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Register a new userGalactic Neighborhood and Laboratory Astrophysics
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Q. Daniel Wang
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The galactic neighborhood, extending from the Milky Way to redshifts of about 0.1, is our unique local laboratory for detailed study of galaxies and their interplay with the environment. Such study provides a foundation of knowledge for interpreting observations of more distant galaxies and their environment. The Astro 2010 Science Frontier Galactic Neighborhood Panel identified four key scientific questions: 1) What are the flows of matter and energy in the circumgalactic medium? 2) What controls the mass-energy-chemical cycles within galaxies? 3) What is the fossil record of galaxy assembly from first stars to present? 4) What are the connections between dark and luminous matter? These questions, essential to the understanding of galaxies as interconnected complexes, can be addressed most effectively and/or uniquely in the galactic neighborhood. The panel also highlighted the discovery potential of time-domain astronomy and astrometry with powerful new techniques and facilities to greatly advance our understanding of the precise connections among stars, galaxies, and newly discovered transient events. The relevant needs for laboratory astrophysics will be emphasized, especially in the context of supporting NASA missions.
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As the Galactic Neighborhood (GAN) panel is fully aware, the next decade will see major advances in our understanding of this area of research. To quote from their charge, these advances will occur in studies of the galactic neighborhood, including the structure and properties of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, and their stellar populations and evolution, as well as interstellar media and star clusters. Central to the progress in these areas are the corresponding advances in laboratory astrophysics that are required for fully realizing the GAN scientific opportunities within the decade 2010-2020. Laboratory astrophysics comprises both theoretical and experimental studies of the underlying physics and chemistry that produces the observed astrophysical processes. The 5 areas of laboratory astrophysics that we have identified as relevant to the GAN panel are atomic, molecular, solid matter, plasma, and nuclear physics. In this white paper, we describe in Section 2 some of the new scientific opportunities and compelling scientific themes that will be enabled by advances in laboratory astrophysics. In Section 3, we provide the scientific context for these opportunities. Section 4 briefly discusses some of the experimental and theoretical advances in laboratory astrophysics required to realize the GAN scientific opportunities of the next decade. As requested in the Call for White Papers, Section 5 presents four central questions and one area with unusual discovery potential. Lastly, we give a short postlude in Section 6.
Laboratory astrophysics and complementary theoretical calculations are the foundations of astronomy and astrophysics and will remain so into the foreseeable future. The impact of laboratory astrophysics ranges from the scientific conception stage for ground-based, airborne, and space-based observatories, all the way through to the scientific return of these projects and missions. It is our understanding of the under-lying physical processes and the measurements of critical physical parameters that allows us to address fundamental questions in astronomy and astrophysics. In this regard, laboratory astrophysics is much like detector and instrument development at NASA, NSF, and DOE. These efforts are necessary for the success of astronomical research being funded by the agencies. Without concomitant efforts in all three directions (observational facilities, detector/instrument development, and laboratory astrophysics) the future progress of astronomy and astrophysics is imperiled. In addition, new developments in experimental technologies have allowed laboratory studies to take on a new role as some questions which previously could only be studied theoretically can now be addressed directly in the lab. With this in mind we, the members of the AAS Working Group on Laboratory Astrophysics, have prepared this State of the Profession Position Paper on the laboratory astrophysics infrastructure needed to ensure the advancement of astronomy and astrophysics in the next decade.
Recent observations of gravitational waves from binary mergers of black holes or neutron stars and the rapid development of ultra-intense lasers lead strong field physics to a frontier of new physics in the 21st century. Strong gravity phenomena are most precisely described by general relativity, and lasers that are described by another most precisely tested quantum electrodynamics (QED) can be focused into a tiny area in a short period through the chirped pulse amplification and generate extremely high intensity electromagnetic (EM) fields beyond the conventional methods. It is physically interesting to study QED phenomena in curved spacetimes, in which both strong gravitational and electromagnetic fields play important roles. There are many sources for strong gravitational and electromagnetic fields in the sky or universe, such highly magnetized neutron stars, magnetized black holes, and the early universe. We review quantum field theoretical frameworks for QED both in the Minkowski spacetime and curved spacetimes, in particular, charged black holes and the early universe, and discuss the QED physics in strong EM fields, such as the vacuum polarization and Schwinger pair production and their implications to astrophysics and cosmology.
As the closest example of a galactic nucleus, the Galactic center (GC) presents an exquisite laboratory for learning about supermassive black holes (SMBH) and their environment. We describe several exciting new research directions that, over the next 10 years, hold the potential to answer some of the biggest scientific questions raised in recent decades: Is General Relativity (GR) the correct description for supermassive black holes? What is the nature of star formation in extreme environments? How do stars and compact objects dynamically interact with the supermassive black hole? What physical processes drive gas accretion in low-luminosity black holes? We describe how the high sensitivity, angular resolution, and astrometric precision offered by the next generation of large ground-based telescopes with adaptive optics will help us answer these questions. First, it will be possible to obtain precision measurements of stellar orbits in the Galaxys central potential, providing both tests of GR in the unexplored regime near a SMBH and measurements of the extended dark matter distribution that is predicted to exist at the GC. Second, we will probe stellar populations at the GC to significantly lower masses than are possible today, down to brown dwarfs. Their structure and dynamics will provide an unprecedented view of the stellar cusp around the SMBH and will distinguish between models of star formation in this extreme environment. This increase in depth will also allow us to measure the currently unknown population of compact remnants at the GC by observing their effects on luminous sources. Third, uncertainties on the mass of and distance to the SMBH can be improved by a factor of $sim$10. Finally, we can also study the near-infrared accretion onto the black hole at unprecedented sensitivity and time resolution, which can reveal the underlying physics of black hole accretion.
Laboratory experiments are essential in exploring the mechanisms involved in stardust formation. One key question is how a metal is incorporated into dust for an environment rich in elements involved in stardust formation (C, H, O, Si). To address experimentally this question we have used a radiofrequency cold plasma reactor in which cyclic organosilicon dust formation is observed. Metallic (silver) atoms were injected in the plasma during the dust nucleation phase to study their incorporation in the dust. The experiments show formation of silver nanoparticles (~15 nm) under conditions in which organosilicon dust of size 200 nm or less is grown. The presence of AgSiO bonds, revealed by infrared spectroscopy, suggests the presence of junctions between the metallic nanoparticles and the organosilicon dust. Even after annealing we could not conclude on the formation of silver silicates, emphasizing that most of silver is included in the metallic nanoparticles. The molecular analysis performed by laser mass spectrometry exhibits a complex chemistry leading to a variety of molecules including large hydrocarbons and organometallic species. The reactivity of silver atoms/ions with acetylene was also studied in a laser vaporization source. Key organometallic species, AgnC2Hm (n=1-3; m=0-2), were identified and their structures and energetic data computed using density functional theory. This allows us to propose that molecular Ag-C seeds promote the formation of Ag clusters but also catalyze hydrocarbon growth. Throughout the article, we show how the developed methodology can be used to characterize the incorporation of metal atoms both in the molecular and dust phases. The reported methodology is a demonstration laying down the ground for future studies on metals of astrophysical interest such as iron.
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