Science Sampler

See the SWIFT Proposal (gzipped PS -- 7 Mbytes) or the Science Section (HTML version) for an in-depth discussion of the Science Drivers.

The following set of sample projects are intended to illustrate the general applicability of a spectroscopic facility like SWIFT.

Galactic Studies

• White dwarf Lum. Funct. - age of disk, thick disk, and halo (More Info)
• Solar metallicity anomaly - abundances of dwarfs in Bulge (More Info)
• Structure and abundance patterns in the MW from K-giants (More Info)
• GC kinematics (binaries) and abundances (lithium-rich stars) (More Info)
• Kinematics of MW halo - identifying tidal and remnant tails of dSph's (More Info)
• Open cluster Solar analogs - the "Sun's" behaviour for 100's yrs (More Info)
• Identification of brown dwarfs in open clusters (More Info)

Resolved Stellar Populations

• Abundances and kinematics of nearby galaxies (M31, dSphs, M81) from halo giants and PNe (More Info)
• dSph's - 3D kinematics when combined with space astrometry (More Info)
• LMC/SMC populations (More Info)
  • age-metallicity relationship for field stars
  • kinematic signatures of LMC-SMC-MW interactions
  • spectroscopic binary distance to LMC/SMC
  • LMC foreground - an intervening population ?

Low Z Extragalactic [UNDER CONSTRUCTION]

• Abundance gradients in many cluster spirals
• Abundances and gradients in elliptical galaxies (PNe)
• Cluster structure from inracluster PNe
• GCs in ellipticals and spirals (abundances and kinematics)
• Identification of primordial abundance galaxies like IZw18 - What is density of these as function of redshift?

High Z Extragalactic [UNDER CONSTRUCTION]

• Large scale structure - testing CDM scenarios
• Cluster kinematics - when did they virialize? what is scale size?
• QSO line absorbers - which galaxy do they belong to?
• Testing cosmology (L, W) using Alcock-Paczynski method (does volume of space distort at high Z?).