Department Colloquium:Star-Formation in the local Universe and high-resolution imaging spectroscopy

Speaker

Laurie Rousseau-Nepton, University of Toronto
(Documentary about Laurie)

Abstract

This seminar will be divided in two segments: 1. the SIGNAL-Survey of Star-forming regions in Nearby Galaxy and 2. new instrumentation for Astronomy.

1. SIGNALS stands for the Star formation, Ionized Gas, and Nebular Abundances Legacy Survey.  Using a Fourier Transform Imaging Spectrograph SITELLE, at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, we observed 31 nearby galaxies and covered over 50,000 star-forming regions in different environment at a spatial resolution from 0.5 to 40 pc. Covering several emission line spectral features including Halpha (at R: 5,000), the survey aims at characterizing the star-forming sites and their environments to produce the most complete and well resolved database on star formation.
2. Evolution of technologies and optics manufacturing technics are providing new interesting options for the design of astronomical instruments to increase precision and add new capabilities. I will briefly introduce my new laboratory plan at the University of Toronto to include Micro-kinetic inductance detector arrays and meta-surface optics to a Fourier Transform Imaging spectrograph design. The goal is to reach high-spectral resolution (R:15,000 to 80,000) over a large field-of-view, while keeping high sensitivity.