CHILES, the COSMOS HI Large Extragalactic Survey
Prof. Jacqueline van Gorkom
Columbia University
January 12, 2017 – 3:00 pm – CASS lecture theathre (Curtin campus)
Our understanding of the growth of large scale structure has advanced enormously over the last decade, thanks to an impressive synergy between theoretical and observational efforts. The formation and evolution of galaxies within these structures is less well understood and especially the details of the gas physics during accretion and outflow are still controversial.
Neutral hydrogen images can help distinguish between growth by mergers and accretion of gas, and between inflow and outflow. While these images have taught us a lot about galaxy evolution in the local universe very few HI imaging observations have been done beyond z=0.1. The recent upgrade of the VLA has now made it possible to go as far as z=0.5. CHILES the COSMOS HI Large Extragalactic Survey, is an ongoing pencil beam survey of one pointing in the COSMOS field covering the range of 0<z<0.5. I will discuss the goals, challenges and the very first results of this survey.