Investigating galaxy formation and evolution at sub-millemetre to millimetre wavelengths with Herschel and Muscat

在远红外至亚毫米/毫米波长进行的观测对于了解星系的形成和演化至关重要。事实上，宇宙中的大多数恒星形成活动都发生在尘埃遮挡阶段，在这个阶段，来自新生恒星的紫外线/光学光被尘埃吸收，并在远红外/亚毫米/毫米波长重新发射。最近，赫歇尔空间天文台以前所未有的灵敏度和分辨率探索了宇宙，提供了数十万个尘埃遮挡星系的目录，用于详细的统计研究。通过领导利用赫歇尔进行的最大范围的河外调查，即赫歇尔-ATLAS，卡迪夫大学在分析和科学利用这一大样本尘埃遮挡的星系方面走在了前列。此外，一台新的大画幅毫米相机--墨西哥-英国天文学亚毫米相机(Muscat)目前正在加的夫建造，一旦于2018年初安装在墨西哥的大毫米望远镜(LMT)上，它将对赫歇尔-ATLAS覆盖的一些河外区域进行观测，从而在毫米波长提供新的更高分辨率的数据。该学生将参与赫歇尔-ATLAS和马斯喀特数据的科学开发。他将开发一个物理模型来解释被尘埃遮挡的星系的测量统计特性，方法是求解N体模拟中确定的暗物质晕内气体演化的基本方程，并实施现实的光谱能量分布，将方程的输出转换为可观测的，例如通量密度。这名学生还将在马斯喀特安装在LMT上之前进行最后阶段的马斯喀特表征。一旦安装好相机，他将协助调试马斯喀特，并为天文观测做好准备。然后，他将帮助进行数据获取/分析。

Observations carried out at far-infrared to sub-millimetre/millimetre wavelengths are of paramount importance to understand the formation and evolution of galaxies. In fact, most of the star formation activity in the universe occurred during a dust-obscured phase, in which the UV/optical light from newly born stars was absorbed by dust and re-emitted at far-IR/sub-mm/mm wavelengths.Recently, the Herschel Space Observatory has explored the universe at those wavelengths with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution, providing a catalogue of hundreds of thousands of dust-obscured galaxies to be used for detailed statistical studies. By leading the widest-area extragalactic survey ever conducted with Herschel, i.e. the Herschel-ATLAS, the Cardiff University is at the forefront in the analysis and scientific exploitation of this large sample of dust-obscured galaxies. Furthermore, a new large format millimetre camera, the Mexico-UK Sub-millimetre Camera for Astronomy (MUSCAT), is currently under construction here in Cardiff and, once installed on the Large Millimetre Telescope (LMT) in Mexico in early 2018, it will carry out observations of some of the extragalactic fields covered by Herschel-ATLAS, thus providing new higher resolution data at millimetre wavelengths.The student will take part in the scientific exploitation of the Herschel-ATLAS and MUSCAT data. He will develop a physical model to interpret the measured statistical properties of dust-obscured galaxies by solving the basic equations for the evolution of the gas within dark matter halos identified in N-body simulations and implementing realistic spectral energy distributions to convert the output of the equations into observables, eg flux densities. The student will also work on the final stages of the characterisation of MUSCAT before it is installed on the LMT. Once the camera is installed, he will assist in the commissioning of MUSCAT and readying the instrument for astronomical observations. He will then help with the data taking/analysis.