的吸积。这项研究将为推动化学浓缩的物理过程提供见解。反过来，这些见解将导致理论家对星系如何演化的模拟的重要改进。