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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.

Publications

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Dale D (2009) THE SPITZER LOCAL VOLUME LEGACY: SURVEY DESCRIPTION AND INFRARED PHOTOMETRY in The Astrophysical Journal

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Hainline L (2009) A MID-INFRARED IMAGING SURVEY OF SUBMILLIMETER-SELECTED GALAXIES WITH THE SPITZER SPACE TELESCOPE in The Astrophysical Journal

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Fellhauer M (2009) Merging time-scales of stellar subclumps in young star-forming regions in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Smith M (2009) THE TILT OF THE HALO VELOCITY ELLIPSOID AND THE SHAPE OF THE MILKY WAY HALO in The Astrophysical Journal

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Walker M (2009) A UNIVERSAL MASS PROFILE FOR DWARF SPHEROIDAL GALAXIES? in The Astrophysical Journal

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Kalirai J (2009) THE SPLASH SURVEY: A SPECTROSCOPIC ANALYSIS OF THE METAL-POOR, LOW-LUMINOSITY M31 dSph SATELLITE ANDROMEDA X, in The Astrophysical Journal

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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

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Belokurov V (2009) Two new large-separation gravitational lenses from SDSS in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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McConnachie AW (2009) The remnants of galaxy formation from a panoramic survey of the region around M31. in Nature

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Donato F (2009) A constant dark matter halo surface density in galaxies in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society