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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Collins M (2009) A spectroscopic survey of EC4, an extended cluster in Andromeda's halo in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Maschietto F (2008) [O iii] emitters in the field of the MRC 0316-257 protocluster in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Kniazev A (2008) Spectroscopy of two PN candidates in IC 10 ? in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Nestor D (2008) Measurements of Ca ii absorption, metals and dust in a sample of z ? 1 DLAs and subDLAs ? in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Ménard B (2008) Lensing, reddening and extinction effects of Mg ii absorbers from z = 0.4 to 2 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Begum A (2007) Life in the last lane: star formation and chemical evolution in an extremely gas rich dwarf NGC 3741 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Siebert A (2008) Estimation of the tilt of the stellar velocity ellipsoid from RAVE and implications for mass models in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Verrier P (2007) Planetary stability zones in hierarchical triple star systems in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Kodama T (2007) The first appearance of the red sequence of galaxies in proto-clusters at 2 lsimzlsim 3 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Fellhauer M (2007) The tidal tails of NGC 5466 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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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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Becker A (2008) Two-Micron All-Sky Survey J01542930+0053266: a new eclipsing M dwarf binary system in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Hodgkin S (2009) The UKIRT wide field camera ZYJHK photometric system: calibration from 2MASS in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Macciò A (2010) Luminosity function and radial distribution of Milky Way satellites in a ?CDM Universe in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Lawrence A (2007) The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Lodieu N (2009) Two distant brown dwarfs in the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey Deep Extragalactic Survey Data Release 2 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Verrier P (2009) High-inclination planets and asteroids in multistellar systems in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Peñarrubia J (2009) Tidal disruption of globular clusters in dwarf galaxies with triaxial dark matter haloes in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Mackey A (2008) Black holes and core expansion in massive star clusters in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Pettini M (2008) C, N, O abundances in the most metal-poor damped Lyman alpha systems in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Pinfield D (2008) Fifteen new T dwarfs discovered in the UKIDSS Large Area Survey in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Werner M (2008) On multiple Einstein rings in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Ural U (2010) Kinematic subpopulations in dwarf spheroidal galaxies in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Begum A (2008) Baryonic Tullyâ??Fisher relation for extremely low mass Galaxies in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Casey C (2009) Confirming a population of hot-dust dominated, star-forming, ultraluminous galaxies at high redshift in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Pontzen A (2010) The nature of H i absorbers in gamma-ray burst afterglows: clues from hydrodynamic simulations in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Swinbank A (2008) The properties of submm galaxies in hierarchical models in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Pettini M (2010) CASSOWARY 20: a wide separation Einstein Cross identified with the X-shooter spectrograph in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Hewett P (2007) K-band imaging of strong Ca II-absorber host galaxies at z   1 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Dobke B (2007) Steepened inner density profiles of group galaxies via interactions: an N-body analysis in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Gray M (2009) STAGES: the Space Telescope A901/2 Galaxy Evolution Survey in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Begum A (2008) FIGGS: Faint Irregular Galaxies GMRT Survey - overview, observations and first results in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Verrier P (2008) HD 98800: a most unusual debris disc in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Seabroke G (2007) Revisiting the relations: Galactic thin disc age-velocity dispersion relation in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Pontzen A (2008) Damped Lyman a systems in galaxy formation simulations in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Mackey A (2010) Deep Gemini/GMOS imaging of an extremely isolated globular cluster in the Local Group in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Smith M (2009) Kinematics of SDSS subdwarfs: structure and substructure of the Milky Way halo in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Fellhauer M (2008) Modelling the dynamical evolution of the Bootes dwarf spheroidal galaxy in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Burningham B (2008) Exploring the substellar temperature regime down to ~550 K in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Shin E (2008) The effect of satellite galaxies on gravitational lensing flux ratios in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Dye S (2008) Models of the Cosmic Horseshoe gravitational lens J10044112 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Zych B (2009) Dust depletion, chemical uniformity and environment of Ca ii H&K quasar absorbers in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society