The Dusty Side of Star Formation

Abstract:

The majority of light from cosmic star formation is absorbed by dust and reradiated into the far-infrared (FIR). Since their discovery in the late 1990s, the most luminous high-redshift FIR galaxies have been heavily studied using single-dish submillimeter telescopes, but the bulk of the FIR light is in galaxies that are too faint to be seen this way. I will discuss why mapping the FIR emission in fainter galaxies has been a difficult problem and then talk about how, with the combination of JWST, ALMA, and single-dish submillimeter telescopes, we may be coming closer to a solution. Finally, I will discuss other issues, such as finding the redshifts of the galaxies, that still need to be addressed.

Bio:

Amy J. Barger is an American astronomer and Henrietta Leavitt Professor of Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is considered a pioneer in combining data from multiple telescopes to monitor multiple wavelengths and in discovering distant galaxies and supermassive black holes, which are outside of the visible spectrum. Barger is an active member of the International Astronomical Union (Bio from Wikipedia here).

Learn More:

• View her Faculty webpage from the University of Wisconsin-Madison: https://www.astro.wisc.edu/staff/barger-amy/ 
• See her personal webpage here: http://user.astro.wisc.edu/~barger/ 
• Check the NASA pages for information on Star Basics: https://science.nasa.gov/universe/stars/  and the Formation of Stars: https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/formation-of-stars/ 

Links & Resources:

• Chapters and articles from Science Direct on the subject of 'High Redshift galaxies': https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/physics-and-astronomy/high-redshift-galaxy 
• Article from Astrobites: "JWST smashes the record for the earliest galaxy": https://astrobites.org/2022/12/16/jwst-jades/