The nature of distant dust-enshrouded galaxies

这个项目将对最近在亚毫米波段发现的非常明亮的尘埃笼罩的高红移星系的性质有新的理解。这些发光的遥远的SMG产生了宇宙早期历史上所有星系发射的能量的很大一部分，但人们仍然知之甚少。这在很大程度上是因为，即使是最强大的亚毫米波观测望远镜的角分辨率也不足以确定SMG的位置，从而足够准确地确认单个星系是光学图像中的对应星系。该程序将确定对应物的准确位置，然后确定它们的红移和天体物理性质。测量SMG的红移分布是一个特别重要的目标。这是确定SMG数量演变及其与光学星系调查中探测到的更大和更好理解的高红移星系样本的关系所需的最重要的一条信息。

AST-0205937Blain, Andrew W.This program will develop new understanding of the nature of very-luminous dust-enshrouded high redshift galaxies recently discovered in the submillimeter waveband. These luminous distant 'SMGs ' generate a significant fraction of the energy emitted by all galaxies over the early history of the Universe, and yet are still poorly understood. This is largely because the angular resolution of even the most powerful submillimeter-wave survey telescopes is not sufficient to pin down the positions of SMGs with sufficient accuracy to confirm a single galaxy as their counterpart in an optical image. This program will determine accurate positions for the counterparts, and then determine their redshifts and astrophysical properties. Measuring the redshift distribution for the SMGs is a particularly important goal. This is the most important piece of information required to determine the evolution of the population of SMGs, and their relationship with the larger and better understood samples of high-redshift galaxies detected in optical galaxy surveys.***