Unveiling the low-surface-brightness Universe with new deep-wide surveys: the role of mergers in driving galaxy evolution

Merging is the principal driver of galaxy evolution, triggering star-formation episodes, building black holes and inducing morphological transformations. Since low-mass galaxies outnumber their massive counterparts, galaxy assembly proceeds primarily via mergers with unequal mass ratios ('minor mergers'). However, while clearly fundamental, minor merging remains virtually unexplored, as the low-surface-brightness tidal features they produce are invisible in today's surveys. A complete understanding of merging (and therefore galaxy evolution) requires exploration of the low-surface-brightness Universe, e.g. using a telescope like LSST.

While LSST and other facilities will usher in a new era of low-surface-brightness astronomy, the algorithms required to detect/characterize low-surface-brightness tidal features need to be developed. The student will use state-of-the-art cosmological simulations (e.g. Horizon-AGN) to create mock galaxy images, build/train algorithms on these images, test them on available precursor datasets and build low-surface-brightness pipelines for facilities like LSST, EUCLID, DES etc. He/she will sit at the centre of a collaborative network that is led by Hertfordshire, with nodes at Princeton, Oxford and the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris. The student will gain expertise in key theoretical and observational techniques and write benchmark papers on low-surface-brightness science and the role of mergers in galaxy evolution.