Project description
The discovery of faint galaxies could increase knowledge of the early universe
After the Big Bang, the once hot universe began to cool and matter clumped, forming the first stars and galaxies. During the following Epoch of Reionisation, the energetic photons of the newly formed stars in galaxies heated the surrounding environment, reionising most of the neutral hydrogen in the universe. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) enables astronomers to identify faint galaxies in the early universe and by measuring their spectra further understand their properties and their impact on the surrounding space. Funded by the European Research Council, the AGENTS project will use advanced observational techniques to investigate the connection between galaxies and the gas permeating the space between them. Based on previously collected data from the JWST, AGENTS will obtain a complete census of the young galaxy population with emission-line surveys in the first 3 Gyr of cosmic time.
Objective
The identification of the first galaxies in the early Universe has been an expanding frontier of observational astrophysics.
Reionization marks the last major phase transition of matter in the Universe and its completion had crucial impact on the formation of the smallest galaxies. Reionization is therefore the first landmark of the influence that feedback from star formation had on structure formation. While reionization roughly encapsulated the first Gyr of cosmic time, the precise timing, topology and the sources of ionizing photons are unknown. Did reionization proceed rapidly or gradually and was it driven by rare bright galaxies, or numerous faint ones?
The main limitation to our understanding is our little knowledge of the properties of galaxies in the early Universe. Now, thanks to the long-awaited James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), this field can transition into the study of the characteristics of these first galaxies and the assessment of their impact on their environment. With its new technical capabilities, JWST will enable the identification of thousands of faint galaxies in the early Universe and enable the measurement of the detailed properties of their stellar populations and interstellar medium.
My StG will benefit from my early access to JWST to obtain a complete census of the young galaxy population with emission-line surveys in the first 3 Gyr of cosmic time. I will use unprecedented observational techniques in survey fields that enable direct measurements of the connection between galaxies and intergalactic gas. Based on a multi-angled approach, I will assess the role of young galaxies as agents and tracers of reionization. My team will measure the total ionizing budget from young galaxies in the early Universe and self-consistently trace the topology and timing of reionization on global and local scales. This project will yield a legacy that paves the way for future endeavours with the Extremely Large Telescopes and the Square Kilometre Array.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyastrophysics
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyplanetary sciencescelestial mechanics
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyphysical cosmologygalaxy evolution
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyobservational astronomy
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC - Support for frontier research (ERC)Host institution
3400 Klosterneuburg
Austria