WE PROPOSE TO CONSTRUCT THE MOST ACCURATE SET OF GALAXY ULTRAVIOLET (UV) LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS YET ASSEMBLED OVER THE REDSHIFT RANGE 4<Z<10 TO SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF GALAXY BIRTH AND EVOLUTION IN THE EARLY UNIVERSE. THIS WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED USING ARCHIVAL DATA FROM THE SPITZER SPACE TELESCOPE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE AND A VARIETY OF GROUND-BASED TELESCOPES (NOAO CTIO AND KPNO 4M VISTA SUBARU VLT CFHT) SELECTING AN EXPECTED SAMPLE OF ~47 000 GALAXIES (>4X LARGER THAN THE PREVIOUS LARGEST SAMPLE OF GALAXIES IN THIS EPOCH SELECTED WITH MULTI-WAVELENGTH DATA). IN AN ADVANCE OVER PREVIOUS STUDIES WE WILL SELECT SAMPLES OF GALAXIES INCLUDING SPITZER INFRARED ARRAY CAMERA (IRAC) MID-INFRARED IMAGING DATA WHICH ARE CRUCIAL TO BOTH MINIMIZE CONTAMINATION AND TO IMPROVE THE PRECISION OF PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS. ADDITIONALLY WE WILL BE THE FIRST TO APPLY A UNIFORM SET OF SELECTION CRITERIA SIMULTANEOUSLY TO DATASETS SPANNING AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE IN DYNAMIC RANGE OF AREA COVERED ALLOWING THE CONSTRUCTION OF HIGH-REDSHIFT UV LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS SPANNING NEARLY 10 ASTRONOMICAL MAGNITUDES. WE WILL USE THIS DATASET TO ACCOMPLISH THE FOLLOWING SCIENCE GOALS: 1) WE WILL PROVIDE THE MOST ROBUST CONSTRAINTS ON THE ABUNDANCE OF BRIGHT STAR-FORMING GALAXIES IN THE EPOCH 4<Z<10 AND CONCLUSIVELY DETERMINE WHETHER THE SHAPE OF THE BRIGHT-END OF THE LUMINOSITY FUNCTION DECLINES AS AN EXPONENTIAL OR A POWER LAW. IN COLLABORATION WITH THEORETICAL MODELS THESE BRIGHT GALAXY ABUNDANCES CAN BE USED TO CONSTRAIN THE UNDERLYING PHYSICS REGULATING STAR-FORMATION PROCESSES IN THE DISTANT UNIVERSE (E.G. GAS COOLING FEEDBACK ETC.). 2) BY PUSHING TO Z=8-10 WE CAN PROBE THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMIC STAR-FORMATION RATE (SFR) DENSITY AT VERY EARLY TIMES. WHILE INITIAL RESULTS CONCLUDED THAT THE SFR DENSITY DECREASED RAPIDLY IN THIS EPOCH OUR PILOT STUDY USING SPITZER/IRAC DATA IMPLIES THAT GALAXIES IN THIS EPOCH ARE MORE NUMEROUS THAN PREVIOUSLY OBSERVED. OUR PROPOSED PROJECT WILL PERFORM A DETAILED ANALYSIS INTO THE ABUNDANCE OF GALAXIES AT Z=9-10 PROVIDING A ROBUST BASELINE FOR FUTURE STUDIES WITH THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE (JWST). 3) DUE TO OUR LARGE VOLUME PROBED WE EXPECT ~1600 AGNS AT Z=4-6. THESE AGN COME FROM THE FAINT-END OF THE AGN LUMINOSITY FUNCTION WHICH IS PRESENTLY POORLY CONSTRAINED. OUR LARGE DYNAMIC RANGE IN UV LUMINOSITY PROBED WILL ALLOW US TO FIT THE GALAXY AND AGN LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS SIMULTANEOUSLY (SUPPLEMENTING WITH SLOAN QUASAR DATA TO CONSTRAIN THE BRIGHT-END OF THE AGN LUMINOSITY FUNCTION). OUR STUDY WILL ALLOW US TO PLACE SECURE CONSTRAINTS ON THE FAINT END OF THE AGN LUMINOSITY FUNCTION PROVIDING INSIGHT INTO WHETHER AGN CONTRIBUTED SIGNIFICANTLY TO THE END OF REIONIZATION AT Z=5-6. OUR EXPECTED RESULTS WILL BE PUBLISHED IN THREE PAPERS. 1) WE WILL PUBLISH OUR GALAXY SAMPLES BY THE END OF 2018 IN TIME FOR JWST OBSERVERS TO UPDATE THEIR SPECTROSCOPIC TARGET LISTS PRIOR TO THE ONSET OF CYCLE 1 OBSERVATIONS (EXPECTED APRIL 2019). 2) RESULTS ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSMIC SFR DENSITY AT Z=9-10 PUBLISHED BY DECEMBER 2018. 3) THE FULL RESULTS OF OUR LUMINOSITY FUNCTION ANALYSIS OVER Z=4-10 PUBLISHED BY JUNE 2019. BY APPLYING A UNIFORM SET OF SELECTION CRITERIA TO DATA SETS FROM FIVE SURVEYS SPANNING AN EXTREMELY LARGE DYNAMIC RANGE IN AREA AND DEPTH THESE WILL BE THE MOST ACCURATE REFERENCE SET OF UV LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS TO DATE OF IMMENSE IMPORTANCE TO FUTURE OBSERVATIONS WITH JWST.
$198,144FY2020National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA
University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX