Special Session SS10
25 June 2025
Metals and dust enrichment across cosmic epochs: models and observations
Aims and scope
Metals and dust are firmly recognized as key ingredients in understanding the physical status and evolution of astrophysical environments at different scales: the interstellar medium (ISM) and the large-scale intergalactic medium (IGM). Recent progress in imaging and spectroscopic surveys (conducted with VLT and ALMA from ground and HST and JWST from space), have significantly improved our ability to probe the chemical composition of many astrophysical environments. On the theoretical side, modern simulations can resolve details of both the galactic and extragalactic environments, following the process of chemical enrichment across sources of dust and metals and physical processes acting at different redshifts.
This special session will bring together observers and theorists to discuss :
- how recent observations constrain the evolution of metals and dust at different scales and through cosmic time
- the theoretical consequences on cosmic star-formation and galaxy evolution
The session is organized in three blocks of 1.5 hours, designed to facilitate the discussion between theorists and observers. Topics covered in each block are specified below.
Programme
Main topics:
- Observations of atomic metals and dust across cosmic time and different spatial scales (ISM/IGM), as probed by the synergy of JWST, ALMA, and MUSE.
- Galaxy metallicity and dust scaling relations
- Metallicity gradients from cosmic dawn to noon
- Abundance variations and the Low-metallicity regime
- Peculiar chemical compositions in high redshift galaxies.
- Interplay between metals and dust : observations and models
- Sources of dust grains in galaxies
- Processes of dust evolution and interplay with metals
- Spectral diagnostics of atomic metals across galaxy evolution and their interpretation
- The theoretical perspective of analytical models and numerical simulations.
- Modelling chemical enrichment in data-driven, semi-analytic models and hydrodynamical simulatons
- The connection between astrophysical environments present at galactic and extragalactic scales in theoretical models
- Predictions of emission/absorption lines and spectral reddening
.
Key questions:
- Do present simulations predict the observed scaling relations of gas metallicity and dust through redshift ?
- How do metals and dust diffuse from galactic ISM to the IGM through feedback ?
- Which stellar population provides the main contribution at different redshift to atomic metals and dust grains and how black hole feedback alters metallicity ?
Invited speakers
- Roberto Maiolino ( Observations) University of Cambridge, UK
- Raffaella Schneider (Cosmic dust)Sapienza University of Rome, IT
- Joop Schaye (Theory and Simulations)Leiden University, NL
Scientific organisers
Organisers: Luca Graziani (Sapienza University of Rome, IT), Antonello Calabrò (INAF, Astronomical Observatory of Rome, IT)
SOC:
- Antonello Calabrò (INAF, Observatory of Rome, Italy)
- Luca Graziani (Sapienza University of Rome, Italy)
- Celine Peroux (ESO, Germany)
- Nimisha Kumari (STScI, USA)
- Ilse De Looze (Ghent University, BE)
- Evgeniya Egorova (University of Heidelberg, DE)
Chairs (preliminary) :Graziani Luca, Antonello Calabro', Michele Ginolfi (UniFI)
Contact
- luca.graziani at uniroma1.it
- antonello.calabro at inaf.it
Updated on Tue Feb 18 09:48:27 CET 2025