The Local Volume Legacy Survey



Overview of the project


We introduce the Local Volume Legacy (LVL) --- a Spitzer Cycle 4 IRAC and MIPS Legacy survey of a complete sample of 258 galaxies within 11 Mpc. The broad goal of LVL is to provide critical insight into two of the primary processes that shape the growth of galaxies: star formation and its interaction with the interstellar medium. This goal will be achieved by investigating the spatially-resolved star formation, dust , and red stellar populations of galaxies that have been drawn from a statistically robust local sample, in which a full diversity of galaxy properties (e.g., luminosities, surface brightnesses, metallicities) are represented. Our sample includes:

(i) all known galaxies inside a sub-volume bounded by 3.5 Mpc, and
(ii) an unbiased sample of S-Irr galaxies within the larger, and more representative, 11 Mpc sphere.

LVL will produce a multi-wavelength census of the Galactic neighborhood, extending to the faintest limits of the galactic luminosity function and exploiting the highest spatial resolution and absolute depth achievable with Spitzer. Our ancillary dataset includes H and UV imaging from the 11 Mpc H-alpha and Ultraviolet Galaxy Survey (11HUGS) and Nearby Galaxy Survey (NGS) surveys , stellar population mapping from the ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury (ANGST) , HI mapping with the VLA and GMRT, optical broad-band imaging and spectroscopy. By homogeneously filling in critical gaps in the current Spitzer coverage of the Local Volume, and providing SED coverage from the UV to the FIR, LVL will supply an enduring homogeneous core dataset on the Galactic neighborhood for the community. As an example of "UV to FIR" imaging of nearby galaxies , images of M81 (NGC 3031) from the UV to the FIR from Gordon et al. (2004, ApJS, 154, 215) are given below, clearly indicating the change in galaxy morphology from the UV to the FIR.

Principal science issues to be addressed by the LVL team include: constraining the physical mechanisms underlying dust heating and understanding correlations between FIR emission, dust content and global galaxy properties; establishing the primary factors which influence PAH emission and evaluating the robustness of PAH emission as a SFR indicator, particularly at low metallicities and high specific SFRs; probing the temporal variation of star formation as a function of global properties, with special focus on dwarf galaxies.







Science Sample Team Data Products Publications LVL TWiki member site

Last updated: March 18, 2008