Projects / Programmes
RAVE: A Radial Velocity Experiment to Unveil the History of our Galaxy
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 1.02.03 |
Natural sciences and mathematics |
Physics |
Astronomy |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| P520 |
Natural sciences and mathematics |
Astronomy, space research, cosmic chemistry |
astrophysics, space research, astronomical spectroscopy, stellar physics, cosmochemistry, galactic astronomy, near-field cosmology
Researchers (11)
Organisations (1)
Abstract
RAVE (RAdial Velocity Experiment, http://www.rave-survey.org ) is an ongoing and ambitious program to measure precise radial velocities and chemical abundances of a million nearby stars, using the UK Schmidt Telescope at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, a spectroscopic telescope with the largest field of view in the world and equiped with advanced optical-fibre technology. The survey will assemble a vast database of stellar radial velocities, physical and chemical properties of their atmospheres 100-times larger than collected so far throughout history. This opens entirely new horizons for studies of stellar physics, including binary stars and rare objects. More importantly RAVE will allow a giant leap forward in our understanding on how our Galaxy evolved chemically and dynamically. It will be possible for the first time to make uncontroversial identification of kinematical subtructure and past merger events. This study of the fossil record of the Galaxy, a.k.a. “near-field cosmology”, is an essential complement of direct observational studies of the high-redshift universe, and will play a pivotal role in the validation of results of high-redshift studies regarding the formation of galaxies like the Milky Way. All these studies require large number statistics and have not been feasible before the advent of the RAVE survey. RAVE also serves as a predecessor and complement to GAIA, the ultimate European Space Agency's mission to fly in the next decade with astonishing astrometric capabilities, but also with a spectroscope observing in the same wavelength window and at a similar resolution as RAVE.
RAVE is an international collaboration of 10 countries and ~60 scientists, scheduled to run until 2011. Slovenia has been trusted with the position of Project Scientist of RAVE, the second position in the collaboration. With this proposal we seek funds to continue with our prominent role in this prestiguous collaboration, primarily by asking for coverage of the Slovenian share of direct costs of the operation of the telescope, noting that other countries involved have already contributed their part.
Significance for science
RAVE (RAdial Velocity Experiment, http://www.rave-survey.org ) is an ongoing and ambitious program to measure precise radial velocities and chemical abundances of a million nearby stars, using the UK Schmidt Telescope at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, a spectroscopic telescope with the largest field of view in the world and equipped with advanced optical-fibre technology. The survey has already assembled a vast database of stellar radial velocities, physical and chemical properties of their atmospheres several dozen times larger than collected so far throughout history. The database now contains over half a million stellar spectra.
This opens entirely new horizons for studies of stellar physics, including binary stars and rare objects. More importantly, RAVE allows a giant leap forward in our understanding on how our Galaxy evolved chemically and dynamically. It is possible for the first time to make uncontroversial identification of kinematic substructure and past merger events. This study of the fossil record of the Galaxy, a.k.a. “near-field cosmology”, is an essential complement of direct observational studies of the high-redshift universe, and plays a pivotal role in the validation of results of high-redshift studies regarding the formation of galaxies like the Milky Way. All these studies require large number statistics and have not been feasible before the advent of the RAVE survey. RAVE also serves as a predecessor and complement to GAIA, a cornerstone European Space Agency's mission to fly in 2012 with astonishing astrometric capabilities, but also with a spectroscope observing in the same wavelength window and at a similar resolution as RAVE.
RAVE is an international collaboration of 9 countries (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, UK, USA) and ~60 scientists. Slovenia has been trusted with the position of Project Scientist of RAVE, the second position in the collaboration.
The RAVE project published 21 papers in the top quarter (by impact factor) international astrophysical journals. There has been also a number of (invited) talks at international conferences. The scientific results are better than expected. We achieved a more accurate measurement of radial velocities, and we were also able to measure the values of stellar physical parameters (temperature, gravity, chemical composition and distance) for the first time. The results are important to study the structure and formation of the Milky Way, one of the typical galaxies in the Universe. The papers related to RAVE, published within the time-span of the here reported project and coauthored by T. Zwitter have received 357 clean citations.
Significance for the country
Astronomy is becoming an important part of physics research in Slovenia. Astrophysical research in Slovenia in the fields of this proposal (which includes astrophysics of single and binary stars), as well as black-hole physics, gamma-ray bursts and cosmology is done at the top international level. European Marie Curie reintegration grant and our partnership in the MC Research training Network “European Leadership in Space Astrometry” (connected with the European Space Agency's GAIA mission), a project related to the project Galileo and projects from the European Space Agency are formal signs of these efforts. The international RAVE collaboration recognized our efforts with trusting us its Project Scientist position.
Astronomy and Astrophysics is of large interest to the general public. Astrophysics is the discipline with the largest presence of any scientific field in the weekly science supplement of the national newspaper Delo. We note that our research group members give regular public lectures. Slovenia is also proud to have a dedicated astronomy magazine, Spika, which is similar to Sky&Telescope in the US, Astronomy in the UK, Sterne und Weltraum in Germany etc.
The project group has been coordinating all events related to the International Year of Astronomy 2009 in Slovenia. Altogether there were around 300 events, including more than 150 installations of a traveling exhibition (also put up on display in the Tivoli park in Ljubljana and opened by the Slovenian president), many public observations with more than 10.000 participants (including the notable event in Tivoli in August 2009 which attracted more than 5000 visitors), a number of public lectures, an initiative to buy telescopes for all Slovenian schools, a national conference on the place of Slovenia in space related research, and much more.
About a quarter of all students entering the study of physics at the University of Ljubljana enroll into astronomy studies. Our research group members also teach introductory astronomy courses to Pedagogical students of physics and mathematics at the universities of Ljubljana and Maribor. The group is very active also in PhD education. The project is the basis for three forthcoming PhD theses in our research group. Former PhDs from the group work in the leading positions in the industry and government agencies, or are at postdoctoral fellowships abroad.
The RAVE Survey is an international project, and attracting much international interest. RAVE contributes greatly to keeping Slovenia internationally competitive in the field of astronomy that will explode over the next decade with the advent of GAIA and new ground-based facilities.
Most important scientific results
Annual report
2008,
2009,
final report,
complete report on dLib.si
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Annual report
2008,
2009,
final report,
complete report on dLib.si
