Speaker:

Thomas Rodriguez Greve

Affiliation:

 Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy

Time:

10:30 AM, April 10 (Friday)

Location:

middle conf. room, 3rd floor

Abstract????

The time from when the first galaxies emerged from the epoch of reionization to z = 4 (roughly a 1Gyr time-span) is of fundamental importance for our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution, yet due to the enormous observational challenges associated with observing such distant galaxies, our understanding of even the basic properties of galaxies in this important epoch of cosmic history is primitive at best, and speculative at worst. With the advent of future ground-breaking facilities such as ALMA, CCAT, eVLA, and JWST, we will be able for the first time to study large samples of z > 4 galaxies in detail. One of the main goals of astrophysical research in the next decade will be to elucidate the macroscopic (e.g. masses, morphologies, star formation, merger fractions, and black hole growth) as well as the microscopic properties (e.g. ISM gas densities, temperatures, abundances, cooling balance) properties of galaxy populations at z > 4. The results are certain to provide profound new insights into how the first galaxies formed and evolved.