Analytic Modeling of z>=6 Interstellar Medium

The statistics of newly discovered z>~6 galaxies---their abundance and clustering---have allowed us to study their ensemble properties, but the difficulties inherent in detecting, resolving, and obtaining spectra of these distant, faint objects has prevented a deeper empirical exploration of their internal physics. However, in advance of observatories like GMT and TMT, multi-wavelength observations can be a useful probe of the high-redshift ISM. I will present a novel analytic model for the internal physics of z>~6 galaxies that, when combined with information from galaxy statistics, probes an enormous range of distance scales---from the tens of megaparsec regions over which...

The statistics of newly discovered z>~6 galaxies---their abundance and clustering---have allowed us to study their ensemble properties, but the difficulties inherent in detecting, resolving, and obtaining spectra of these distant, faint objects has prevented a deeper empirical exploration of their internal physics. However, in advance of observatories like GMT and TMT, multi-wavelength observations can be a useful probe of the high-redshift ISM. I will present a novel analytic model for the internal physics of z>~6 galaxies that, when combined with information from galaxy statistics, probes an enormous range of distance scales---from the tens of megaparsec regions over which cosmic variance operates to the tens of parsec-sized photo-dissociative regions within giant molecular clouds---a range that makes investigations difficult with numerical simulations. I will apply this model to understanding the X-ray emission from faint AGN and to predicting future observations of CO emission lines with ALMA.

Event Details

Date/Time:

  • Date: 
    Thursday, November 8, 2012 - 10:00am

Location:
Boggs 1-90 (CRA Visualization Room)