Galaxy formation and evolution
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Cambridge
Department Name: Institute of Astronomy
Abstract
This programmatic five-year rolling grant application addresses one of the most important problems in extragalactic astronomy, the formation and evolution of galaxies, one of the ``big questions'' in the current PPARC Road Map, and is a defining objective of virtually every national decadal survey of astronomy. A full understanding of galaxy formation and evolution requires multiple lines of attack. Observations of the resolved stellar populations in the Milky Way and its Local Group companions provide a detailed fossil record of the dynamical assemblies of the galaxies, the formation of stars, and the buildup of heavy elements over a wide range of mass scales and initial conditions. At the other end of the scale, observations of distant galaxies spanning lookback times of up to 12 Gyr provide direct measurements of the evolution of galaxy populations and the buildup of stars and metals with cosmic time. Finally, measurements of the large-scale star formation and abundance properties of nearby galaxies form a vital astrophysical bridge between the studies of nearby resolved stellar populations and the distant high-redshift investigations, by allowing us to characterise the evolutionary properties of the Hubble sequence and the complex ``gastrophysical'' processes that regulate the accretion of gas and the formation of stars in galaxies. In this rolling grant application we propose a series of investigations that will advance our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution on all three fronts.
Organisations
Publications
Begum A
(2008)
Baryonic Tullyâ??Fisher relation for extremely low mass Galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Fellhauer M
(2007)
The tidal tails of NGC 5466
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Peroux C
(2007)
A homogeneous sample of sub-damped Lyman systems - IV. Global metallicity evolution
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Takagi T
(2007)
The SCUBA HAlf Degree Extragalactic Survey (SHADES) - V. Submillimetre properties of near-infrared-selected galaxies in the Subaru/XMM-Newton deep field Submm properties of NIR-selected galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Dye S
(2008)
The SCUBA HAlf Degree Extragalactic Survey (SHADES) - VII. Optical/IR photometry and stellar masses of submillimetre galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Chapman S
(2009)
Submillimetre detection of the z = 2.83 Lyman-break galaxy, Westphal-MM8, and implications for SCUBA2
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Ryan-Weber E
(2008)
The Local Group dwarf Leo T: H i on the brink of star formation H i in Leo T
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Warren S
(2007)
A very cool brown dwarf in UKIDSS DR1
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Shin E
(2008)
Lensing by binary galaxies modelled as isothermal spheres
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Wyrzykowski L
(2009)
The OGLE view of microlensing towards the Magellanic Clouds - I. A trickle of events in the OGLE-II LMC data
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society