Star-forming galaxies in the first billion years

Constraints on the Star-Forming Interstellar Medium in Galaxies Back to the First Billion Years of Cosmic Time

Constraints on the molecular gas content of galaxies at high redshift are crucial to further our understanding of star formation and galaxy evolution through cosmic times, as molecular gas is the fuel for star formation. Since its initial detection at large cosmic distances almost two decades ago, studies of molecular gas in the early universe have come a long way. We have detected CO emission ...

The First Four Billion Years

Star-forming Complexes in Galaxies

Star complexes are the largest globular regions of star formation in galaxies. If there is a spiral density wave, nuclear ring, tidal arm, or other welldefined stellar structure, then gravitational instabilities in the gaseous component produce giant cloud complexes with a spacing of about three times the width. These gas complexes form star complexes, giving the familiar beads on a string of s...

Star-forming Galaxies in the 2dfgrs

We examine the environment of star-forming galaxies selected in the 2dFGRS. We find that bright star-forming galaxies display a significant deficit of faint neighbours relative to passive galaxies. If a deficit in fainter companions implies a smaller mass halo, data support a scenario predicting star-formation to be suppressed in all systems more massive than 1013M⊙, rather than in clusters only.

star-forming galaxies in the HDF-N

We present preliminary results from a programme to obtain multi-object nearinfrared spectroscopy of galaxies at redshifts 0.7 < z < 1.5. We are using the instrument CIRPASS (the Cambridge Infra-Red PAnoramic Survey Spectrograph), in multi-object mode, to survey Hα in galaxies at z ∼ 1. We aim to address the true star formation history of the universe at this epoch: potentially the peak period o...