Gas and Dust in Galaxies over Cosmic Time

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Dust and molecular gas play a strong role in the lives of galaxies, affecting star formation over cosmic time. At the same time, as the galaxies age, the properties of the molecular gas and dust change in response to the history of star formation within them. This project will simulate the formation, growth, and destruction of dust and gas in large cosmological simulations of the growth of galaxies. The simulations will be used to determine how observations and detection of gas and dust can be used to learn about the histories of galaxies.This project will used cosmological hydrodynamic galaxy evolution simulations to learn about the origin and evolution of the dust mass function in the redshift range z ~ 2-6. These simulations will incorporate a new self-consistent model of the formation, growth, and destruction of dust. These models will also include detailed chemistry, thermal physics, and radiative transfer that dictates the microphysics of molecular cloud evolution. The gas and dust models will also be included in the "grackle" code environment that can be used by many of the most common galaxy formation codes in use.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.