Description:

Title: Multiphase Gas Flows in Gaseous Galaxy Halos

Speaker: Jessica Werk, University of Washington

Host: Alex Richings

Abstract: The circumgalactic medium (CGM; non-ISM gas within a galaxy virial radius) regulates the gas flows that shape the assembly and evolution of galaxies. Only in the last several years, primarily because of vastly improved capabilities in space-based UV spectroscopy (HST/COS), observations and simulations of the CGM have emerged as the new frontier of galaxy evolution studies. My recent work suggests a rapid cycling of massive amounts of gas on scales of hundreds of kiloparsecs that in turn has raised pressing questions concerning the physical characteristics of the gas in the halos of galaxies. In this talk, I will discuss new constraints we have placed on the origin and fate of this material by studying the gas kinematics, metallicity and ionization state, and using hydrodynamical simulations in a cosmological context. I will end by describing a large survey, now underway, that will quantify the influence of assembly history on the fate of the galaxy and its gaseous halo for the first time.

Keywords: Physics, Astronomy, Astrophysics