PIs: Dan Coe and Larry Bradley
dcoe[at]stsci.edu
www.stsci.edu/~dcoe
dancoe.space/projects
Duration: 1 – 6 years potential thesis project
Project Description:
We are leading exciting Hubble and JWST programs to observe the most distant galaxies known in the universe's first billion years. Now is the time to get involved with JWST programs that will revolutionize our understanding of the early universe!
Our team studies galaxies magnified by gravitational lensing, enabling us to study them in greater detail. After discovering many lensed distant galaxies with Hubble, we are now preparing to study the most interesting ones in more detail with imaging and spectroscopy using Hubble and JWST.
We will address questions including:
- When did the first galaxies form?
- What did early galaxies look like? Did any form disks like our Milky Way, or were they all more disordered?
- Were they all very actively star forming, or did any have calm quiescent periods?
- How quickly did they form heavier elements, including the "star stuff" in our bodies?
- Will we find any early galaxies dominated by theorized pristine first-generation massive Population III stars?
- Did early galaxies have enough energy to reionize the universe?
Existing Hubble Data:
- BUFFALO Hubble imaging of 6 galaxy clusters (PIs Steinhardt, Jauzac)
- currently being analyzed – you can help discover and analyze new distant galaxies
- RELICS Hubble imaging of 41 galaxy clusters
- plus follow-up imaging with individual galaxies discovered by our former postdoc Brett Salmon and currently being analyzed by final-year JHU grad student Brian Welch
(with room for you to discover and analyze other distant galaxies in these images) - Deeper Hubble imaging of the most distant spatially resolved galaxy: z~10 arc SPT0615-JD (Salmon+18)
- Deeper Hubble imaging of the most strongly magnified z~6 galaxy: the "Sunrise Arc"
- plus follow-up imaging with individual galaxies discovered by our former postdoc Brett Salmon and currently being analyzed by final-year JHU grad student Brian Welch
Upcoming Hubble and JWST Data:
- Additional Hubble imaging of the Sunrise Arc (PI Coe; to be analyzed by Brian Welch, at least until he graduates)
- JWST imaging and spectroscopy of the Sunrise Arc (PI Coe)
- JWST imaging and spectroscopy of the 2nd-most distant galaxy known MACS064-JD at z=11 Coe+13 (PI Coe)
- Deep JWST imaging and spectroscopy of the strong lensing galaxy cluster Abell 2744 (PI Labbe)
- JWST imaging of 7 galaxy clusters (PI Windhorst)
The JWST programs above are approved for JWST's 1st year of observations. In subsequent years, we look forwarding to proposing and obtaining even more exciting data with our large collaborations.
Analysis:
No experience necessary! We will provide all the tools and training to analyze these datasets. We have used these tools to analyze Hubble images, and we are simulating our JWST observations to test our ability to measure physical properties of distant galaxies.
- Multi-band photometry
- Spectroscopy
- Derived galaxy properties
- Gravitational lensing analysis
Publications:
You will lead as many papers as you can on the exciting discoveries to come from JWST on the distant galaxies listed above, plus new ones yet to be discovered!
With JWST, we will determine the properties of the 2nd-most distant galaxy known at z=11 observed 97% of the way back to the Big Bang when the universe was just 400 million years old. Shown here in the Hubble discovery image, we observe 3 strongly magnified images of the galaxy due to strong gravitational lensing by an intervening massive galaxy cluster.
JWST spectroscopy from our programs (and others) will reveal for the first time what early galaxies were made of. From press conference presentation by Dan Coe_Webb_early_galaxies_AAS238.pdf.
