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
Mackey A
(2008)
Black holes and core expansion in massive star clusters
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Pettini M
(2008)
C, N, O abundances in the most metal-poor damped Lyman alpha systems
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Caccianiga A.
(2008)
The
XMM-
Newton bright serendipitous survey -: Identification and optical spectral properties
in ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
Chen X
(2008)
Gaseous versus Stellar Velocity Dispersion in Emission-Line Galaxies
in Chinese Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Pinfield D
(2008)
Fifteen new T dwarfs discovered in the UKIDSS Large Area Survey
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Werner M
(2008)
On multiple Einstein rings
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Casetti-Dinescu D
(2008)
KINEMATICS OF STARS IN KAPTEYN SELECTED AREA 71: SAMPLING THE MONOCEROS AND SAGITTARIUS TIDAL STREAMS
in The Astronomical Journal
Begum A
(2008)
Baryonic Tullyâ??Fisher relation for extremely low mass Galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Strigari LE
(2008)
A common mass scale for satellite galaxies of the Milky Way.
in Nature
Swinbank A
(2008)
The properties of submm galaxies in hierarchical models
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society