Speaker: Bruno Ribeiro (Leiden Observatory, Leiden University)
Title: The evolving shapes of star-forming galaxies in the young Universe
Abstract:
The global properties of galaxies show a strong evolution of the star formation rate and stellar mass density at the epoch of galaxy assembly, driven by several competing physical processes (merging, accretion, feedback, environment,...). The morphological properties of galaxies are also strongly evolving over the same timescales. In such early stage evolution, galaxy evolution is believed to be a turbulent process where gas inflows, strong winds and galaxy-galaxy interactions give rise to the intricate shapes that we encounter in HST photometric observations of high redshift galaxies. The shape of galaxies is a simple, yet fundamental, property of galaxies. In this talk, I would like to highlight two main results on the evolution of rest-frame UV galaxy morphology at 2<z<6 from the largest spectroscopic survey taken to date at these epochs (VIMOS Ultra Deep Survey): 1) galaxies are not as small as we might have thought; 2) clumpy-looking galaxies are increasingly common at higher lookback times and a significant fraction is of merger nature. I will then discuss the implications of these new findings for future surveys with special emphasis on synergies with Euclid and JWST which are the only missions capable of observing optical emission from these distant galaxies.
Room: Zoom videoconference (contact justin.feng@tecnico.ulisboa.pt for URL)