Seminar: The Current State of Galaxy Formation

Dr Christopher Conselice

University of Nottingham

The universe is dominated by galaxies. They make up the bulk of matter in the universe and they are the most basic unit of structure on cosmological scales.   Observations show that galaxies in the early universe, those that existed less than a Billion years after the Big Bang, are much different from galaxies today.  These young galaxies are undergoing intense bursts of star formation, have structures that differ significantly from galaxies in today's universe, as well as have a smaller mass.  How these galaxies become the massive and quiescent systems we see in the nearby universe is currently a mystery, yet there are several observational clues guided by theory that I will discuss.  This includes galaxy formation through merging, as well as how the super massive black holes at the centres of these galaxies are driving the formation of their host galaxies.  By comparing these observations to theory we are starting to test the paradigm of a universe dominated by Cold Dark Matter.  These observations are furthermore starting to allow us to test and measure cosmological features of the universe itself, where in principle galaxy formation is driven fundamentally by the structure and properties of the universe itself.