Galaxy evolution studies with the SPace IR telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA)

Spinoglio, L. and Matsuura, Mikako ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5529-5593 2018. Galaxy evolution studies with the SPace IR telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA). Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia 34 , e054. 10.1017/pasa.2017.48

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Abstract

IR spectroscopy in the range 12–230μm with the SPace IR telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA) will have the potential to reveal the physical processes that govern the formation and evolution of galaxies and black holes through cosmic time, bridging the gap between the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the new generation ELTs at shorter wavelengths and ALMA in the submillimeter. SPICA, with its 2.5-m telescope actively-cooled to <8K, will be able to obtain the first spectroscopic determination, in the mid-IR rest-frame, of both the star-formation rate and black hole accretion rate histories of galaxies, reaching lookback times of 12 Gyr, for large statistically significant samples. Densities, temperatures, radiation fields and gas-phase metallicities will be measured in dust-obscured galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGN), sampling a large range in mass and luminosity, from faint local dwarf galaxies to luminous quasars in the distant Universe. AGN and starburst feedback and feeding mechanisms in distant galaxies will be uncovered through detailed measurements of molecular and atomic line profiles. SPICA’s large-area deep spectrophotometric surveys will provide mid-IR spectra and continuum fluxes for unbiased samples of tens of thousands of galaxies, out to redshifts of z⇠6. Furthermore, SPICA spectroscopy will have the potential to uncover the most luminous galaxies in the first few hundred million years of the Universe, through their characteristic dust and molecular hydrogen features.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Subjects:	Q Science > QB Astronomy Q Science > QC Physics
Publisher:	CSIRO
ISSN:	1323-3580
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	21 September 2017
Date of Acceptance:	21 September 2017
Last Modified:	14 Nov 2024 08:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/104937

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