Speaker: Yuguang Chen

Host: Prof. John Wise

Title: Galaxy Evolution and the Cosmic Baryon Cycle in 3D

Abstract: 

Galaxies are intricately linked to the gas in and around them, making the characterization of gas flows essential for directly constraining star formation, gas flow rates, and feedback processes, as well as for testing modern theories of galaxy evolution. The recent deployment of highly sensitive integral field units (IFUs) on large telescopes, such as the Keck Cosmic Web Imager (Keck/KCWI), has provided a novel 3D perspective to probe this diffuse gas. In this talk, I will present recent findings from the KBSS-KCWI and CIRAS surveys. The KBSS-KCWI survey, a ~200-hour program utilizing KCWI, aims to understand the nature of Lyα emission around star-forming galaxies at cosmic noon. Through realistic radiative transfer modeling, we have found that CGM Lyα emission is consistent with resonant scattering in a clumpy medium powered by central ISM emission. Meanwhile, the ongoing CIRAS (Comprehensive IFU Research on Accurate Abundance Studies) survey uses the newly commissioned KCWI red channel, alongside Herschel, SOFIA, and JWST data, to construct a reference sample that establishes an accurate abundance scale in star-forming regions throughout cosmic history.