THE GALEX ULTRAVIOLET (UV) SKY SURVEYS ARE UNIQUELY SENSITIVE TO CLASSES OF ASTROPHYSICAL OBJECTS SUCH AS HOT STARS STAR-FORMING GALAXIES AND Z<2.4 QSOS. CLEAN CATALOGS OF UV SOURCES (GUVCAT) WERE RECENTLY CONSTRUCTED (BIANCHI ET AL. 2017) WITH ADDED FLAGS TO FACILITATE SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INCLUDING E.G. SELECTION OF UV-SAMPLES MAPS OF SOURCE DENSITY LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS AND MATCHING WITH OTHER DATABASES. THE PROPOSED PROJECT LEVERAGES GUVCAT AND GREATLY AUGMENTS ITS SCOPE AND USEFULNESS. BY MATCHING THE UV-SOURCE CATALOG TO COROLLARY DATABASES AT OTHER WAVELENGTHS WE WILL CLASSIFY AND CHARACTERIZE BOTH GALACTIC AND EXTRA-GALACTIC UV SOURCES AND EXTRACT SAMPLES OF HOT WHITE DWARFS (WD) FOR OUR SCIENCE PROJECT. WE WILL PUBLICLY DELIVER MATCHED CATALOGS OF UV SOURCES WITH THE LATEST SDSS RELEASE (DR14) GAIA DR2 PANSTARRS 3? PS1 (PROVIDING AN OVERLAP AREA ABOUT 3.6X THAT OF SDSS AND SOME INDICATION OF VARIABILITY) GSC-II 2MASS ... WE LEVERAGE PREVIOUS RECIPES AND SCRIPTS FOR EFFECTIVE FAST PRODUCTION OF THE MATCHED CATALOGS AND USEFUL SCIENCE TAGS. THE UV-SOURCE CATALOGS UNIQUELY ENABLE IDENTIFICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF OBJECTS ELUSIVE IN OTHER SURVEYS SUCH AS HOT WHITE DWARFS (WD) BOTH SINGLE AND IN BINARY SYSTEMS WITH A COOLER OPTICALLY-BRIGHTER COMPANION. HOT WDS ARE ELUSIVE AT ALL WAVELENGTHS EXCEPT THE UV OWING TO THEIR VERY HIGH TEMPERATURES TO WHICH OPTICAL COLORS ARE INSENSITIVE AND LOW OPTICAL LUMINOSITIES. FROM THE UV-MATCHED CATALOGS WE WILL EXTRACT AN UNBIASED CENSUS OF MILKY WAY HOT WHITE DWARFS. WE EXPECT AN INCREASE BY TWO ORDERS OF MAGNITUDES OVER KNOWN SAMPLES BUT MORE IMPORTANT TO EXTEND THE PARAMETER SPACE TO THE HIGH T EFF HIGH-MASS REGIME THE MOST ELUSIVE AND MOST RELEVANT FOR THE YIELD OF CHEMICAL ELEMENTS AND TO INCLUDE HOT-WD IN BINARIES IN WHICH THE HOT COMPONENT IS UNDETECTABLE WITHOUT UV DATA. OUR SURVEY CAN REACH SMALL HOT WDS ALL THE WAY OUT TO THE HALO ALONG LOW-EXTINCTION SIGHT-LINES. WE WILL CHARACTERIZE THE UV-SELECTED HOT WDS WITH ANALYSIS OF THEIR OBSERVED SED (AND COROLLARY DATA WHEN AVAILABLE) AS WELL AS ANALYZE THE GLOBAL SAMPLE WITH MILKY WAY MODEL POPULATIONS. OUR ANALYSIS WILL PROVIDE SORELY NEEDED CONSTRAINTS TO POST-AGB STELLAR EVOLUTION IT WILL CLARIFY STILL UNCERTAIN ASPECTS SUCH AS THE INITIAL-FINAL MASS RELATION INDISPENSABLE FOR UNDERSTANDING THE YIELD OF CHEMICAL ELEMENTS FROM INTERMEDIATE-MASS STARS AND THE CHEMICAL EVOLUTION OF GALAXIES. OUR PROJECT WILL ALSO PROVIDE STATISTICS ON THE FRACTION AND PARAMETER DISTRIBUTION OF BINARIES IN EVOLVED STAGES COMPLEMENTING THE ABUNDANT RECENT STUDIES OF BINARITY FOR STARS IN EARLY EVOLUTIONARY PHASES WITH INFORMATION ON AS-YET UNEXPLORED MASS RANGES AND LATE EVOLUTIONARY PHASES. THE RESULTS WILL INFORM FUTURE STELLAR EVOLUTION MODELS WHICH IN TURN UNDERPIN POPULATION SYNTHESIS AND CHEMICAL EVOLUTION MODELS. THE SED ANALYSIS OF INDIVIDUAL SOURCES AND THE GLOBAL COMPARISON WITH MILKY WAY MODELS WILL ALSO YIELD A MAP OF THE MILKY WAY DUST EXTINCTION TO WHICH UV DATA ARE ALSO VERY SENSITIVE. THE PROJECT IS TIMELY GIVEN THE READINESS OF OUR UV-SOURCE CATALOG AND COMPLEMENTARY DATA AND THE RECENT RELEASE OF GAIA DR2 WHICH PROVIDES DISTANCES FOR MOST OF THE UV-SELECTED STELLAR OBJECTS AND ENABLES US TO DERIVE 3D CATALOGS OF THIS OTHERWISE ELUSIVE STELLAR POPULATION. THE COMBINATION ALLOWS US TO BUILD PRECISE POST-AGB H-R DIAGRAMS ENABLING A MAJOR STEP FORWARD TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING POST-AGB EVOLUTION AND BINARY EVOLUTION. UV-SOURCE CATALOGS WITH MATCHED COROLLARY DATA SOURCE CLASSIFICATION AND INFERRED PARAMETERS AS WELL AS ANALYSIS TOOLS AND MODELS COMPUTED FOR THIS PROJECT WILL BE PUBLICLY RELEASED ON THE PI WEB SITE AND ON MAST AND SIMBAD/VIZIER PUBLIC DATABASES FROM WHICH THEY WILL REMAIN PERMANENTLY AND WIDELY ACCESSIBLE AT NO COST TO THIS PROJECT.
$526,459FY2020National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA
The Johns Hopkins University