11 research outputs found
Astro2020 APC White Paper: The Early Career Perspective on the Coming Decade, Astrophysics Career Paths, and the Decadal Survey Process
In response to the need for the Astro2020 Decadal Survey to explicitly engage
early career astronomers, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and
Medicine hosted the Early Career Astronomer and Astrophysicist Focus Session
(ECFS) on October 8-9, 2018 under the auspices of Committee of Astronomy and
Astrophysics. The meeting was attended by fifty six pre-tenure faculty,
research scientists, postdoctoral scholars, and senior graduate students, as
well as eight former decadal survey committee members, who acted as
facilitators. The event was designed to educate early career astronomers about
the decadal survey process, to solicit their feedback on the role that early
career astronomers should play in Astro2020, and to provide a forum for the
discussion of a wide range of topics regarding the astrophysics career path.
This white paper presents highlights and themes that emerged during two days
of discussion. In Section 1, we discuss concerns that emerged regarding the
coming decade and the astrophysics career path, as well as specific
recommendations from participants regarding how to address them. We have
organized these concerns and suggestions into five broad themes. These include
(sequentially): (1) adequately training astronomers in the statistical and
computational techniques necessary in an era of "big data", (2) responses to
the growth of collaborations and telescopes, (3) concerns about the adequacy of
graduate and postdoctoral training, (4) the need for improvements in equity and
inclusion in astronomy, and (5) smoothing and facilitating transitions between
early career stages. Section 2 is focused on ideas regarding the decadal survey
itself, including: incorporating early career voices, ensuring diverse input
from a variety of stakeholders, and successfully and broadly disseminating the
results of the survey
Candidate Massive Galaxies at z~4 in the Dark Energy Survey
Using stellar population models, we predicted that the Dark Energy Survey (DES) - due to its special combination of area (5000 deg. sq.) and depth () - would be in the position to detect massive ( M) galaxies at . We confront those theoretical calculations with the first deg. sq. of DES data reaching nominal depth. From a catalogue containing million sources, were found to have observed-frame vs colours within the locus predicted for massive galaxies. We further removed contamination by stars and artefacts, obtaining 606 galaxies lining up by the model selection box. We obtained their photometric redshifts and physical properties by fitting model templates spanning a wide range of star formation histories, reddening and redshift. Key to constrain the models is the addition, to the optical DES bands , , , , and , of near-IR , , data from the Vista Hemisphere Survey. We further applied several quality cuts to the fitting results, including goodness of fit and a unimodal redshift probability distribution. We finally select 233 candidates whose photometric redshift probability distribution function peaks around , have high stellar masses (M/M for a Salpeter IMF) and ages around 0.1 Gyr, i.e. formation redshift around 5. These properties match those of the progenitors of the most massive galaxies in the local universe. This is an ideal sample for spectroscopic follow-up to select the fraction of galaxies which is truly at high redshift. These initial results and those at the survey completion, which we shall push to higher redshifts, will set unprecedented constraints on galaxy formation, evolution, and the re-ionisation epoch
The early career perspective on the coming decade, astrophysics career paths, and the decadal survey process
We discuss the concerns and ideas that emerged during discussion at the Early Career Focus Session at the National Academies regarding (1) the coming decade and the astrophysics career path, and (2) the decadal survey implementation and dissemination.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
The early career perspective on the coming decade, astrophysics career paths, and the decadal survey process
We discuss the concerns and ideas that emerged during discussion at the Early Career Focus Session at the National Academies regarding (1) the coming decade and the astrophysics career path, and (2) the decadal survey implementation and dissemination
The early career perspective on the coming decade, astrophysics career paths, and the decadal survey process
We discuss the concerns and ideas that emerged during discussion at the Early Career Focus Session at the National Academies regarding (1) the coming decade and the astrophysics career path, and (2) the decadal survey implementation and dissemination