刘晓为教授团队获2018年度国家自然科学基金委员会与英国皇家学会合作交流项目

Professor Xiaowei Liu's research group won the support of International (Regional) Cooperation and Exchange Programs between the NSFC and the RS in 2018

近日，国家自然科学基金委公布2018年度国家自然科学基金委员会与英国皇家学会合作交流项目名单，刘晓为教授团队与英国牛津大学James Binney教授团队联合申请的“利用LAMOST巡天数据理解星系的形成与演化”项目获得资助。

该合作项目将发挥中英合作双方的优势，利用牛津大学James Binney教授团队建立的银河系化学动力学演化模型来拟合、分析基于LAMOST海量光谱数据构建的增值星表，旨在细致刻画银盘不同年龄星族的空间分布，精确描述恒星元素丰度、速度分布及其随时间的演化，精确测定银河系的引力势及其物质分布等基础前沿问题上取得突破，揭示银河系的集成历史。

延伸阅读：

该项目的英方申请团队负责人为牛津大学国际知名教授James Binney。James Binney教授曾获得1986年度Maxwell Prize，2003年度Dirk Brouwer Award，2010年度Dirac Medal，2013年度Eddington Medal，2013年度Medaille de l’Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris以及2015年度Occhialini Medal。James Binney教授在2000年当选英国皇家学会院士（FRS）。James Binney教授是星系动力学方面的专家，他和Scott Tremaine合著的Galactic Dynamics一书已成为星系动力学领域的经典教科书。

国家自然科学基金国际（地区）合作与交流项目旨在资助科学技术人员立足国际科学前沿，有效利用国际科技资源，本着平等合作、互利互惠、成果共享的原则开展实质性国际（地区）合作研究与学术交流，以提高我国科学研究水平和国际竞争能力。目前，国际（地区）合作与交流项目资助体系包括重点国际（地区）合作研究项目、组织间国际（地区）合作与交流项目、外国青年学者研究基金项目和在华召开国际（地区）学术会议项目。此次刘晓为团组所获资助项目为组织间国际（地区）合作与交流项目。

Recently, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) has announced the 2018 list of approved International (Regional) Cooperation and Exchange Programs between the NSFC and the Royal Society (RS). Project “Extracting science from the LAMOST survey”, proposed on the Chinese side by the research group of professor Xiaowei Liu from the South-Western Institute for Astronomy Research at Yunnan University (SWIFAR-YNU) and on the British side by the research group of professor James Binney from the University of Oxford, is amongst the list.

This project takes advantage of the complementary skills and resources of the collaborative teams. It plans to apply the Galactic (chemo-)dynamical models developed by professor James Binney's group to the value-added catalogues constructed from the LAMOST and Gaia surveys by professor Xiaowei Liu’s group, in order to address and make breakthrough on some of the fundamental questions in Galactic study, including mapping the spatial distributions of mono-age stellar populations of the Galactic disk, precise and exquisite descriptions of the  metallicity and velocity distribution functions of Galactic disk stars and their cosmic evolution, accurate determinations of the Galactic gravitational potential and mass distribution. Answers to those fundamental questions will help reconstruct the assembly history of the Milky Way galaxy.

Extended reading:

Professor James Binney is a world renowned scientist at the University of Oxford. Professor Binney has received a number of awards and honors for his work, including the Maxwell Prize of the Institute of Physics in 1986, the Brouwer Award of the American Astronomical Society in 2003, the Dirac Medal in 2010, and the Eddington Medal in 2013. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society since 1973, and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, both in 2000. He is an expert of the Galactic dynamics and the monograph Galactic Dynamics written by him and Scott Tremaine has long been considered the standard work of reference in its field.

The NSFC International (Regional) Cooperation and Exchange Programs provide funding for Chinese scientisits to facilitate effective usage of the international scientific and technological resources in order to carry out substantive international (regional) cooperation researches  in frontier fields, based on the principle of equality, mutual benefit, and sharing of results. The Programs aim to improve the Chinese scientific researches and international competitiveness. At present, the International (Regional) Cooperation and Exchange Program funding system includes key international (regional) cooperative research projects, inter-organizational international (regional) cooperation and exchange projects, foreign young scholars research fund project, and holding international (regional) academic conference projects in China. The project professor Liu has won this time is an International (Regional) Cooperation and Exchange program between China and UK.