Star Formation and the Interstellar Medium

我们的银河系是一个巨大的螺旋星系。大多数星系的公开图像都是螺旋星系，因为它们很明亮，充满了有趣的结构，比如它们的螺旋臂，而且它们很常见。旋涡星系在宇宙中星系的演化中起着关键作用，其中更多的旋涡星系是在宇宙生命早期形成的，然后它们合并和演化形成了我们今天看到的宇宙。 我们理解其他螺旋星系结构的能力受到它们与我们的距离的限制。为了获得这样的理解，我将研究我们银河系的结构，特别关注在其他螺旋星系中可以看到的最亮的物体。这些最亮的天体是刚刚形成的最大质量的恒星，以及它们周围炽热发光的HII区域。这些天体提供了银河系星际介质结构的关键探测器，并主导了螺旋星系的可见外观。 这项研究计划的另一个重要方面是为这项研究创造新的工具。在过去十年里，在菲奇博士的领导下研发的两台仪器最近开始运行：赫歇尔空间天文台的高保真和詹姆斯·克莱克·麦克斯韦尔望远镜的Scuba-2相机。目前提案中描述的研究将利用这些新设施。这份提案中还描述了一个令人兴奋的下一代项目：将在智利建造的25米远红外望远镜CCAT最近开始了最后的工程设计。菲奇博士是这一国际项目的加拿大负责人。这个项目将是这个研究计划的一个主要焦点。

Our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is a large spiral galaxy. Most public images of galaxies are of spiral galaxies because they are bright, filled with interesting structure such as their spiral arms, and they are common. Spiral galaxies have a key role in the evolution of galaxies in the Universe with significantly more of them formed early in the lifetime of the Universe and then they merge and evolve to create the Universe we see around us today. We are limited in our ability to understand the structure of other spiral galaxies by their distance from us. In order to gain such understanding I will study the structure of our Milky Way galaxy, with a special focus on the brightest objects that would be visible in other spiral galaxies. These brightest objects are the most massive stars, just forming now, and the hot glowing HII regions around them. These objects provide a key probe of the structure of the Milky Way's interstellar medium, with dominates the visible appearance of spiral galaxies. Another important aspect of this research program is the creation of new instrumentation for this research. Two instruments developed in the past decade under Dr. Fich's leadership have recently begun operations: HIFI on the Herschel Space Observatory and the SCUBA-2 camera at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. Research described in this current proposal will make use of these new facilities. An exciting next generation project is also described in this proposal: CCAT, a 25 meter far infrared telescope to be built in Chile, has recently begun its final engineering design. Dr. Fich is the Canadian leader of this international project. This project will be a major focus of this research program.