How the Faint Radio Sky is Changing Our Understanding of Star Formation and Galactic Outflows

Speaker

Allison Matthews (Carnegie Observatories)

Abstract

In the last decade, with the commissioning of high sensitivity radio telescopes, we have opened a new window into the faint radio sky. These novel facilities probe fundamental physical processes that regulate star formation and characterize star formation in normal galaxies like our Milky Way over nearly all cosmic time. Deep observations from MeerKAT and LOFAR have revealed that prior observations may have missed half the star formation at all cosmic times. This discrepancy has critical implications across astrophysics: estimates of gravitational wave events, the frequency of astrophysical transients, and the chemical evolution of galaxies. These same high-sensitivity radio facilities are simultaneously placing critical constraints on the physical drivers of galactic winds that we believe regulate star formation across all of cosmic time. In this talk, I will present these findings and outline programs with next generation radio facilities that will improve our observational constraints on the rate and regulation of star formation across cosmic time.

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