Summary
The majority of the Universe’s star formation occurred shrouded in cosmic dust, making it extremely challenging—historically—to obtain a clear view of young (z≳2) galaxy assembly. While the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) has already enabled significant progress – including pioneering work by the PI to directly image this dusty star formation in early galaxies – their existing stellar populations remain obscured. At the same time, our understanding of the molecular gas fueling that star formation is still limited to unresolved detections and/or biased tracers.
Fortunately, we are on the verge of a breakthrough with the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the imminent arrival of ALMA Bands 1&2. To this end, the PI has obtained a suite of competitive proprietary data on JWST, ALMA, and Band 1/2 pilot facilities. Fully capitalizing on this opportunity now requires a team of capable researchers. By leveraging this data and a novel resolved spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting technique, the proposed program will 1) reveal the hidden stellar populations in the dustiest young (z~2.5) galaxies for the first time, testing predictions from hierarchical galaxy formation; 2) detect and map the crucial CO(1-0) and CO(2-1) emission lines in a statistical sample of these same young galaxies, directly measuring their full cold gas reservoirs via state-of-the-art Bayesian modeling, and calibrating other less-well-understood gas tracers; and 3) push studies of dust and gas in galaxies to the earliest cosmic epochs (z>6.5), including detecting their molecular gas via CO(3-2)—one of the key science goals for ALMA Band 1—thus revealing how the most massive early galaxies grew so quickly. Given her demonstrated track record leading a group and the wealth of data secured, the PI is optimally placed to take advantage of this unique confluence of revolutionary instruments to provide a completely new view into how young galaxies built up their stellar masses.
Fortunately, we are on the verge of a breakthrough with the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the imminent arrival of ALMA Bands 1&2. To this end, the PI has obtained a suite of competitive proprietary data on JWST, ALMA, and Band 1/2 pilot facilities. Fully capitalizing on this opportunity now requires a team of capable researchers. By leveraging this data and a novel resolved spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting technique, the proposed program will 1) reveal the hidden stellar populations in the dustiest young (z~2.5) galaxies for the first time, testing predictions from hierarchical galaxy formation; 2) detect and map the crucial CO(1-0) and CO(2-1) emission lines in a statistical sample of these same young galaxies, directly measuring their full cold gas reservoirs via state-of-the-art Bayesian modeling, and calibrating other less-well-understood gas tracers; and 3) push studies of dust and gas in galaxies to the earliest cosmic epochs (z>6.5), including detecting their molecular gas via CO(3-2)—one of the key science goals for ALMA Band 1—thus revealing how the most massive early galaxies grew so quickly. Given her demonstrated track record leading a group and the wealth of data secured, the PI is optimally placed to take advantage of this unique confluence of revolutionary instruments to provide a completely new view into how young galaxies built up their stellar masses.
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More information & hyperlinks
| Web resources: | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101088676 |
| Start date: | 01-09-2023 |
| End date: | 31-08-2028 |
| Total budget - Public funding: | 1 997 345,00 Euro - 1 997 345,00 Euro |
Cordis data
Original description
The majority of the Universe’s star formation occurred shrouded in cosmic dust, making it extremely challenging—historically—to obtain a clear view of young (z≳2) galaxy assembly. While the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) has already enabled significant progress – including pioneering work by the PI to directly image this dusty star formation in early galaxies – their existing stellar populations remain obscured. At the same time, our understanding of the molecular gas fueling that star formation is still limited to unresolved detections and/or biased tracers.Fortunately, we are on the verge of a breakthrough with the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the imminent arrival of ALMA Bands 1&2. To this end, the PI has obtained a suite of competitive proprietary data on JWST, ALMA, and Band 1/2 pilot facilities. Fully capitalizing on this opportunity now requires a team of capable researchers. By leveraging this data and a novel resolved spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting technique, the proposed program will 1) reveal the hidden stellar populations in the dustiest young (z~2.5) galaxies for the first time, testing predictions from hierarchical galaxy formation; 2) detect and map the crucial CO(1-0) and CO(2-1) emission lines in a statistical sample of these same young galaxies, directly measuring their full cold gas reservoirs via state-of-the-art Bayesian modeling, and calibrating other less-well-understood gas tracers; and 3) push studies of dust and gas in galaxies to the earliest cosmic epochs (z>6.5), including detecting their molecular gas via CO(3-2)—one of the key science goals for ALMA Band 1—thus revealing how the most massive early galaxies grew so quickly. Given her demonstrated track record leading a group and the wealth of data secured, the PI is optimally placed to take advantage of this unique confluence of revolutionary instruments to provide a completely new view into how young galaxies built up their stellar masses.
Status
SIGNEDCall topic
ERC-2022-COGUpdate Date
31-07-2023
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