Collaborative Research: The Emergence of Dusty Starbursts in Cosmic History

最近，在早期宇宙（z 6）中发现了相当数量的星系，它们正在以惊人的速度形成恒星，即， 1,000个太阳质量。相比之下，像银河系这样的大型螺旋每年形成1-2个太阳质量的恒星。同样令人惊讶的是，这些物体被大量的宇宙尘埃严重遮蔽，需要在非常长的波长上进行观测才能探测到。z 6处巨大的星暴星系和大量尘埃的存在将我们目前关于早期星星形成的理论推向了极限。这一合作项目将利用50米大型毫米望远镜（LMT）对大量候选尘埃星暴样本（总共629个天体）进行全面调查，该望远镜目前正在满负荷运行，以确定准确的红移和位置，并确定z 6天体的统计学显著样本。深度光学和近红外后续研究将识别光学对应物和恒星质量/种群。总之，这些将对早期宇宙的星星形成和金属富集历史产生强有力的限制。这项工作将支持一名博士后和一名研究生，公共宣传活动，以及一个培养具有科学素养的记者的计划。总体方法是使用LMT的红移搜索接收器观察629个尘埃高红移星系的“500微米”样本。这台宽带谱仪是测量这类天体红移的理想仪器。该团队将结合联合收割机机构和开放时间的访问，建立一个光谱样本的1050个对象，其中1027个对象应该是真正的尘埃恒星爆发在z 6。此外，LMT/TolTEC仪器将很快进行公共遗产调查，这将提供覆盖其大部分领域的1-2毫米深图像。这些公开的数据将提供毫米测光以及精确到1角秒的位置为160个物体，这将使团队能够精确定位他们的光学到近红外对应物。最后，他们将获得最大的光谱样本和z 6处尘埃星暴的最大对应样本，他们将以统计的方式进行分析。这将有助于填补早期宇宙星星形成和金属富集历史中仍然缺失的关键部分。该奖项反映了NSF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。

Recently, a sizable population of galaxies has been discovered in the early universe (z 6) that are forming stars at a furious rate, i.e., 1,000 solar masses per year. For comparison, large present-day spirals like the Milky Way form 1-2 solar masses of stars each year. Just as surprising is the fact that these objects are heavily obscured by immense amounts of cosmic dust, requiring observations at very long wavelengths for detections. The very existence of massive starburst galaxies and large amounts of dust at z 6 pushes our current theory of early star formation to the limit. This collaborative project will conduct a comprehensive survey of a large sample of candidate dusty starbursts (629 objects in total) using the 50-m Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT), now operating at its full capacity, to determine accurate redshifts and positions and define a statistically significant sample of z 6 objects. Deep optical and near-infrared follow-ups will identify optical counterparts and stellar masses/populations. Together, these will place strong constraints on the star formation and metal enrichment history of the early universe. This work will support a postdoc and a graduate student, public outreach activities, and a program to produce scientifically literate journalists.The overall approach is to observe the "500 micron risers" sample of 629 dusty, high-redshift galaxies using the LMT's Redshift Search Receiver. This wide-bandwidth spectrograph is an ideal instrument to measure redshifts for such objects. The team will combine institutional and open-time access to build a spectroscopic sample of ∼50 objects, of which ∼27 objects should be bona fide dusty starbursts at z 6. In addition, the LMT/TolTEC instrument will soon carry out public legacy surveys, which will provide deep, 1–2 mm images that cover a significant portion of their fields. These public data will provide millimeter photometry as well as positions accurate to ~1 arcsecond for ∼160 of the objects, which will allow the team to pinpoint their optical to near- infrared counterparts. In the end, they will have the largest spectroscopic sample and the largest counterpart sample for dusty starbursts at z 6, which they will analyze in a statistical manner. This will help fill in a critical piece that is still missing from the early cosmic star formation and metal enrichment history.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.