10965(  1) - 04/03/06 11:13  - [  1]

                  HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE OBSERVING PROGRAM 10965

Version: 1    Check-in Time: 03-Apr-2006 15:13:20

Title
The Sites and Triggers of Star Formation in Large Disk Galaxies Since z=1.
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Type             Cycle     Parallel Pointing Tolerance
AR               15        <none>
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Investigators
                                                                                     Contact?
    PI: Mr. Jason Lee Melbourne           University of California - Santa Cruz
   CoI: Dr. David C. Koo                  University of California - Santa Cruz         N

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Abstract

Luminous Infrared Galaxies (LIRGs) are the sites of significant, dusty star
formation out to z=1. Above z=0.5, roughly half of all LIRGS exhibit undisturbed
spiral morphology. Today LIRGS are dominated by merging (peculiar) systems and
spiral LIRGS are exceedingly rare. Thus the star formation rate of large spirals
apears to have evolved over that time. We have identified populations of both LIRG
and normal disks in the GOODS and GEMS Hubble Treasury Fields (Melbourne et al.
2005), and propose to study the stellar populations of their substructures to
identify both the major sites and triggers of star formation in large disk galaxies
to z=1. To accomplish this, we will combine the high resolution optical HST data
with equally high resolution near infrared imaging from Keck adaptive optics to
measure the stellar populations of the substructures in LIRG and non-LIRG disks.
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