When Galaxies Get Crowded: Unveiling the Multiphase ISM of Galaxies in Dense Cosmic Environments
Dr. William Cramer
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Department of Physics & Astronomy
University of Notre Dame
The density of the environment in which galaxies live can have dramatic effects on their evolutionary path, arguably most importantly, changing actively star forming blue galaxies to red and quenched. In particular, effects that scale with the density of the environment (and are most dramatic in the densest environments - galaxy clusters) like ram pressure, tidal interaction, and strangulation, all contribute to the evolution of the ISM, morphology, quenching, and color gradients, of galaxies. While the existence of these effects is known, the physical mechanisms by which they drive galaxy evolution via star formation and quenching, and their prevalence and impact across cosmic time, are still a mystery. In particular, the effect of the environment on the most important phase of the ISM to star formation, the molecular gas, has been difficult to study thus far. I will present studies, based on high-resolution observations from instruments like ALMA and HST, providing some of the latest results on this new regime of resolved molecular gas and star formation in clusters across cosmic time.
Hosted by Prof. Howk