
NSF Org: |
AST Division Of Astronomical Sciences |
Recipient: |
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Initial Amendment Date: | August 30, 2017 |
Latest Amendment Date: | August 30, 2017 |
Award Number: | 1748571 |
Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
Program Manager: |
Sarah Higdon
AST Division Of Astronomical Sciences MPS Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences |
Start Date: | September 1, 2017 |
End Date: | August 31, 2023 (Estimated) |
Total Intended Award Amount: | $429,054.00 |
Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $429,054.00 |
Funds Obligated to Date: |
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History of Investigator: |
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Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
110 INNER CAMPUS DR AUSTIN TX US 78712-1139 (512)471-6424 |
Sponsor Congressional District: |
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Primary Place of Performance: |
101 E. 27th St. Austin TX US 78712-1532 |
Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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Parent UEI: |
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NSF Program(s): | CAREER: FACULTY EARLY CAR DEV |
Primary Program Source: |
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Program Reference Code(s): |
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Program Element Code(s): |
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Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.049 |
ABSTRACT
The investigator's group will write detailed computer-models of how stars are born from gas in our galaxy. All stars are born in large clouds of gas in galaxies, which condense to form stars and planets. The investigator will write new computer models for the physics that determines the mass of new stars. She will also study how neighboring young stars influence each other and their birth environment by injecting energy into their surroundings. Evidence suggests our Sun formed together with thousands of siblings, which may have shaped our Sun?s properties. However, why stars like our Sun have the masses they do remains debated. Her team will model how stars interact with their birth environment and test different theories for the origin of star masses. The investigator will produce synthetic observations of the models and compare these to telescope observations of star-forming regions in our Milky Way galaxy. The educational goal of the project is to increase participation and diversity in STEM. The investigator will use the World Wide Telescope (WWT) educational software to communicate recent exciting astronomy discoveries to the public. She will use WWT to create interactive labs for several local underserved populations, will also organize research training and organize an annual star formation symposia.
The proposal aims to explore two fundamental questions in star formation: How do stars obtain their masses? What sets the star formation rate in molecular clouds? The PI will address these questions by performing multi-physics numerical simulations of forming star clusters including outflow, wind and radiation feedback. The three key science objectives are to 1) constrain the importance of core masses in setting the stellar initial mass function, 2) evaluate the influence of feedback on turbulence and star formation efficiency, and 3) bridge simulations and observations using "apples-to-apples" comparisons. The investigator will produce synthetic observations of the models and compare directly to observations, harnessing thousands of hours of current and planned large- scale surveys probing dense gas, proto-stellar outflows with very fine resolution.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Intellectual Merit:
The story of a star's life is written at birth: its initial mass determines whether it is likely to have a stellar companion, whether it forms planets and those planets are hospitable for life, the length of its lifetime and how it will eventually die. The distribution of stellar masses at birth is one of the most fundamental quantities in astronomy.
The research supported by this award used numerical models of forming groups of stars, including a variety of essential physics like gravity, radiation, and magnetic fields, to uncover how star masses are determined. A key focus of the work explored how forming stars impact their surroundings through mass outflows, winds, radiation, and supernovae ("stellar feedback").
The project team demonstrated that stellar feedback plays several critical roles. First, mass outflows from forming stars disperse dense material around forming stars, which eventually halts accretion. These outflows are responsible for setting the typical stellar mass, which is about one fifth the mass of our Sun. Second, stellar feedback, especially feedback from more massive stars, is responsible for ending star formation in the birth gas cloud. As a result, star formation in the galaxy is inefficient, such that only a few percent of the dense gas goes on to form stars. Third, feedback self-regulates how stars form. Consequently, the distribution of star masses does not depend strongly on local environment and is mostly insensitive to changes in gas temperature, magnetic field strength, and the local level of radiation.
In addition to carrying out numerical modeling, observations of star-forming regions in the Solar neighborhood were performed that investigated the properties of the gas and young stars. These studies shed light on the conditions of the region that formed our own Sun many billions of years ago.
Broader Impacts:
The Principle Investigator used WorldWide Telescope (WWT), a virtual observatory built on actual telescope observations, as a vehicle for teaching astronomy and public outreach. WWT lessons were developed for undergraduate astronomy classes for non-majors. WWT tools were created and introduced to local high school teachers to use in their classes.
Movies, presentations, and blog posts about the project results and related astronomy topics were created for the public.
A key focus of the project was promoting informal and formal mentoring of women and underrepresented minorities in order to increase diversity in STEM. Seven undergraduates, two graduate students and three postdocs were mentored and trained in research methods. More than 50 undergraduates received professional mentoring through a program pairing undergraduates with astronomy graduate student mentors.
Last Modified: 11/29/2023
Modified by: Stella Offner
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