Measuring the Gas Content of Extreme Star-forming Galaxies across Cosmic Time

Ximena费尔南德斯被授予NSF天文学和天体物理学博士后奖学金，在新泽西的州立大学罗格斯开展研究和教育计划。她的研究旨在了解星系如何演化;特别是，她对那些以非常高的速度形成恒星的星系感兴趣。高星星形成率是由宇宙当前年龄的星系之间的相互作用引发的，但目前还不清楚这在早期是否成立。费尔南德斯将使用升级和新的射电望远镜对这些系统的天然气储层进行成像，以更好地了解正在发生的过程。这将产生重要的线索，因为气体为星星的形成提供了燃料，使其成为星系演化的关键组成部分。该提案的教育部分包括开发夏季STEM课程，作为罗格斯未来学者计划与当地公立学校的一部分。该计划选择当地有才华的七年级学生，并为他们提供学术资源和指导，以帮助他们从高中毕业，并成为他们家庭中第一个上大学的人。费尔南德斯试图测量原子和分子气体在宇宙时间中的演化，并探索合并和湍流盘之间可能的差异。她将使用中性氢（HI）的图像研究超亮红外星系的演化。该研究的第一部分将使用COSMOS HI大型河外星系巡天，这是一项正在进行的调查，预计将在0 z 0.5的红移区间内对300个星系进行成像。第二部分将使用来自LADUMA（用MeerKAT阵列观察遥远宇宙）调查的数据，该调查计划与南非平方公里阵列前体一起进行，该阵列将测量HI含量到z=1.4。第三部分是用阿尔马观测CO中的一个亚样本星系，比较其分子氢的数量和分布。教育部分包括开发几门STEM课程，这些课程将使用天文学作为入门科学，以说明天文学家如何使用物理，化学，生物学和工程学等领域来了解宇宙。此外，费尔南德斯将计划向家庭开放的活动，包括讲座/示范和观察。她将担任导师，并提供研究机会感兴趣的学生。

Ximena Fernandez is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship to carry out a program of research and education at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Her research seeks to understand how galaxies evolve; in particular, she is interested in those that are forming stars at a very high rate. The high star formation rates are triggered by interactions between galaxies at the present age of the Universe, but it is still unclear if this holds true at earlier times. Fernandez will use upgraded and new radio telescopes to image the gas reservoirs of these systems to better understand the processes taking place. This will yield important clues since gas provides the fuel for star formation, making it a key component in the evolution of galaxies. The educational component of the proposal consists of developing summer STEM courses as part of the Rutgers Future Scholars program with local public schools. This program selects local talented seventh graders and provides them with academic resources and mentoring to help them graduate from high school and be the first ones in their families to attend college. Fernandez seeks to measure the evolution of the atomic and molecular gas across cosmic time, and explore possible differences between the mergers and turbulent disks. She will study the evolution of ultra-luminous infrared galaxies using images of neutral hydrogen (HI). The first part of the study will use the COSMOS HI Large Extragalactic Survey, an on-going survey being done at the Very Large Array that is expected to image 300 galaxies in the redshift interval 0 z 0.5. The second part will use data from the LADUMA (Looking At the Distant Universe with the MeerKAT Array) survey planned with the South African Square Kilometer Array precursor, which will measure the HI content out to z=1.4. The third part consists of observing a sub-sample of galaxies in CO with ALMA to compare its amount and distribution of molecular hydrogen to HI. The educational component consists of developing several STEM courses that will use astronomy as a gateway science to illustrate how astronomers use fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering to understand the Universe. In addition, Fernandez will plan activities open to families which will consist of both lecture/demonstration and observing. She will serve as a mentor and offer research opportunities to interested students.