The Dusty Universe

How did the Universe begin and where did our Galaxy come from? Addressing these questions involves studying millimeter-wave light emitted and affected by processes immediately after the Big Bang (the Cosmic Microwave Background - CMB), as well near-infrared through millimetre light from distant galaxies in the early Universe first forming their stars. The bulk of star formation is deeply obscured by dust, with ultra-violet radiation from young, hot stars being absorbed and reradiated at long wavelengths from dust heated to ~30K. In the formative periods of galaxies in the early Universe, when star formation rates (SFRs) were high enough to form the bulk of the stars in a typical galaxy in a few mega-years, the `proto-galaxies' were almost completely invisible at optical wavelengths. The first ~7billion years of the universe is an especially crucial time frame to explore -- it marks a time when gas mass fractions, gas accretion rates, and star formation rates were substantially higher, resulting in a fundamental difference in the growth of galaxies at early times. *My proposal has two related components; *(i) Understanding the Early Universe and Constraining Structure Formation through Millimeter-Wave Telescopes; *(ii) Probing the Kinematic Evolution of Galaxies using Spectral Mapping improved by Adaptive Optics.*Both goals involve the use telescope data from various facilities to probe obscured star formation in primeval galaxies and proto-clusters of galaxies in the distant universe. These goals also involve development of instrumentation for large millimetre-wave telescopes/experiments (Polarbear, SPT, CCAT, and the Large Millimetre Telescope), and large optical telescopes (Gemini), culminating in the Thirty Meter Telescope - TMT (a recent Canadian partnership investment of $250Mil!). A recently commissioned, low background, test cryostat will be used to study optical and thermal properties of key components in millimetre-wave detectors to be deployed on currently implementing and upcoming CMB-polarization experiments. The ability to evaluate the performance of detectors at cryogenic temperatures will position Canada to be a partner of choice in future (sub)millimetre wave astronomy experiments.*The recently released midterm review of Canadian astronomy's decadal plan has called for maintaining the second to none status by endorsing ongoing development of second generation instrument concepts for TMT.*We are building an instrument Gemini-IRMOS that will serve as a pathfinder for the most scientifically sought after instrument capability on the TMT, the nearIR multi-object integral-field spectrograph (IRMOS). IRMOS was left for the second generation due to rapidly advancing adaptive optics technology, complexity, and the recognition that risk reduction requires successful implementation on a current telescope.