Research
Stellar Populations
Our department has a variety of active research activities on stellar populations and Local Group galaxies. Old stellar populations provide a fossil record of star formation and galaxy conditions relating to much earlier cosmic epochs, while young stellar populations trace the current star formation and are the sources of energetic feedback effects. Stellar kinematics provide vital probes of dark matter, which interacts only gravitationally with other forms of matter. Our research on the spatially resolved Local Group galaxies also includes the interstellar and intergalactic media and their relation to the stellar and dark matter components of galaxies. Altogether, our work is addressing the puzzle of how our own Milky Way galaxy is put together, and how galaxies form and evolve.
This page was current on 8/9/07
Projects
- Alonso studies globular clusters in the direction of the inner Galaxy. By mapping the differential extinction and remove their effects in a sample of clusters in the direction of the inner Milky Way, so we will be able to produce high quality color-magnitude diagrams of these poorly-studied clusters. These CMDs will allow us to determine these clusters' relative ages, distances and chemistry and to address important questions about the formation and the evolution of the inner Galaxy.
- Brink and Mateo are doing a full 360º kinematic survey of the Sagittarius stream in order to determine the shape of the Milky Way's dark matter halo, and elucidate the nature of its dwarf progenitor.
- Walker and Mateo studies the internal kinematics of dwarf galaxies, in order to tie to broader issues such as the formation/evolution of the Local Group and the behavior of dark matter on small scales.
- Cameron is working with Rebecca Bernstein (UCSC) to study the detailed chemical abundances of Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and Milky Way (MW) globular clusters (GCs) to constrain LMC and MW formation models and their chemical enrichment history, as well as the synthesis of elements in Type I and Type II supernovae. In the course of this work, they are developing a new method to determine detailed elemental abundances of extragalactic globular clusters through high-resolution, integrated-light spectra.
- Bensby and Oey study detailed elemental abundances in the Galactic thin and thick disks, different kinematical groups and stellar streams in the Galaxy. We aim to put further constraints on the origin and evolution of the Milky Way.
- Bensby and Oey also use high-resolution stellar spectra to measure metallicity distributions for the old and young Galactic thin disk, to examine the chemical evolution of this population.
- Lamb and Oey are constraining the fraction of runaway OB stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud to constrain the origin of field massive stars.
- Werk and Putman investigate the relationship between stellar and gaseous properties, and also study stellar populations of clusters in tidal debris.
The People
| Faculty: | Researchers: | Students: |
|
|
|
