In Pursuit of Galactic Archaeology: Astro2020 Science White Paper
Melissa Ness (Columbia/Flatiron), Jonathan Bird (Vanderbilt), Jennifer Johnson (Ohio State University), Gail Zasowski (University of Utah), Juna Kollmeier (Carnegie), Hans-Walter Rix (MPIA), Victor Silva Aguirre (Aarhus), Borja Anguiano (University of Virginia), Sarbani Basu (Yale), Anthony Brown (Leiden), Sven Buder (MPIA), Cristina Chiappini (AIP), Katia Cunha (NOAO), Elena Dongia (University of Wisconsin, Madison), Peter Frinchaboy (TCU), Saskia Hekker (MPI for Solar system research), Jason Hunt (Toronto), Kathryn Johnston (Columbia), Richard Lane (PUC), Sara Lucatello (INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova), Szabolcs Meszaros (ELTE Gothard Astrophysical Observatory)Andres Meza (UDD), Ivan Minchev (AIP), David Nataf (JHU), Marc Pinsonneault (Ohio State University), Adrian M. Price-Whelan (Princeton), Robyn Sanderson (UPenn/Flatiron)Jennifer Sobeck (University of Washington), Keivan Stassun (Vanderbilt), Matthias Steinmetz (AIP), Yuan-Sen Ting (IAS/Princeton/OCIW), Kim Venn (Victoria), Xiangxiang Xue (NAOC)
(Submitted on 11 Jul 2019)
Source/Fonte: The K2 Galactic Archaeology Program
The next decade affords tremendous opportunity to achieve the goals of Galactic archaeology. That is, to reconstruct the evolutionary narrative of the Milky Way, based on the empirical data that describes its current morphological, dynamical, temporal and chemical structures. Here, we describe a path to achieving this goal. The critical observational objective is a Galaxy-scale, contiguous, comprehensive mapping of the disk's phase space, tracing where the majority of the stellar mass resides. An ensemble of recent, ongoing, and imminent surveys are working to deliver such a transformative stellar map. Once this empirical description of the dust-obscured disk is assembled, we will no longer be operationally limited by the observational data. The primary and significant challenge within stellar astronomy and Galactic archaeology will then be in fully utilizing these data. We outline the next-decade framework for obtaining and then realizing the potential of the data to chart the Galactic disk via its stars. One way to support the investment in the massive data assemblage will be to establish a Galactic Archaeology Consortium across the ensemble of stellar missions. This would reflect a long-term commitment to build and support a network of personnel in a dedicated effort to aggregate, engineer, and transform stellar measurements into a comprehensive perspective of our Galaxy.
FREE WHITE PAPER: arxiv
