NSF-BSF: Galaxies in the Reionization Era

首席调查人员(PI)斯塔克和齐特林将在宇宙时间的头10亿年内识别出大质量星系周围一些最大的电离气泡。该团队将使用MMT望远镜上的Binospec光谱仪和麦哲伦望远镜上的折叠端口红外Echellette光谱仪进行调查。PIS还将与莱蒙山天空中心的教育专家合作，为教师举办专业发展工作坊，并为他们提供在课堂上使用的人体模型。该项目得到了美国国家科学基金会和美国-以色列双国科学基金会的支持，以进一步促进两国天体物理界之间的合作。PI Stark是使用阿塔卡马大毫米/亚毫米阵列的再电离时代明亮发射线测量(OUTRAN)的联合PI。这个项目是对z~7处明亮的叛逆者星系的免费静止框架紫外光谱测量。该团队将利用在每个系统中观察到的莱曼-阿尔法线的亮度和较弱的诊断线来表征这些大质量星系周围的再电离过程。这些数据将被用来描述电离气体在运动学和化学丰度方面的性质，以及确定电离的主要来源是活动星系核还是年轻的大质量恒星群。这一裁决反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Principal Investigators (PIs) Stark and Zitrin will identify some of the largest ionized gas bubbles around massive galaxies within the first billion years of cosmic time. The team will conduct a survey using the Binospec spectrograph on the MMT telescope and the Folded-Port Infrared Echellette spectrometer on the Magellan telescope. The PIs will also collaborate with education experts at the Mount Lemmon Sky Center to host professional development workshops for teachers and provide them with human orrery models to use in their classrooms. This project is supported by both the National Science Foundation and the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation to further collaborations between the astrophysical communities in the two countries.PI Stark is a co-PI of the Reionization Era Bright Emission Line Survey (REBELS) using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillmeter Array. This project is a complimentary rest-frame ultraviolet spectroscopic survey of the bright REBELS galaxies at z~7. The team will characterize the progress of reionization around these massive galaxies using the brightness of the Lyman-alpha line and fainter diagnostic lines observed in each system. The data will be used to characterize both the nature of the ionized gas in terms of kinematics and chemical enrichment, as well as to determine whether the major source of ionization is an active galactic nucleus or a population of young massive stars.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.