Cosmic Evolution through Stellar Spectroscopy

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My research is centered on the chemical evolution of stellar systems via spectroscopic abundance analyses. A major aim of this is to understand the evolution and enrichment of galaxies from the earliest epochs, as well as improving our understanding of the origins of the elements. This proposal describes several related avenues of such work, in our own and in nearby dwarf galaxies. Detailed spectroscopy of specific targets (metal-poor stars, chemically peculiar stars, stars beyond the tidal radii in dwarf galaxies) can address questions of the origins of the elements and the homogeneity of the interstellar medium, as well as the effects of stellar winds and supernova feedback on galaxy evolution, and the impact of mergers on the chemical evolution of low mass systems. This field has had a significant impact in the past decade, and yet we are only beginning to have sufficient data to compare the nearby dwarf galaxies to one another, and to collect data for the more isolated dwarf irregular galaxies. The Galactic Centre is another interesting region where metal-poor stars have yet to be found in significant numbers, and yet numerical simulations suggest that First Stars ignite as metal-free, massive stars near the gravitational centres of massive halos. We have initiated a program to search for metal-poor stars in the Galactic Bulge using both photometry and spectroscopic techniques – one of these will include first light use of the Subaru-RAVEN multi-object adaptive optics prototype. The next decade will see an increase in large spectroscopic surveys, and while many are being planned, such as Subaru-PFS and NOAO-DESI, some high resolution studies are currently being executed, such as SDSS III-APOGEE and the ESO-GAIA survey. Through public releases, these datasets (and others such as from Herschel and ALMA) can be used to address questions ranging from Galactic Archaeology to the formation of debris disks. My research proposal includes several projects that are ideal for HQP training of students and PDFs.