Postdoctoral Fellowship: AAPF: Constraining the Cosmic Evolution of Environmental Quenching & Predicting Protocluster Populations

Devontae Baxter被授予美国国家科学基金会天文学和天体物理学奖学金，在加州大学圣地亚哥分校开展研究和教育项目。Baxter将结合尖端的观测和最先进的星系团和星系团的模拟来确定是什么驱动了卫星星系中恒星形成的抑制（或淬火），以及这个过程在早期宇宙中是否不同。百特还将启动计算天体物理学研究准备（CARP）项目，为未来的社区学院转校生提供i)开始学术研究所需的计算技能和ii)相关的指导，以帮助他们在转学过程中取得成功，并在四年制大学之后取得成功。该项目将结合大容量、高分辨率的宇宙学n体模拟与最全面的星系团和星系团的光谱和多通带成像调查的观测结果，以：(1)分离z ~ 1大质量星系团卫星中破坏气星周期的主要淬火机制；(2)对z1处环境猝灭的光晕质量依赖性进行了稳健约束；(3)约束了近80亿年来星系团和星系团种群猝灭时间尺度的红移演化；(4)对大质量星团的祖先（即原星团）的约束较差的静态种群进行物理动机预测。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。

Devontae Baxter is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Fellowship to carry out a program of research and education at the University of California, San Diego. Baxter will combine cutting-edge observations and state-of-the-art simulations of galaxy groups and clusters to determine what drives the suppression (or quenching) of star formation in satellite galaxies, and whether the process is different in the early cosmos. Baxter will also launch the Computational Astrophysics Research Preparation (CARP) program to provide prospective community college transfer students with i) the computational skills necessary to begin academic research and ii) relevant mentorship to aid in their transfer process and subsequent success at and beyond the four-year university. This project will combine large volume, high-resolution cosmological N-body simulations with observations from the most comprehensive spectroscopic and multi-passband imaging surveys of galaxy groups and clusters to (1) isolate the dominant quenching mechanism responsible for breaking the gas-star cycle in satellites of massive groups at z ~ 1; (2) place robust constraints on the halo-mass dependence of environmental quenching at z 1; (3) constrain the redshift evolution of the quenching timescale for group and cluster populations over the last 8 billion years; and (4) make physically motivated predictions for the poorly constrained quiescent population of the progenitors of massive clusters – i.e. protoclusters.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.