Collaborative Research: Exploring Galaxy Evolution at High Resolution with Gravitational Lensing and ALMA

该项目研究大爆炸后最初几十亿年内大质量星系的成长。 目标星系被“引力透镜”放大，这是介于星系周围的光线弯曲，这使得它们比类似距离的其他星系更容易被发现和更详细地研究。 主要数据来自阿塔卡马大型毫米/亚毫米阵列（阿尔马）。 有了这些和其他数据，该团队将确定这些星系如何如此迅速地形成恒星并如此迅速地关闭它们的形成，寻找星系中黑洞生长的证据，确定宇宙中此类星系的数量，以了解它们如何影响宇宙星星形成的整体历史，并通过详细探索它们的透镜来测试现代宇宙学范式。 该奖项将通过本研究的实例支持伊利诺伊州五年级的天文学教学，亚利桑那州高中生的射电天文学技术实践经验，以及对本科生和研究生进行射电天文学和干涉测量学先进技术的培训。该项目将利用南极望远镜发现的引力透镜星系实现以下几个目标：（1）确定高红移宇宙中最强烈的星星形成事件的触发机制，（2）通过观测气体动力学和外流来研究星星形成的规律和终止，（3）通过确定恒星质量、星星形成速率和极高红移星系中的气体含量来研究大质量椭圆星系的聚集，（4）探索这些物体中黑洞吸积和恒星质量组装的共同演化，（5）用远红外原子线测量金属富集，（6）确定这些极端恒星爆发的空间密度，并将其与最先进的星系形成模拟相联系，以及（7）确定这些星系的光晕透镜的子结构，以测试当前宇宙学模型的预测。 这些目标在很大程度上是可以实现的基础上，已经承诺的数据在阿尔马周期3和4使用先进的干涉分析工具，已建立在过去几年。 该团队结合了观察者和理论家，以确保从这些早期宇宙的高分辨率视图中获得的经验教训可以与最先进的星系形成模拟进行比较并反馈给最先进的星系形成模拟。

This project studies the growth of massive galaxies in the first few billion years after the Big Bang. The target galaxies are magnified by "gravitational lensing," the bending of light around intervening galaxies, which allows them to be detected more easily and studied in greater detail than other galaxies at similar distance. The primary data come from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). With these and other data, the team will determine how these galaxies form stars so rapidly and shut down their formation so quickly, look for evidence of black hole growth in the galaxies, determine the number of such galaxies in the Universe to see how they affect the overall history of cosmic star formation, and test the modern cosmological paradigm by exploring their lensing in great detail. This award will support the teaching of astronomy through examples from this research to fifth grade classes in Illinois, hands-on radio astronomy technology experiences for high school students in Arizona, and training of undergraduate and graduate students in advanced techniques of radio astronomy and interferometry.The project will pursue several goals using gravitationally lensed galaxies discovered by the South Pole Telescope: (1) determine the triggering mechanisms for the most intense star formation events in the high redshift Universe, (2) study the regulation and termination of star formation by observing gas dynamics and outflows, (3) study the assembly of massive elliptical galaxies by determining stellar masses, star formation rates, and gas content in such galaxies at very high redshift, (4) explore the coevolution of black hole accretion and stellar mass assembly in these objects, (5) measure metal enrichment with far-infrared atomic lines, (6) determine the space density of these extreme starbursts and connect them to state of the art galaxy formation simulations, and (7) identify substructure in the halos lensing these galaxies to test the predictions of current cosmology models. These goals are largely achievable based on the data already promised in ALMA cycles 3 and 4 using the advanced interferometric analysis tools that have been built up over the past several years. The team incorporates both observers and theorists to ensure that the lessons derived from these high-resolution views of the early Universe can be compared against and fed back into state-of-the-art galaxy formation simulations.