Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST) science: Gas and dust in nearby galaxies

Understand

Understanding the physical processes that regulate star formation and galaxy evolution are major areas of activity in modern astrophysics.

• Nearby galaxies offer unique opportunities to inspect interstellar medium (ISM), star formation (SF), radiative, dynamic and magnetic physics in great detail from sub-galactic (kpc) scales to sub-cloud (sub-pc) scales, from quiescent galaxies to starbursts, and from field galaxies to overdensities.
• In this case study, we discuss the major breakthroughs in this area of research that will be enabled by the Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST), a proposed 50-m single-dish submillimeter telescope.
• The new discovery space of AtLAST comes from its exceptional sensitivity, in particular to extended low surface brightness emission, a very large 2 degree field of view, and correspondingly high mapping efficiency.