Evolution of Galaxies and Clusters of Galaxies

Bruce Carney
Gerald Cecil
Fabian Heitsch
Sheila Kannappan

Bruce Carney's work concentrates on the formation and early evolution of our Milky Way galaxy. With his colleagues, he concentrates on the relationships between chemical abundances and kinematics, and on the relative and absolute ages of globular clusters. He is part of a team that is responsible for one of the Key Projects on NASA's Space Interferometer Mission. The goal is to measure the ages of globular cluster with an absolute precision uncertainty of only a few percent, thereby setting a firm lower limit on the age of the Galaxy and the Universe.

Gerald Cecil provides observational evidence for galactic-scale winds in our own and nearby galaxies (e.g. normal galaxies including star-forming dwarfs, starburst and active galaxies, and ultraluminous infrared galaxies). With SOAR and SALT, these studies are being extended to high redshift galaxies (e.g. Lyman-break and infrared-bright galaxies). A panchromatic (i.e. from radio through x-ray) view of galaxy winds is necessary to track the energy flow through various gas phases (molecular, neutral, warm, hot, and relativistic materials). To that end Cecil is actively working with national facilities such as the GBT, Hubble, and Chandra.

Sheila Kannappan's work addresses interrelated problems in galaxy formation by looking at both the global evolution of the galaxy population and the detailed formation mechanisms of individual galaxy components. Her group analyzes multi-wavelength imaging and spectroscopy at both low and high redshift (GALEX, optical, Spitzer, CARMA, GBT, VLA, archival surveys). A major initiative underway is the RESOLVE (REsolved Spectroscopy Of a Local VolumE) Survey, which will provide a unified analysis of the mass components and structures of galaxies and the larger cosmic web in which they live.