Participation of the Physics department in research using the WEAVE spectrograph on the evolution of galaxies

The WEAVE spectrograph is a powerful new generation multi-fiber spectrograph installed at the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (La Palma, Canary Islands), which has recently been commissioned and which has already is generating high quality data.

Different samplings with WEAVE have been planned to observe stellar evolution, the Milky Way, galaxy evolution and cosmology. In synergy with the European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia satellite, the WEAVE spectrograph will be used to obtain spectra of several million stars in the disk and halo of our galaxy .And it will make it possible to study nearby and distant galaxies to learn the history of how they grew, and quasars will be used as beacons to map the spatial distribution and interaction of gas and galaxies when the universe was only about 20% of the current age.

The Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC) takes part with researchers from the units of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) the UPC. Roberto Raddi, researcher in the Department of Physics at the UPC, together with Maria Monguió and Mercè Romero-Gómez from the ICCUB, are part of the international working groups on young stars, galactic archeology and white dwarfs that make up the team of responsible scientists to plan the observations. Teresa Antoja and Ignasi Pérez-Ràfols, also from the ICCUB, lead the research teams responsible for the dynamics of the galactic disk and quasars, respectively.

More information on the UPC news website and in the following preprint:

The wide-field, multiplexed, spectroscopic facility WEAVE: Survey design, overview, and simulated implementation