Descrizione del progetto
Ricostruire l’origine e l’evoluzione della Via Lattea
L’universo è costituito da trilioni di galassie. L’osservazione di altre galassie fornisce importanti indizi sull’origine e l’evoluzione dell’universo ma la Via Lattea è l’unica sufficientemente vicina da consentire di ricavare voluminosi insiemi di dati provenienti da esperimenti osservazionali. Tre recenti lanci osservazionali forniranno una precisione e un’accuratezza senza precedenti a livello tecnologico. Il progetto EMERGE, finanziato dall’UE, ha in programma di sfruttare al meglio la ricchezza di dati che tali iniziative invieranno sulla Terra in relazione alle stelle e ai resti stellari compatti della nostra galassia, in modo da consentire la costruzione di un modello relativo all’evoluzione chimica della galassia. La ricostruzione basata sull’osservazione della storia associata alla formazione stellare e all’evoluzione chimica della galassia ne svelerà i progenitori e i comportamenti assunti nel corso del tempo.
Obiettivo
Understanding how the Milky Way arrived at its present state requires a large volume of precision measurements of our Galaxy’s current makeup, as well as an empirically based understanding of the main processes involved in the Galaxy’s evolution. Such data are now about to arrive in the flood of quality information from Gaia and SDSS-V. The demography of the stars and of the compact stellar remnants in our Galaxy, in terms of phase-space location, mass, age, metallicity, and multiplicity are data products that will come directly from these surveys. I propose to integrate this information into a comprehensive picture of the Milky Way’s present state. In parallel, I will build a Galactic chemical evolution model, with input parameters that are as empirically based as possible, that will reproduce and explain the observations. To get those input parameters, I will measure the rates of supernovae (SNe) in nearby galaxies (using data from past and ongoing surveys) and in high-redshift proto-clusters (by conducting a SN search with JWST), to bring into sharp focus the element yields of SNe and the distribution of delay times (the DTD) between star formation and SN explosion. These empirically determined SN metal-production parameters will be used to find the observationally based reconstruction of the Galaxy’s stellar formation history and chemical evolution that reproduces the observed present-day Milky Way stellar population. The population census of stellar multiplicity with Gaia+SDSS-V, and particularly of short-orbit compact-object binaries, will hark back to the rates and the element yields of the various types of SNe, revealing the connections between various progenitor systems, their explosions, and their rates. The plan, while ambitious, is feasible, thanks to the data from these truly game-changing observational projects. My team will perform all steps of the analysis and will combine the results to obtain the clearest picture of how our Galaxy came to be.
Campo scientifico
- natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsdynamical systems
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyphysical cosmologygalaxy evolution
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftwaresoftware applicationssimulation software
- natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsmathematical model
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantIstituzione ospitante
69978 Tel Aviv
Israele