Galactic Archaeology: Unveiling the History of the Milky Way

银河考古学：揭开银河系的历史

• 批准号: ST/F002432/1
• 负责人: Bradley Gibson
• 金额: $ 27.04万
• 依托单位: University of Central Lancashire
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2008 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ST%2FF002432%2F1
• 关键词: Galactic; Archaeology; Unveiling; History; Milky

An astonishing archaeological dig is underway - RAVE, the RAdial Velocity Experiment, is using the space motions of one hundred thousand stars (already several times the number previously accumulated throughout history) in the vicinity of the Sun to wind time's arrow back, the first step in a long-term community goal of making a painstaking star-by-star reconstruction of the assembly history of our Milky Way. Disentangling the underlying physics of galaxy formation, whether it be the distant 'far-field' or the local 'near-field' is one of the highest scientific priorities for both STFC and the UK astronomy community, and a fundamental motivation behind several billion-pound technological investments in which STFC has a vested interest. How did the swath of light which cuts across the night sky - the so-called Milky Way - originate? Comprised of hundreds of billions of stars, with ages spanning more than ten billion years, each moving on very different trajectories, with chemical abundance patterns varying by factors of more than a million from star-to-star, and colours and luminosities even more dramatically different, at first glance it would appear all but impossible to piece together the formation history of a disk (or spiral) galaxy like our own Milky Way. Even more daunting would apppear to be attempts to link this highly complex system today with distant 'blobs' of light seen at the edge of the visible Universe with facilities such as the Hubble Space Telescope and other STFC-supported observatories such as Gemini and the European Southern Observatory. Motivated by the extraordinary RAVE dataset, and the promise of proposed next-generation galactic archaeology experiments such as the European Space Agency's GAIA mission and the Gemini/Subaru WFMOS Project, we have developed sophisticated computational techniques capable of tracing the life cycle of galaxies such as the Milky Way, from distant 'blob' to the multi-billion star structure surrounding us today. We have developed a fast and flexible software package which includes virtually all of the important physical processes which drive the formation and evolution of galactic systems; while many codes are available for simulating the kinematics of purely stellar-like systems (so-called 'collisionless' systems), there are very few on the market today which include a parallel treatment of the relevant gas physics. Our software packages include the critical effects of not only gravity, but also gas dynamics, gas heating (from exploding stars and exotic supermassive black holes), gas cooling (from interstellar atomic processes), star formation, chemical enrichment from dying stars, and the luminosity and colour evolution of the stellar populations throughout the simulated galaxy. We are already presented with a number of mysteries regarding the origin of our Milky Way: why do its surrounding satellite 'building blocks' bear chemical fingerprints which look nothing like our Galaxy? why do these satellites appear in special orbits around the Galaxy, as opposed to random orientations? what is responsible for the flared warp in our otherwise flat Milky Way disk? what is the origin of the relatively young clusters observed in the outskirts of our Galaxy, clusters with chemical fingerprints which, again, look nothing like the stars around them? why is our mottled and patchy galactic halo otherwise so homogeneous chemically, save for just a few chemical elements? Datasets such as RAVE, WFMOS, and GAIA provide unprecedented spatial, kinematic, and chemical, data for enormous numbers of stars. With the support of STFC, our team will mine the fossil record of the Milky Way embedded in these new datasets (or guide their potential exploitation, as in the case of WFMOS and GAIA), in order to understand the detailed 3d shape of disk galaxies and their dark matter halos, and gain further insight into the role of accretion events in shaping these properties.

一个惊人的考古挖掘正在进行中- RAVE，RADIAL速度实验，正在使用太阳附近的10万颗恒星（已经是历史上积累的数量的数倍）的空间运动来扭转时间的箭头，这是长期社区目标的第一步，该目标是逐颗星星重建我们银河系的组装历史。解开星系形成的基本物理学，无论是遥远的“远场”还是本地的“近场”，都是STFC和英国天文学界的最高科学优先事项之一，也是STFC拥有既得利益的数十亿英镑技术投资背后的根本动机。划过夜空的那条光带--所谓的银河系--是如何产生的？银河系由数千亿颗恒星组成，年龄跨度超过100亿年，每颗恒星都在非常不同的轨道上运动，化学丰度模式在不同的星星之间变化超过100万倍，颜色和光度甚至更显着不同，乍一看，似乎不可能拼凑出像我们银河系这样的盘状（或螺旋状）星系的形成历史。更令人生畏的是试图将这个高度复杂的系统与在可见宇宙边缘看到的遥远的“斑点”光联系起来，如哈勃太空望远镜和其他STFC支持的天文台，如双子座和欧洲南方天文台。受到非凡的RAVE数据集的激励，以及欧洲航天局的GAIA使命和双子座/斯巴鲁WFMOS项目等拟议的下一代星系考古实验的承诺，我们开发了能够追踪银河系等星系生命周期的复杂计算技术，从遥远的“斑点”到今天我们周围的数十亿颗星星结构。我们已经开发了一个快速和灵活的软件包，其中包括几乎所有重要的物理过程，驱动银河系的形成和演化;虽然许多代码可用于模拟纯恒星系统（所谓的“无碰撞”系统）的运动学，但今天市场上很少有包括相关气体物理学的并行处理。我们的软件包不仅包括重力的关键影响，而且还包括气体动力学，气体加热（来自爆炸恒星和外来超大质量黑洞），气体冷却（来自星际原子过程），星星形成，垂死恒星的化学富集，以及整个模拟星系中恒星群体的光度和颜色演变。关于银河系的起源，我们已经有了许多谜团：为什么它周围的卫星“积木”带有化学指纹，看起来与我们的银河系一点也不像？为什么这些卫星出现在银河系周围的特殊轨道上，而不是随机的方向？是什么导致了我们平坦的银河系圆盘中的耀斑翘曲？在我们银河系外围观测到的相对年轻的星团的起源是什么？这些星团具有化学指纹，看起来与周围的恒星一点也不像。为什么我们斑驳的星系晕在化学上如此均匀，除了几种化学元素？RAVE、WFMOS和GAIA等数据集为大量恒星提供了前所未有的空间、运动学和化学数据。在STFC的支持下，我们的团队将挖掘嵌入这些新数据集中的银河系化石记录（或指导其潜在的开发，如WFMOS和GAIA），以了解盘星系及其暗物质晕的详细3D形状，并进一步了解吸积事件在塑造这些属性中的作用。

项目成果

THE RAVE CATALOG OF STELLAR ELEMENTAL ABUNDANCES: FIRST DATA RELEASE

• DOI: 10.1088/0004-6256/142/6/193
• 发表时间: 2011-09
• 期刊: The Astronomical Journal
• 作者: C. Boeche;A. Siebert;M. Williams;R. D. Jong;M. Steinmetz;J. Fulbright;G. Ruchti;O. Bienaym'e;J. Bland-Hawthorn;R. Campbell;K. Freeman;B. Gibson;G. Gilmore;E. Grebel;A. Helmi;U. Munari;J. Navarro;Q. Parker;W. Reid;G. Seabroke;A. Siviero;F. Watson;R. Wyse;T. Zwitter

The Lowest Metallicity Stars in the LMC: Clues from MaGICC Simulations

LMC 中金属丰度最低的恒星：MaGICC 模拟的线索

• DOI: 10.1017/pasa.2013.20
• 发表时间: 2013
• 期刊: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
• 影响因子: 6.3
• 作者: Brook C

Hierarchical formation of bulgeless galaxies - II. Redistribution of angular momentum via galactic fountains Bulgeless discs II

无球核星系的层次结构 - II。

• DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.19740.x
• 发表时间: 2012
• 期刊: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: Brook C

MaGICC baryon cycle: the enrichment history of simulated disc galaxies

• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stu1406
• 发表时间: 2013-06
• 期刊: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: C. Brook;G. Stinson;Bradley K Gibson;Bradley K Gibson;S. Shen;A. Macciò;A. Obreja;J. Wadsley;Thomas P. Quinn

Galactic chemical evolution in hierarchical formation models - I. Early-type galaxies in the local Universe GCE in SAMs

分层形成模型中的星系化学演化 - I. SAM 中局域宇宙 GCE 中的早期型星系

• DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.15924.x
• 发表时间: 2010
• 期刊: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: Arrigoni M