Name: Andrew Bunker

Institution: University of Exeter

e-mail: bunker(no-spam)astro.ex.ac.uk

Partner Contry: UK

Science Meeting: Yes

User Meeting: Yes

NGO Staff Meeting: None Selected

Presentation: Yes

Format: Oral

Title: The High-Redshift Universe as seen with Gemini

Co-author: Elizabeth Stanway Karl Glazebrook Bob Abraham Kuenley Chiu Marin Haehnelt Michael Rauch Francine Marleau James Graham George Becker Rob Sharp Ian Parry Richard McMahon

Co-authors' Institutions: Bristol, UK Swinburne, Australia Toronto, Canada Exeter, UK IoA Cambridge, UK Carnegie Observatories, USA Spitzer Science Center, Caltech, USA UC Berkeley, USA Caltech, USA AAO, Australia IoA Cambridge, UK IoA Cambridge, UK

Abstract:

I will review three large programmes with Gemini, designed to explore galaxy evolution at high redshift. Using integral field units (GMOS in the optical, and CIRPASS and GNIRS in the near-infrared) we have mapped the rotation curves and spatially-resolved colours of galaxies at z>1 to compare their dynamical masses and stellar content, and hence address the evolution of scaling relations (the co-evolution of mass assembly and the history of star formation). With GMOS, we also have taken the deepest spectrum of the Universe - a 120hour exposure to measure the faint Lyman-alpha re-emission from neutral clouds of hydrogen (the Lyman-alpha forest) at z~2-3, ionized by the metagalactic background. Moving to higher redshifts, we have used GMOS for the GLARE project to obtain redshifts for galaxies at z~6 which may have contributed significantly to the reionization of the Universe in the first billion years.

Comments:

(there was only room to list a subset of a dozen of my 30 collaborators from 4 of the Gemini partner countries)