Related papers: The formation and evolution of field massive galax…
Once understood as the paradigm of passively evolving objects, the discovery that massive galaxies experienced an enormous structural evolution in the last ten billion years has opened an active line of research. The most significant…
Massive galaxies, such as nearby ellipticals, have relatively low number densities, yet they host the majority of the stellar mass in the universe. Understanding their origin is a central problem of galaxy formation. Age dating of stellar…
K band observations of the galaxy populations of three high redshift (z=0.8-1.0), X-ray selected, massive clusters are presented. The observations reach a depth of K = 21.5, corresponding to K*+3.5 mag. The evolution of the galaxy…
We analyse $u-r$ colour distributions for several samples of galaxies in groups drawn from the Fourth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. For all luminosity ranges and environments considered the colour distributions are well…
We have selected and analysed the properties of a sample of 2905 Ks<21.5 galaxies in ~ 131 sq.arcmin of the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) Chandra Deep Field South (CDFS), to obtain further constraints on the evolution of…
Based on VLT/FORS spectroscopy and HST/ACS imaging, we have constructed a sample of ~200 field spiral galaxies that cover redshifts up to z~1. Such a large data set allows to study the evolution of fundamental galaxy parameters like…
A common assumption is that galaxies fall in two distinct regions on a plot of specific star-formation rate (SSFR) versus galaxy stellar mass: a star-forming Galaxy Main Sequence (GMS) and a separate region of `passive' or `red and dead…
An introduction is given to projects investigating galaxy evolution quantitatively by spectroscopic observations of very distant galaxies that have weak apparent brightnesses and small sizes as it is feasible with 10m-class telescopes like…
K band luminosity functions (LFs) of three, massive, high redshift clusters of galaxies are presented. The evolution of K*, the characteristic magnitude of the LF, is consistent with purely passive evolution, and a redshift of forma tion z…
We investigate the contribution of star formation to the growth of stellar mass in galaxies over the redshift range 0.5 < z < 1.1 by studying the redshift evolution of the specific star formation rate (SSFR), defined as the star formation…
The optical luminosity function is a fundamental characterization of the galaxy population. A combination of earlier redshift surveys with two new surveys allows the first accurate determination of the evolution of the luminosity function…
We reconstruct the history of the cosmic star formation in the universe by means of detailed chemical evolution models for galaxies of different morphological types. We consider a picture of coeval, non-interacting evolving galaxies where…
I describe some of the current challenges in galaxy formation theory with applications to formation of disks and of spheroids. Forthcoming deep surveys of galaxies with Keck and VLT will provide high quality spectra of $\sim 10^5$ galaxies…
I review the general progress made in the study of galaxy evolution concentrating on the impact of systematic ground-based spectroscopic surveys of faint galaxies and high resolution imaging with Hubble Space Telescope. The picture emerging…
We discuss a new method for inferring the stellar mass of a distant galaxy of known redshift based on the combination of a near-infrared luminosity and multi-band optical photometry. The typical uncertainty for field galaxies with I<22 in…
Observations of the high redshift Universe, interpreted in the context of a new generation of computer simulated model Universes, are providing new insights into the processes by which galaxies and quasars form and evolve, as well as the…
We measure the build-up of the stellar mass of galaxies from z=6 to z=1. Using 15 band multicolor imaging data in the NICMOS Ultra Deep Field we derive photometric redshifts and masses for 796 galaxies down to H(AB)=26.5. The derived…
We review our current knowledge of the population of high-redshift sub-mm/mm galaxies, with particular emphasis on recent results from the SCUBA HAlf Degree Extragalactic Survey (SHADES). All available evidence indicates that these objects…
We present the results of spectroscopic studies with the LRIS spectrograph on Keck of two of the Hawaii deep survey fields. The 393 objects observed cover an area of 26.2 square arcmin and constitute a nearly complete sample down to K = 20,…
Over the last decade optical spectroscopic surveys have characterized the low redshift galaxy population and uncovered populations of star-forming galaxies back to z ~ 7. This work has shown that the primary epoch of galaxy building and…