PRIMA’s principal investigator (PI) program traces our cosmic origins from the coevolution of galaxies and their supermassive black holes, through the buildup of dust and heavy elements, to the role of water in enabling the formation of planetary systems. The program is organized into three scientific themes:
Origin of Planets and their Atmospheres Co-leads K. Pontoppidan and I. Cleeves
Objective 1A Water Mass in Protoplanetary Disks Do protoplanetary disk have enough water to drive the formation of planetesimals and giant planet cores near the water snowline?
Objective 1B Elemental Abundances in Protoplanetary Disks Do protoplanetary disks show non-solar carbon and oxygen abundances in the planet forming zone, as suggested by recent non-solar abundances found in exoplanet atmospheres?
Co-Evolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes Since Cosmic Noon Co-leads A. Pope and A. Bolatto
Objective 2A Black Hole Growth and Star Formation Since Cosmic Noon What is the scaling between black hole accretion and stellar growth in luminous galaxies since the peak epoch of galaxy evolution?
Objective 2B Outflow Winds in Luminous Galaxies Do outflowing molecular winds have sufficient mass ejection rates to quench star formation in luminous galaxies when the star formation was at its most vigorous?
Buildup of Dust and Metals Co-leads J.D. Smith and B. Hensley
Objective 3A Evolution of PAHs and Heavy Elements Has the relationship between small dust grains and heavy elements evolved since the peak epoch of galaxy evolution?
Objective 3B Dust Grain Structure and Composition How are the composition and structure of dust grains related to environmental conditions in the local universe?
The observatory is designed to deliver high-confidence data products and results in these themes. All data resulting from the PI observations will be made available to the community as soon as possible.
