18 February 2010

Speaker: Rob Simcoe (MIT)

Title:Early Galaxy Formation and the Chemical Enrichment of Intergalactic Matter

Abstract:Heavy elements have been detected in tenuous intergalactic gas at essentially all observed redshifts. This suggests that nascent galaxies expelled some fraction of their interstellar material starting very early in the history of the universe. The physical process that distributed these metals may also govern many aspects of the galaxy formation process itself. I will review the status of intergalactic chemical abundance measurements and describe new efforts to push these techniques beyond redshift 6 using infrared spectroscopy. At these epochs, we may begin to witness nucleosynthetic byproducts from the generation of galaxies that reionized the universe.

Video of the Presentation (Talks can be viewed with RealPlayer. Free download is available from www.real.com )