10646(  1) - 04/05/05 12:15  - [  1]

    PROPOSAL FOR HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE OBSERVATIONS   ST ScI Use Only
                                                       ID:      10646
                                                       Version: 1
                                                       Check-in Date: 05-Apr-2005
                                                                      16:15:24

1.Proposal Title:
Marked Correlation Functions and Understanding the Evolution of Galaxies
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2. Proposal For  3. Cycle  4. Parallel Pointing Tolerance
AR               14        <none>
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5. Investigators
                                                                                     Contact?
    PI: Dr. Andrew J. Connolly            University of Pittsburgh
   CoI: Prof. Ravi K. Sheth               University of Pennsylvania                    N
   CoI: Dr. Ryan Scranton                 University of Pittsburgh                      N

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6. Abstract

The last decade has seen the development of a basic observational framework for the
evolution of galaxies with lookback time. From the timescales we observe it has
become clear that galaxy morphology and star formation are interlinked; with the
decrease in star formation at redshifts z<1 corresponding to the formation of the
morphological sequence we know today. Given this simplified picture of galaxy
evolution questions that arise are: what drives the evolution and how is it related
to the environment? Is it a local phenomenon (depending simply on the mass of the
dark matter halo) or are galaxy properties influenced by larger scale structures?
Classical approaches to this problem involve subdividing samples of galaxies based
on their observed properties (e.g. luminosity, color or morphology). While this
provides some insight it does not fully exploit the information present within these
data. We propose here to exploit a new set of clustering statistics, marked
correlation functions, that can be used to express galaxy evolution in terms of the
dark matter halo mass, the underlying large-scale environment and that can be
compared directly to semi-analytic models for galaxy formation. Our goals with this
proposal are: (a) to utilize archival multicolor HST data to derive a statistically
robust sample of galaxies from which to study the properties of galaxies at
intermediate and high redshift (0.5<z<2); (b) to measure the marked correlation
functions for these samples as a function of luminosity, color and morphology; (c)
to relate these marked correlation functions to models for galaxy formation (from
semi-analytic models to dark matter halo distributions); (d) to compare the marked
correlation functions from local surveys with the high redshift data to determine
whether the physical processes that drive evolution in the local universe dominate
at earlier times.
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                                                10646(  1) - 04/05/05 12:15  - [  2]

            Summary Form for Proposal  10646

  Item                         Used in this proposal
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  Proposal Category            AR
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