Understanding the Baryon Cycle in Dwarf Galaxies

宇宙中的大多数星系都比银河系小得多，被称为矮星系。矮星系具有较浅的引力势，使它们能够将恒星核合成的产物传播到很远的地方。该项目将研究矮星系周围的气体是如何与星系内的恒星相连的。研究人员和她的团队将推断矮星系如何获得气体，将气体加工成恒星，并最终将气体和金属释放到宇宙中。该项目还将为亚利桑那州一所州立监狱的囚犯提供天文学课程。调查员将为参与监狱教育项目的研究生举办研讨会，讨论基于证据的教学技术。该团队将通过多个天文台的光学成像和光谱学以及绿岸望远镜的21cm HI光谱学对恒星和星际介质进行普查。然后，这些数据将与QSO吸收光谱相结合，揭示星系周围介质、星际介质和矮星系中恒星的内容和运动学之间的相关性。通过将结果与各种模拟的预测进行比较，研究人员和她的团队将确定矮星系气体流动的性质和影响。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Most galaxies in the Universe are significantly smaller than the Milky Way and are referred to as dwarf galaxies. The dwarf galaxies have shallow gravitational potentials that enable them to spread the products of stellar nucleosynthesis far and wide. The program will study how the gas surrounding dwarf galaxies is connected to the stars within the galaxies. The investigator and her team will deduce how dwarf galaxies acquire gas, process gas into stars, and finally release gas and metals into the Universe. The program will also support astronomy classes for inmates at an Arizona state prison. The investigator will host workshops for graduate students involved in the prison education program on evidence-based teaching techniques.The team will conduct a census of stars and interstellar medium via optical imaging and spectroscopy from multiple observatories and 21cm HI spectroscopy with the Green Bank Telescope. These data will then be combined with QSO absorption spectroscopy to unveil correlations between the content and kinematics of the circumgalactic medium, interstellar medium, and stars in dwarf galaxies. By comparing the results to predictions from various simulations, the investigator and her team will identify the nature and impact of gas flow from dwarf galaxies.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.