Exploring the obscured chemical evolution of galaxies through far-infrared and sub-millimetric spectroscopic observations

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25707010
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Astronomy
• Research Institution: Ehime University
• Principal Investigator: Nagao Tohru 愛媛大学, 宇宙進化研究センター, 教授 (00508450)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 光学赤外線天文学 / 電波天文学 / 宇宙物理 / 銀河進化

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Studying the chemical evolution of galaxies is crucial to understand the evolutionary history of the current metal-rich Universe. However it has been difficult to diagnose the physical and chemical properties of young galaxies observationally, since actively star-forming young galaxies tend to be enshrouded by heavy dust. We carried out systematic surveys for young dusty galaxies by utilizing brand-new instruments such as Subaru Hyper Suprime Cam, and found that such galaxies tend to possess an active supermassive black hole in their nucleus in a growing-up phase. Our sub-millimetric spectroscopy with ALMA revealed that the chemical evolution of galaxies had occurred in a very short timescale in the early Universe.

Free Research Field

光学赤外線天文学