Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST) Science: Our Galaxy
Creators: name: Klaassen, Pamela
name: Traficante, Alessio
name: Beltrán, Maria T.
name: Pattle, Kate
name: Booth, Mark
name: Lovell, Joshua B.
name: Marshall, Jonathan P.
name: Hacar, Alvaro
name: Gaches, Brandt A. L.
name: Bot, Caroline
name: Peretto, Nicolas
name: Stanke, Thomas
name: Arzoumanian, Doris
name: Cabral, Ana Duarte
name: Duchêne, Gaspard
name: Eden, David J.
name: Hales, Antonio
name: Kauffmann, Jens
name: Luppe, Patricia
name: Marino, Sebastian
name: Redaelli, Elena
name: Rigby, Andrew J.
name: Sánchez-Monge, Álvaro
name: Schisano, Eugenio
name: Semenov, Dmitry A.
name: Spezzano, Silvia
name: Thompson, Mark A.
name: Wyrowski, Friedrich
name: Cicone, Claudia
name: Mroczkowski, Tony
name: Cordiner, Martin A.
name: Di Mascolo, Luca
name: Johnstone, Doug
name: van Kampen, Eelco
name: Lee, Minju M.
name: Liu, Daizhong
name: Maccarone, Thomas J.
name: Saintonge, Amélie
name: Smith, Matthew
name: Thelen, Alexander E.
name: Wedemeyer, Sven
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: As we learn more about the multi-scale interstellar medium (ISM) of our Galaxy, we develop a greater understanding for the complex relationships between the large-scale diffuse gas and dust in Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs), how it moves, how it is affected by the nearby massive stars, and which portions of those GMCs eventually collapse into star forming regions. The complex interactions of those gas, dust and stellar populations form what has come to be known as the ecology of our Galaxy. Because we are deeply embedded in the plane of our Galaxy, it takes up a significant fraction of the sky, with complex dust lanes scattered throughout the optically recognisable bands of the Milky Way. These bands become bright at (sub-)millimetre wavelengths, where we can study dust thermal emission and the chemical and kinematic signatures of the gas. To properly study such large-scale environments, requires deep, large area surveys that are not possible with current facilities. Moreover, where stars form, so too do planetary systems, growing from the dust and gas in circumstellar discs, to planets and planetesimal belts. Understanding the evolution of these belts requires deep imaging capable of studying belts around young stellar objects to Kuiper belt analogues around the nearest stars. Here we present a plan for observing the Galactic Plane and circumstellar environments to quantify the physical structure, the magnetic fields, the dynamics, chemistry, star formation, and planetary system evolution of the galaxy in which we live with AtLAST; a concept for a new, 50m single-dish sub-mm telescope with a large field of view which is the only type of facility that will allow us to observe our Galaxy deeply and widely enough to make a leap forward in our understanding of our local ecology.
description: 27 pages, submitted to Open Research Europe as part of the AtLAST collection: https://open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu/collections/atlast/about