SPP 1573:  Physics of the Interstellar Medium

• Subject Area: Physics
• Term: from 2011 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 172654239

Interstellar space is filled with a dilute mixture of charged particles, atoms, molecules and dust grains, called the interstellar medium (ISM). The average particle density of the ISM is 1 cm-3, which represents a density lower than can be created on Earth. The ISM therefore represents a fascinating laboratory to study the physics of highly attenuated gases, chemical processes and atomic, molecular and solid state physics under extreme conditions and numerous other questions of natural sciences. The physics of the ISM plays a crucial role in many areas of astronomy. Galaxy formation and evolution, the formation of stars, cosmic nucleosynthesis, the origin of large complex, prebiotic molecules and the abundance, structure and growth of dust grains, which constitute the fundamental building blocks of planets, all these processes are intimately coupled to the physics of the ISM. Despite its importance, its structure and evolution is still poorly understood. The situation is, however, improving rapidly. New observations with powerful telescopes have revealed that the ISM is a turbulent, multiphase gas, filled with structures on all resolvable spatial scales. This has lead to a paradigm shift in our understanding of the ISM, where the old equilibrium model is being replaced by a highly dynamical picture of strongly coupled, interacting and turbulently mixed gas phases that are far from equilibrium and that are continuously stirred by processes that are not well understood. This insight has attracted enormous interest in the astronomical community. We enter an era where for the first time enough information is available to gain a deep and comprehensive physical understanding of the ISM and the dynamical processes that govern its evolution. This is of importance for many fields in astronomy. The main aims of this Priority Programme are: (1) to combine the expertise of researchers in Germany who work on different aspects of ISM physics, (2) to investigate observationally and theoretically how various physical processes interact with one another and shape the ISM, and (3) to construct a new model of the dynamical, non-linear, multiphase ISM. The final goal of the Priority Programme is to develop a comprehensive physical understanding of the multi-phase ISM that provides a solid basis for other fields of astrophysics. To reach this ambitious scientific goal, the programme relies on three complementary pillars: (1) Laboratory studies will provide the necessary data of molecular and ionic reactions as well as transition frequencies and data on dust physics, which is required for the physical and chemical description of the ISM. (2) Observations are the key to constrain theoretical models and give insight into the structure of the ISM and its dependence on galactic environment. (3) Theory and numerical simulations will shed light on physical processes and the importance of their combined effect on structuring the ISM and the driving of turbulence.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• International Connection: Australia, Austria, Chile, France, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, USA

Projects

• A Panoramic View of the Magnetized ISM (Applicant Pillai, Ph.D., Thushara )
• Adsorption line Survey of H+3 in the Galactic Center: The Warm and Diffuse Gas in the Central Molecular Zone (Applicant Goto, Ph.D., Miwa )
• Characterizing the Ionized Gas around Massive Protostars (Applicant Sanna, Ph.D., Alberto )
• Charged particel transport in interstellar plasmas: Improved theory for scattering of cosmic rays in turbulent fields (Applicants Jenko, Frank ;  Schlickeiser, Reinhard )
• Common Funds for SPP 1573 (Applicant Burkert, Andreas )
• Deciphering the interstellar medium around the Scorpius-Centarus OB association (Applicant Preibisch, Thomas )
• Density structure of molecular clouds as a probe of the ISM physics (Applicant Kainulainen, Ph.D., Jouni )
• Effects of Massive Stars on Their Surroundings (Applicant Langer, Norbert )
• Ever-changing dust: unveiling dust properties across galactic environments (Applicant Zhukovska, Svitlana )
• Experimental investigation of the collision and optical properties of (sub)µm-sized ice and ice-coated dust particles (Applicant Blum, Jürgen )
• Experimental studies on the low-temperature condensation of cosmic dust in the interstellar medium (Applicant Jäger, Cornelia )
• Exploration of the physical conditions of gas in Local Group halos (Applicants Ben Bekhti, Nadya ;  Kerp, Jürgen )
• Fast and versatile diagnostic radiative transfer of 3-D models of the ISM (Applicant Dullemond, Cornelis Petrus )
• Formation of dense gas cores in supernova remnant-cloud interactions (Applicant Ziegler, Udo )
• Galactic Cold Interstellar Filaments: Structure, Kinematics, and Chemistry (Applicant Wang, Ke )
• HII regions and triggered star formation in the turbulent ISM (Applicant Naab, Thorsten )
• Laboratory measurements of the far-infrared to millimeter dust opacity at low temperatures (Applicants Lewen, Frank ;  Mutschke, Harald )
• Laboratory measurements on cold electron reactions with key species of interstellar chemistry using ion beams (Applicants Schippers, Stefan ;  Wolf, Andreas )
• On the nature of highly ionized gas in the circumgalactic environment of galaxies (Applicant Richter, Philipp )
• Photon Escape from the Interstellar Medium (Applicant Ciardi, Benedetta )
• Probing the interstellar PAH hypothesis in electrodynamic traps (Applicant Brünken, Ph.D., Sandra )
• Quantifying ISM Turbulence in Nearby Galaxies on 100 pc Scales (Applicant Walter, Fabian )
• Quantifying the structure of the molecular interstellar medium with the G-virial method (Applicant Li, Guang-Xing )
• Scales and thresholds in molecular cloud turbulence (Applicants Klessen, Ph.D., Ralf ;  Ossenkopf-Okada, Volker ;  Walch-Gassner, Stefanie )
• Spectroscopy of C60+ and Complex Organic Molecular Ions: from Mid-IR Emission to the Diffuse Interstellar Bands (Applicant Kreckel, Holger )
• Stellar ISM dust sources: Carbide dust formation (Applicant Patzer, Beate )
• Striations, wisps and arcs - the fascinating evolution of filaments in a violent environment (Applicant Burkert, Andreas )
• Supernova Remnants: TeV emission from sources of nonthermal interstellar medium energy (Applicant Pühlhofer, Gerd )
• The Anisotropy in Interstellar Media (Applicant Li, Hua-bai )
• The effect of the environment on the Interstellar Medium of disk galaxies (Applicants Breitschwerdt, Dieter ;  Brüggen, Ph.D., Marcus )
• The Formation of Giant Molecular Clouds and their Associations: Confronting Theory with Observations in Spiral Arms (Applicant Schinnerer, Eva )
• The Formation of Prestellar Cores in the ISM (Applicant Clark, Paul Campbell )
• The impact of cosmic rays on the multi-phase structure of the turbulent interstellar medium (Applicants Naab, Thorsten ;  Walch-Gassner, Stefanie )
• The impact of protostellar outflows on the interstellar matter (Applicant Stecklum, Bringfried )
• The impact of radiation pressure and from massive stars on the turbulent interstellar medium in extreme environments (Applicant Naab, Thorsten )
• The interplay between IRDC Formation and the Birth of Massive Stars (Applicant Smith, Ph.D., Rowan )
• The journey of ionising photons through the porous ISM of galaxies (Applicants Ercolano, Ph.D., Barbara ;  Preibisch, Thomas )
• The life-cycle of turbulent molecular clouds (Applicants Glover, Ph.D., Simon ;  Klessen, Ph.D., Ralf ;  Naab, Thorsten ;  Walch-Gassner, Stefanie )
• The low-metallicity ISM: From high redshift to the local Universe (Applicant Banerjee, Robi Stefan )
• The Physical Conditions of the ISM in High-Redshift Galaxies (Applicants Bertoldi, Frank ;  Walter, Fabian )
• The physics and chemistry of low-mass cores (Applicant Stutz, Amelia M. )
• The physics of interstellar dust in nearby galaxies (Applicant Albrecht, Marcus )
• The physics of the interstellar medium under extreme conditions in Seyfert galaxies (Applicant Burkert, Andreas )
• The quest for the origin of the Milky Way's most massive stars (Applicant Csengeri, Timea )
• The Reach of Stars: Connecting the Physical Processes in the ISM with Galaxy Evolution (Applicants Kreckel, Kathryn ;  Schinnerer, Eva )
• The Structured Interstellar Medium: Infrared-dark clouds from Herschel to ALMA (Applicant Ragan, Ph.D., Sarah E. )
• The wonderous multi-phase ISM of elliptical galaxies (Applicants Emsellem, Ph.D., Eric ;  Naab, Thorsten )
• Towards a comprehensive understanding of the interstellar medium in the extreme environment of Active Galactic Nuclei (Applicant Burtscher, Leonard )
• Towards understanding the astrochemistry of metal-compounds: Laboratory characterization of aluminum-bearing species through rotational spectroscopy and coupled-cluster calculations (Applicants Gauß, Jürgen ;  Giesen, Thomas )
• Transport processes of high-energy cosmic rays in the interstellar medium (Applicant Breitschwerdt, Dieter )
• Understanding the Dynamic ISM: A "Big Data'' Comparative Analysis of Models and Observations (Applicant Shetty, Rahul )
• Unveiling the multi-scale structure of the magnetic field in the interior and the environment of molecular clouds (Applicant Wolf, Sebastian )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Andreas Burkert