Deep Wide-Field Surveys of Emission-Line Galaxies

该项目支持利用最近NSF支持的两种革命性仪器的开发的科学活动：马里兰-麦哲伦可调谐滤波器（MMTF）和NOAO极宽视场红外马赛克（NEWFIRM）。MMTF在6.5米的麦哲伦-巴德望远镜上运行，可以在可见光和近红外（5000至9200埃波长）的窄光谱带通（5至15埃宽度）中产生27角分宽的图像。在NOAO Mayall和布兰科4米望远镜上运行的NEWFIRM是一种完全低温冷却的红外成像仪，视场为28弧分。首席研究员和合作者领导了MMTF的调试，并通过提供窄带和超窄带滤波器和开发数据简化管道，为NEWFIRM的成功做出了巨大贡献。该奖项提供的资金更新将使用户能够继续支持MMTF观察员，加强NEWFIRM的数据简化管道，并根据最近获得的MMTF和NEWFIRM数据完成三篇博士论文。第一个论文项目是详细分析星系群和星系团核心的温暖电离气体细丝; MMTF数据将与新的和存档的X射线和紫外线数据相结合，以确定热，冷却和冷却材料的起源。在第二个实验中，NEWFIRM被用来寻找红移为7.7的线发射星系。已经确定了十几个高红移候选星系和几百个低质量的低红移恒星形成星系，它们的光谱将在后续观测中获得。第三个项目利用NEWFIRM和MMTF，沿着光谱数据，研究附近有风吹星系的代表性样本中的重要动态分子成分，以限制风对星系间环境的影响。

This project supports science activities that capitalize on the recent, NSF-supported development of two revolutionary instruments: the Maryland-Magellan Tunable Filter (MMTF) and the NOAO Extremely Wide-Field Infrared Mosaic (NEWFIRM). The MMTF, operating on the 6.5-meter Magellan-Baade telescope, can produce 27-arcminute-wide images in narrow spectral bandpasses (5 to 15 Angstrom width) in the visible and near infrared (5000 to 9200 Angstrom wavelength). NEWFIRM, operating on the NOAO Mayall and Blanco 4-meter telescopes, is fully cryogenically cooled infrared imager with a 28 arcminute field of view. The Principal Investigator and collaborators led the commissioning of MMTF, and contributed greatly to the success of NEWFIRM by providing narrow-band and ultra-narrow-band filters and developing the data reduction pipeline. The renewal of funding provided by this award will enable continued user support for MMTF observers, enhancement of the data reduction pipelines of NEWFIRM, and completion of three doctoral dissertations based on recently acquired MMTF and NEWFIRM data. The first dissertation project is a detailed analysis of the warm ionized gas filaments in the cores of galaxy groups and clusters; MMTF data will be combined with new and archived X-ray and UV data to determine the origin of the hot, cooling, and cooled material. In the second, NEWFIRM is being used to search for line-emitting galaxies out to a redshift of 7.7. More than a dozen high-redshift candidates, and a few hundred low mass star-forming galaxies at lower redshift, have been identified, and their spectra will be obtained in follow-up observations. The third project makes use of both NEWFIRM and MMTF, along with spectroscopic data, to study the dynamically important molecular component in a representative sample of nearby, wind-blowing galaxies, in order to constrain the impact of winds on the intergalactic environment.