Principal Investigator: Jeyhan Kartaltepe
PI Institution: Rochester Institute of Technology
Investigators
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Title: What Drives Star Formation in Galaxies?: Combining the Strengths of HST and Herschel
Cycle: 23
Abstract
We propose to conduct a large scale, comprehensive analysis of infrared galaxies observed by Herschel by combining all of the Herschel survey fields that have HST imaging data. These fields span a large range of area and depth (COSMOS, AEGIS, ECDFS and the CANDELS fields GOODS-N, GOODS-S, UDS, EGS, and a portion of COSMOS). We will conduct a detailed morphological analysis of the optical and near-infrared HST images for the expected 8000 sources over these fields in order to determine how galaxy morphology is related to a galaxy's star formation rate and specific star formation rate and how that relationship has changed over time. In particular, we will investigate the role that galaxy mergers and interactions have had in fueling star formation for galaxies on the main sequence as well as for starbursts with significantly elevated star formation rates. In addition to looking for merger signatures, we will explore other morphological properties. For example, how does the bulge to disk ratio evolve for these galaxies? Are starburst galaxies more likely to be compact systems? What are the properties of clumpy galaxies and are they evidence for disk instablities at high redshift? For objects that are not detected in Herschel imaging, we will conduct a stacking analysis to measure the mean SFR for various populations, such as 24 micron galaxies, compact galaxies, and barred galaxies. We plan to make all of our images and catalogs, including our morphological and SFR measurements, available to the public and we expect this dataset to be of lasting legacy value to the community.