The formation and evolution of galaxies
(Brinks, Hardcastle, Stevens)
The evolution of a galaxy over cosmic time is influenced by a wide range of factors. These include the galaxy's mass, its gas or dust content, the activity of its central AGN, its interactions with other galaxies, and feedback effects from the deaths of massive stars. We are working to build up a complete picture of all of these processes and how they interact with each other, by carefully constructing samples of galaxies to clearly bring out one or more of these effects. On the one hand we can select samples of strongly interacting galaxies, or galaxies hosting powerful AGN, for example, and see how these properties affect the star-formation within them, as traced by the mid- or far-infrared emission seen by the Spitzer or Herschel observatories. On the other we can select matched samples of galaxies in different environments and see how their other properties change.
The following sections describe a number of specific projects in more detail: