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The Future of Stellar Populations Studies in the Milky Way and the Local Group

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Steven R. Majewski
Steven R. Majewski*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400325, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4325, USA email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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The last decade has seen enormous progress in understanding the structure of the Milky Way and neighboring galaxies via the production of large-scale digital surveys of the sky like 2MASS and SDSS, as well as specialized, counterpart imaging surveys of other Local Group systems. Apart from providing snaphots of galaxy structure, these “cartographic” surveys lend insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies when supplemented with additional data (e.g., spectroscopy, astrometry) and when referenced to theoretical models and simulations of galaxy evolution. These increasingly sophisticated simulations are making ever more specific predictions about the detailed chemistry and dynamics of stellar populations in galaxies. To fully exploit, test and constrain these theoretical ventures demands similar commitments of observational effort as has been plied into the previous imaging surveys to fill out other dimensions of parameter space with statistically significant intensity. Fortunately the future of large-scale stellar population studies is bright with a number of grand projects on the horizon that collectively will contribute a breathtaking volume of information on individual stars in Local Group galaxies. These projects include: (1) additional imaging surveys, such as Pan-STARRS, SkyMapper and LSST, which, apart from providing deep, multicolor imaging, yield time series data useful for revealing variable stars (including critical standard candles, like RR Lyrae variables) and creating large-scale, deep proper motion catalogs; (2) higher accuracy, space-based astrometric missions, such as Gaia and SIM-Lite, which stand to provide critical, high precision dynamical data on stars in the Milky Way and its satellites; and (3) large-scale spectroscopic surveys provided by RAVE, APOGEE, HERMES, LAMOST, and the Gaia spectrometer, which will yield not only enormous numbers of stellar radial velocities, but extremely comprehensive views of the chemistry of stellar populations. Meanwhile, previously dust-obscured regions of the Milky Way will continue to be systematically exposed via large infrared surveys underway or on the way, such as the various GLIMPSE surveys from Spitzer's IRAC instrument, UKIDSS, APOGEE, JASMINE and WISE.

Keywords

Galaxy: abundancesGalaxy: haloGalaxy: kinematics and dynamicsGalaxy: evolutionGalaxy: structureLocal Groupdark matterastronomical databasessurveys
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 5 , Symposium S262: Stellar Populations – Planning for the Next Decade , August 2009 , pp. 99 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2010

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