The origins and evolution of molecular clouds

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Nearly every atom in the Universe heavier than helium was forged in the core of a massive star, which upon its death, released those elements back into the interstellar medium (ISM). Once there, the process of star formation incorporates those atoms into the next generation of stars and planets. While the lives and deaths of stars are well understood, very little is known about how gas moves from one generation of stars into the next. The proposal research will unravel the origins and evolution of the molecular clouds, which host all contemporary star formation in the Universe. There are numerous, detailed observations of these massive clouds and many researchers aim to model their behavior using numerical simulations. Broad insight will be gained by making a well-posed comparison between these simulations and observations. While such comparisons have been made in the past, it is the detailed and systematic approach that sets this project apart. By modeling the effects of telescopes on the acquisition of data, we will produce simulated observations that can be compared directly to real observations. The project will amass a set of simulated observations in collaboration with researchers studying cloud evolution. These simulated observations will be compared to newly acquired data from the James Clark Maxwell Telescope's new Legacy Surveys as well as archived projects by the investigators. The project will use novel approaches for a statistical comparison of the data adapted from other scientific fields to find those simulations that best match sets of observations. By identifying the simulations that best mimic reality and isolating the key physical ingredients that are responsible for those simulations' behavior, it will be possible to identify the essential physical processes that govern molecular cloud evolution. Insight into these processes will provide a key link in understanding the evolution of galaxies from the Big Bang to the present.