RUI: The Circumgalactic Medium in the Local Universe

RUI：本地宇宙中的环绕星系介质

• 批准号: 1716569
• 负责人: Joseph Ribaudo
• 金额: $ 12.19万
• 依托单位: Utica College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-12-15 至 2019-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1716569&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RUI; Circumgalactic; Medium; Local; Universe

Astronomers seek to understand how stars and galaxies formed. Galaxies have come to exist in relation to the diffuse gas that surrounds them. Understanding this relationship is essential for understanding how galaxies, including our own galaxy (the Milky Way), evolved into their present forms. Ribaudo and colleagues will combine observations of nearby galaxies and their surrounding gas made with the Arecibo Observatory with other ground-based observations as well Hubble Space Telescope archival data. These combined observations probe the constituents of the gas surrounding galaxies and its physical distribution. Such information reveals the inter-relationship between this gas and the galaxies within. This project will provide educational research opportunities for three undergraduate students at Utica College and laboratory activities for undergraduate education. This project will also include outreach to the Utica Children?s Museum, where the PI has previously been involved. Such outreach activities may include creating ?dirty snowballs? to illustrate comet formation and hands-on spectroscopy and observing programs.Ribaudo and collaborators will use results of the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) Survey to generate a sample of galaxies for study. Their physical properties are determined in conjunction with data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The CircumGalactic Medium (CGM) is investigated using absorption spectroscopy of background quasars from archival Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Origins Spectrograph data. They will characterize the CGM using absorption line diagnostics including Lyman-alpha, CII, SiII, SiIII, NV and OVI. They will investigate covering fractions, equivalent widths of spectral lines and metallicities. These researchers will characterize the properties of the CGM of galaxies in the nearby universe and compare them to previous studies at z 0.1 and smaller studies of more nearby galaxies. Results of this work will be presented by undergraduates at regional (New York area) and national (AAS) astronomy conferences in addition to being published in refereed journals.

天文学家试图了解恒星和星系是如何形成的。 星系的存在与周围弥漫的气体有关。 理解这种关系对于理解星系，包括我们自己的星系（银河系）如何演变成现在的形式至关重要。 Ribaudo和他的同事们将把对附近星系及其周围气体的联合收割机观测与阿雷西博天文台的其他地面观测以及哈勃太空望远镜的档案数据结合起来。这些综合观测探测了星系周围气体的成分及其物理分布。 这些信息揭示了这种气体和内部星系之间的相互关系。 该项目将为尤蒂卡学院的三名本科生提供教育研究机会，并为本科生教育提供实验室活动。 该项目还将包括对尤蒂卡儿童的宣传？博物馆，PI以前参与过的地方。 这种推广活动可能包括创建？脏雪球Ribaudo和合作者将利用Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA（ALCAFA）巡天的结果来生成星系样本以供研究。 它们的物理性质是结合斯隆数字巡天（SDSS）的数据确定的。 利用哈勃空间望远镜宇宙起源摄谱仪数据中的背景类星体的吸收光谱研究了环银河系介质。 他们将使用吸收线诊断（包括Lyman-α、CII、SiII、SiIII、NV和OVI）表征CGM。 他们将研究覆盖分数，谱线和金属丰度的等效宽度。 这些研究人员将描述附近宇宙中星系CGM的特性，并将其与之前在z 0.1的研究以及对更多附近星系的较小研究进行比较。 这项工作的结果将由本科生在区域（纽约地区）和国家（AAS）天文学会议上提出，此外还将在参考期刊上发表。