International Research Fellowship Program: Starburst Galaxies from the Local Group to the Hubble Deep Field

Zucker Daniel B, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

0104349 Zucker The International Research Fellow Awards Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will provide twenty-four months of support to Dr. Daniel B. Zucker to do research with Dr. Eva Grebel at Max-Planck-Institut fur Astronomie in Heidelberg (MPIA), Germany on starburst galaxies from the local group to the Hubble Deep Field. Support for this project is provided by NSF's Math and Physical Science Directorate's Office of Multipdisciplinary Activities. Starburts - intense episodes of star formation - have been observed within our own galaxy and in other nearby galaxies. Observations of high-redshift galaxies suggest that local starbursts are reasonable analogs of the star formation modes in their more distant cousins. An understanding of the physical properties of nearby starbursts, covering a range of metallicities, is therefore essential for interpreting data from galaxies at earlier epochs. During this project, the PI will work to construct a coherent database of the observational and derived physical parameters of nearby dwarf starburst galaxies, including existing data as well as new observations, and to apply this database to a study of starburst galaxies at moderate to high redshift. At MPIA, the PI will have access to ground-based telescopes with state-of-the-art optical and infrared instruments which are critical to this research. Dr. Grebel has extensive experience working on stellar populations and the dynamics of nearby galaxies.