Galactic star formation and galactic structure: The BU-FCRAO Milky Way Galactic Ring Survey (GRS)

The Milky Way Galactic Ring Survey (GRS), a Boston University (BU) and Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory (FCRAO) collaboration, exploits recent technological advances in millimeter wave receivers to probe the molecular gas in the Milky Way's 5 kpc ring with unprecedented spectral sensitivity and angular resolution. We will use the new 32 pixel array receiver SEQUOIA. on the FCRAO 14m telescope to map the distribution of (CO)-C-13, which traces column density, and CS, which traces dense gas, in the inner Milky Way. This survey will have 0.3 km/s spectral resolution and 0.1 - 0.2 K brightness sensitivity, sampling the 5 kpc ring using 50 arcsec beams on a 25 x 25 arcsecond grid. GRS images will reveal the structure and kinematics of the molecular gas in the inner Milky Way with unprecedented detail. GRS CS images will identify dense gas associated with deeply embedded infrared sources and clusters across the full disk of the Galaxy Once a gas-IR source identification is made, GRS data can be used to establish the kinematic distance to the IR source.