MUNA Lunch Talk:

Swara Ravindranath

IUCAA

Galaxy Morphology and Mass build-up with CANDELS

February 28

12:10PM, Room 230, NRAO, Edgemont Road

Abstract:

Galaxy Morphologies have been studied quite extensively over the past decade, using the highest resolution images available from the deep surveys carried out with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). There is some consensus that the Hubble Sequence of galaxy morphologies seen in the present-day Universe is likely to have emerged around z=2-3. The class of massive, red galaxies that have compact sizes, and the clumpy star-forming galaxies with intense starbursts, that are observed at z=2 do not have similar counterparts at low redshift. The observed transition in galaxy morphologies at z>2 may be affected by various issues. At high redshifts, HST/ACS images probe the rest-frame UV light which only traces the star-forming regions, and may be severely affected by dust extinction. Surface-brightness dimming also becomes very significant at z>2, causing the observed morphologies to be biased by the distribution of the brightest regions in the galaxies. I will present an overview of the structural properties of z>2 galaxies, followed by a comparison of galaxy morphology based on HST/ACS and WFC3 images, as a prelude to what may be learnt from the CANDELS MCT program.