Jennifer Wallace

About Me

I am a graduate student researcher working in the Milky Way Laboratory at the University of Connecticut. As an astronomer, I am curious how galactic dynamics and local environment impact the early phases of star formation. I am particularly interested in how star formation proceeds in the extreme environment of galaxy centers. You can read more about the very cool research I do here!

When I'm not studying star formation, I like to spend time outside hiking and birdwatching. I also enjoy listening to horror and comedy podcasts, reading sci-fi or fantasy books, and watching all sorts of movies.

Research

Tracing star formation in the Central Molecular Zone with ACES

The Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) is the highly dense and turbulent region encompassing the inner few-hundred parsecs of the Milky Way, with measured temperatures, pressures, and magnetic fields strengths that are much higher than what is observed in the Galactic disk. I am using 3mm ALMA continuum observations from the ALMA CMZ Exploration Survey (ACES) to generate a highly complete catalog of compact sources in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ). Since ACES provides a uniform, high-resolution (~0.1 pc) map that covers the entire CMZ, this catalog will serve as a definitive reference for future core studies in the Galactic center.

Cataloging hierarchical continuum structure throughout the disk of the Milky Way

I created an extensive catalog for the hierarchical continuum structure surrounding star forming regions in the Galactic disk using 1mm observations from the ALMAGAL () Survey. In my recently accepted paper, I use an dendrogram-based algorithm to identify structures for 900 ALMA continuum images. Using the dendrograms for each observed target, we find that dense clumps at later evolutionary stages tend to exhibit more deeply nested hierarchical structure morphologies. Additionally, we analyzed how the mass of pre/protostellar cores correlates with their surrounding surface density and how this changes with the evolution of a clump. Our findings provide a statistically significant foundation for understanding how mass is transported from clump-to-core scales as these systems evolve.

More information about the ALMAGAL survey, with details on the data and recent publications can be found at the official ALMAGAL website.

Investigating molecular filaments at the edge of the Central Molecular Zone

The Sgr E region is incredibly unique in that it is located at the intersection between the CMZ and the far dust lane (gas streaming in from the Galactic bar towards the Galactic center). In my 2022 paper, I identified and characterized the properties of two molecular filaments found in the Sagittarius E star forming complex. Our findings provide important observational context for the dynamical state of gas in this region.

CV

Contact

Email: jennifer.2.wallace@uconn.edu

Also find me on:

• GitHub
• LinkedIn
• OrcID

Elements

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