New CO(1-0) Survey of Nearby Galaxies: Evolution of Molecular Gas and Star Formation in Galactic Disks

对附近星系的新 CO(1-0) 巡天：星系盘中分子气体的演化和恒星形成

• 批准号: 1211680
• 负责人: Jin Koda
• 金额: $ 42.42万
• 依托单位: SUNY at Stony Brook
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-07-01 至 2017-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1211680&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: New; CO; Survey; Nearby; Galaxies

A longstanding problem in astrophysics is to understand how galaxies form and develop throughout their lifetimes. Such understanding is necessary to uncover how our Universe evolved and to gain insight into the origin of our own Milky Way Galaxy. One important aspect of understanding galaxy formation and evolution is to develop detailed theories of star formation. As star formation occurs in giant molecular clouds (GMCs) within galaxies, astrophysicists study the formation and evolution of GMCs. With unprecedented high quality and high resolution data, this study will explore the evolution of GMCs and consequent star formation in galactic disks, and it will critically and quantitatively reconsider the standard picture of gas evolution in galaxies, specifically the one driven by stellar feedback. The study enables for the first time a census of GMC populations in substantial spiral galaxies.This project will also serve as a prototype for research with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) (a new international facility funded in part by the National Science Foundation), which will resolve the internal structure of GMCs in nearby galaxies and routinely produce images of molecular gas and star formation in very distant galaxies. For this project the investigators will use observations from their new CO survey of nearby galaxies with the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) and the Nobeyama Radio Observatory 45m telescope (NRO45), a survey that is nearly complete. The investigators will release to the astronomical community the CO data of nearby galaxies from CARMA and NRO45, and they will also release the software for the combination of interferometer and single-dish data developed for the survey.The investigating team also plans educational and outreach activities that involve building a radio interferometer for a hands-on astronomical laboratory course and disseminating the course materials to other schools. Because the concept of interferometry is challenging to master, developing such a hands-on laboratory course is crucial to the education of the next generation of radio astronomers for the ALMA era.

天体物理学的一个长期问题是了解星系在整个生命的一生中如何形成和发展。 这种理解对于发现我们的宇宙如何发展并洞悉我们自己银河系的起源是必要的。 理解星系形成和进化的一个重要方面是发展恒星形成的详细理论。 由于星系中的巨型分子云（GMC）发生了恒星的形成，因此天体物理学家研究了GMC的形成和演化。 借助前所未有的高质量和高分辨率数据，本研究将探索GMCS和随之而来的星形磁盘中随之而来的恒星形成的演变，它将批评和定量地重新考虑星系中气体演化的标准图片，特别是由Stellar反馈驱动的。 该研究首次使GMC人口在实质性的螺旋星系中进行了普查。该项目还将作为与Atacama大毫米/毫米/亚毫米阵列（ALMA）（由国家科学基金会部分资助的新国际设施）进行研究的原型，该项目将在全国科学基金会中部分资助），该基金会将GRAXS的内部结构置于近距离群体和常规形成中，并构成了型号的摩尔克斯群体，并构成了STAR的摩擦。 对于该项目，研究人员将使用其新的CO调查中的观察结果，并与毫米波天文学研究的合并阵列（CARMA）和Nobeyama无线电天文台4500万望远镜（NRO45）进行研究，这项调查几乎完成了。 调查人员将向天文社区发布来自Carma和NRO45附近星系的CO数据，他们还将发布该软件，以结合用于调查的干涉仪和单次数据的组合。调查团队还计划了教育和外展活动，涉及为无线电干涉仪建立一个动手的天文学实验室课程，并向其他学校提供了动手干涉仪，并向其他学校散发。 由于干涉法的概念对掌握挑战是挑战，因此开发这种动手实验室课程对于对阿尔玛时代的下一代射电天文学家的教育至关重要。