A deep and wide-area census of infrared-luminous galaxies in the high-redshift Universe

高红移宇宙中红外发光星系的深部和广域普查

• 批准号: 1814814
• 负责人: Duncan Farrah
• 金额: $ 20.04万
• 依托单位: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-01-01 至 2019-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1814814&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: deep; wide; area; census; infrared

Understanding how galaxies assemble their stars and central black holes is a crucial part of understanding our own cosmic origins - how our Milky Way, our solar system, and ultimately us, came to be. Moreover, a thorough understanding of how galaxies are built up allows us to use galaxies themselves as sensitive probes of the mysterious dark matter and dark energy that dominate the evolution of the universe. After intensive work by scientists using NSF facilities, we now know that some of the most important phases of galaxy assembly occur during the first half of the history of the universe, in moderately luminous galaxies that have, until recently, been difficult to detect as they appear faint on the sky. This project will use cutting-edge NSF and NASA facilities to investigate the nature of these moderately luminous, distant galaxies, and determine how their properties can be used to understand how galaxies like our own Milky Way formed. This project will also enable important work by other astronomers, by producing data that can be used for a wide range of investigations. Educational visualizations and lesson plans, made in collaboration with K-12 teachers, will contribute to STEM education.Obscured AGN and star formation are fundamental to galaxy assembly across the history of the Universe. Of particular importance are the moderately luminous systems - those with log LIR(Lsun) ~ 10-12 - as this is where the majority of black hole mass assembly takes place, and where the main sequence of star formation lies. There remain however critical open questions about obscured systems at z0.5 - what triggers them, what quenches them, and how their role depends on environment. This project will advance our understanding of how moderately luminous systems contribute to galaxy assembly at z1 by creating new, extremely deep ultraviolet through far-infrared catalogs across the 38 deg2 of the four DES/LSST Deep Drilling fields (DDFs), and then using these catalogs to study the evolution of high-redshift infrared-luminous galaxies in unprecedented detail. The science goals are: (1) quantify the evolution of the infrared galaxy luminosity function, simultaneously as functions of redshift, power source and environment, over 1 z 3 and log LIR(Lsun) ~ 9 - 12.2 (2) perform the first direct measurement of the bright end of the obscured AGN LF at z 2, without extrapolation from optically selected populations, and (3) measure the number density of massive quiescent galaxies at z4, to constrain AGN host evolution and stellar mass buildup at this epoch. The full catalogs across all of the DDFs will also be released to the community. This project will also develop interactive, 3D visualizations for use with both undergraduate and high school students. In conjunction with the Virginia Tech 'PhysTEC' program, the investigators will work directly with K-12 teachers to construct lesson plans and tutorials, which will be freely available to the community.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

了解星系如何聚集它们的恒星和中心黑洞是了解我们自己的宇宙起源的关键部分-我们的银河系，我们的太阳系，以及最终我们是如何形成的。此外，对星系如何形成的透彻理解使我们能够利用星系本身作为控制宇宙演化的神秘暗物质和暗能量的敏感探针。经过科学家使用NSF设施的密集工作，我们现在知道，星系组装的一些最重要的阶段发生在宇宙历史的前半段，在中等亮度的星系中，直到最近，它们在天空中看起来很微弱，很难被探测到。该项目将使用尖端的NSF和NASA设施来研究这些中等亮度的遥远星系的性质，并确定如何利用它们的特性来了解像我们银河系这样的星系是如何形成的。该项目还将通过产生可用于广泛调查的数据，使其他天文学家能够开展重要工作。 与K-12教师合作制作的教育可视化和课程计划将有助于STEM教育。昏暗的活动星系核和星星的形成是宇宙历史上星系组装的基础。特别重要的是中等亮度的系统-对数LIR（Lsun）~ 10-12 -因为这是大多数黑洞质量组装发生的地方，也是星星形成的主要序列所在。然而，关于z0.5的模糊系统仍然存在关键的开放性问题-是什么触发了它们，什么抑制了它们，以及它们的作用如何取决于环境。该项目将通过在四个DES/LSST深钻场（DDFs）的38 deg 2范围内创建新的极深紫外线到远红外目录，促进我们对中等亮度系统如何有助于z1星系组装的理解，然后使用这些目录以前所未有的细节研究高红移红外发光星系的演化。科学目标是：（1）在1 z3和logLIR（Lsun）~ 9 - 12.2范围内，对红外星系光度函数的演化进行了定量，同时作为红移、能量源和环境的函数。（2）在z2处对活动星系核LF的亮端进行了首次直接测量，而没有从光学选择的星族中进行外推，（3）测量z4时大质量静止星系的数密度，以制约活动星系核的演化和恒星质量的积累。所有DDFs的完整目录也将向社区发布。该项目还将开发交互式3D可视化，供本科生和高中生使用。 与弗吉尼亚理工大学的“PhysTEC”项目一起，研究人员将直接与K-12教师合作，构建课程计划和教程，这些计划和教程将免费提供给社区。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。