Project area/S
- The Local Universe
- The Distant Universe
Project Details
Neutral atomic hydrogen (HI), a fundamental ingredient in a galaxy, is indispensable for understanding galaxy formation and evolution because it is inextricably related to star and galaxy formation processes. However, HI has been poorly constrained over cosmic time due to the poor sensitivity of existing observing facilities. This problem has provided one of the scientific motivations for building next-generation radio telescopes such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and its precursors (e.g. ASKAP). In particular, one of the lack of our knowledge about HI gas in galaxies is how HI gas contents vary with different galaxy morphologies. This project will study various relations of HI gas contents with galaxy morphologies and other physical properties (e.g. stellar mass, colour, star formation, etc.) statistically, using an HI spectral stacking technique. To this end, we will combine ASKAP deep HI data from the Deep Investigation of Neutral Gas Origins (DINGO) survey with complementary data from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey.
Student Attributes
Academic Background
Basic understanding of galaxy morphology and evolution and radio astronomy. 3rd year astronomy or above.
Computing Skills
Python and Unix/Linux command-line would be desirable.
Training Requirement
Concept of HI stacking, Use of an existing pipeline, plotting data in python and matplotlib, basic statistical analysis of large datasets
Project Timeline
- Week 1 Inductions and project introduction
- Week 2 Initial presentation
- Week 3 Training on the concept of HI stacking
- Week 4 Training on use of the existing stacking pipeline
- Week 5 Processing data
- Week 6 Processing data
- Week 7 Analysis of results
- Week 8 Analysis of results
- Week 9 Final presentation
- Week 10 Final report
