In Pursuit of Galactic Archaeology: Astro2020 Science White Paper

TL;DR

The paper discusses the upcoming opportunities and challenges in Galactic archaeology, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive stellar mapping of the Milky Way's disk and proposing a collaborative framework to utilize these data effectively.

Contribution

It outlines a strategic framework for achieving Galactic archaeology goals through extensive stellar mapping and proposes establishing a consortium to coordinate data analysis efforts.

Findings

Recent surveys are creating a transformative stellar map of the Milky Way.

A comprehensive Galactic disk map will enable new insights into galaxy evolution.

Collaborative efforts are essential for maximizing data utility in Galactic archaeology.

Abstract

The next decade affords tremendous opportunity to achieve the goals of Galactic archaeology. That is, to reconstruct the evolutionary narrative of the Milky Way, based on the empirical data that describes its current morphological, dynamical, temporal and chemical structures. Here, we describe a path to achieving this goal. The critical observational objective is a Galaxy-scale, contiguous, comprehensive mapping of the disk's phase space, tracing where the majority of the stellar mass resides. An ensemble of recent, ongoing, and imminent surveys are working to deliver such a transformative stellar map. Once this empirical description of the dust-obscured disk is assembled, we will no longer be operationally limited by the observational data. The primary and significant challenge within stellar astronomy and Galactic archaeology will then be in fully utilizing these data. We outline the next-decade framework for obtaining and then realizing the potential of the data to chart the Galactic disk via its stars. One way to support the investment in the massive data assemblage will be to establish a Galactic Archaeology Consortium across the ensemble of stellar missions. This would reflect a long-term commitment to build and support a network of personnel in a dedicated effort to aggregate, engineer, and transform stellar measurements into a comprehensive perspective of our Galaxy.