From the first galaxies to the Milky-Way

Most of the stars in massive galaxies we see in the local Universe formed 8-10 billion years ago, a time when the average star-formation rate within galaxies was a factor ~10x higher than seen today. This era has therefore been heralded as the "pinnacle" of galaxy formation and represents a time when the properties of local galaxies were defined. Contemporary models suggest that most of the star formation occurring within early galaxies result from major mergers of gas rich system, although the latest theories have instead suggested that most of the star-formation in early systems results from gas accretion from the cosmic web. The goal of this program is therefore to measure the physical processes occurring within the ISM of high-redshift galaxies in order test these competing theories by spatially resolving the internal star-formation and dynamics in a well selected, statistical sample of high-redshift galaxies.