The spatially-resolved kinematics of line emission from the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of a galaxy can contain information about the CGM turbulence, which may play an important role in galaxy evolution. Due to the region's diffuse nature, there have been limited observations of low-redshift CGM emission until recent efforts that use spatially-resolved emission line kinematics to probe CGM...
The first generation of stars, Population III (Pop III), likely played a fundamental role in the formation and evolution of early galaxies. Recent JWST observations have opened a new window for systematically identifying Pop III signatures at high redshift (z ≈ 3–6), during the universe’s first few billion years, including strong hydrogen emission and weak or absent metal lines such as [O...
JWST's discovery of extremely massive, quiescent galaxies in the early Universe has introduced significant tension with current galaxy formation models, implying that galaxies formed and quenched faster and earlier than expected. However, estimates of distant galaxy masses are highly uncertain. They assume a stellar initial mass function (IMF) similar to that in the Milky Way, despite...
Galactic bars exist in over half of the galaxies in our local universe, but studies of the resolved gas properties in the bar have been limited to small samples of star forming spiral galaxies. The ALMA program Kiloparsec Investigations of Local Objects’ Gas And Star-formation (KILOGAS) is a survey of the molecular gas in 450 mass-selected galaxies covering the full parameter space of star...
Galaxies do not grow in isolation. Interactions with neighboring galaxies and material in their surrounding cosmic environments can drive stellar mass assembly and morphological evolution. Galaxy stellar haloes retain signatures of these externally driven processes due to the long dynamical timescales in galaxy outskirts. Observations tracing stellar halo buildup therefore provide a probe of...
Star formation rates (SFR) and gas-phase metallicities in galaxies are usually measured from strong nebular emission lines under the assumption that young massive stars are the only source ionizing the gas. In galaxies hosting an active galactic nucleus (AGN), or containing old stellar populations, harder radiation also produces these lines, so the standard approach is to classify each region...
Massive stars strongly reshape their surroundings through radiation, stellar winds, and eventually supernova explosions, but when these different feedback mechanisms begin to dominate remains uncertain. We present VLA 3 GHz radio continuum observations of 13 nearby PHANGS galaxies to trace the evolution of star-forming regions during their first ~10 Myr. Combining these data with HST, JWST,...
The spatial extent of the environment's impact on galaxies marks a transitional region between cluster and field galaxies. We present a data‐driven method to identify this region in galaxy clusters with masses $M_{200\rm ,mean}>10^{13} {\rm M}_{\odot}$ at $z = 0$. Using resolved galaxy samples from the largest simulation volume of IllustrisTNG (TNG300-1), we examine how galaxy properties vary...
The spatial distribution of dark matter can help us understand the formation and evolution of the structures in our universe. However, dark matter is invisible, so we need to infer its distribution from the motions of visible stars. Previous techniques struggle to handle incomplete and biased datasets, such as missing velocity information, and have difficulty incorporating measurement...
How do supermassive black holes (SMBHs) regulate the growth of the most massive galaxies? The cycle of gas cooling and AGN feedback is central to this question, yet the physical state of the "warm" multiphase gas often remains elusive. In this talk, I present JWST/NIRSpec IFU observations of the inner 640 pc of NGC 4696, the prototypical BCG of the Centaurus cluster. These data reveal dozens...
AGN (active galactic nuclei) feedback plays a crucial role in shaping galaxy evolution. Numerical simulations show that the kinetic energy transfer efficiency from radio jets to interstellar medium (ISM) is relatively high, suggesting a significant role of radio jets in the feedback. We investigate AGN feedback on cold gas in the compact steep-spectrum (CSS) radio source 3C 303.1. CSS sources...
We investigate the redshift 1.98 galaxy cluster XLSSC 122 using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) from the core of the cluster out to 3 Mpc, a scale equivalent to 10 times the R500 = 295 kpc radius. We present an expanded photometric and spectroscopic catalogue of the cluster, bringing the total number of spectroscopically classified member galaxies to 74, with 35 new member galaxies added in...
Bulges are implicated in quenching, but which bulges, and how they quench galaxies (gas-driven or efficiency-driven), remain open questions. We present SPADE (Spectro-Photometric Analytic Decomposition Engine), a new method that fits imaging, integral-field stellar kinematics and stellar-population spectra of a galaxy simultaneously under one likelihood to separate a bulge from a disk, and...
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) are dense, bright regions at the centre of galaxies thought to be caused by matter accreting into a supermassive black hole. Millions of AGNs have been observed, and population-level studies are needed to learn about AGN physics.
On the other hand, AGNs can be contaminants in cosmology. Type 1a supernovae are frequently used as “standard candles” to infer...
Stellar proper motions (PMs) are fundamental for reconstructing the Local Group dynamics, understanding the Milky Way accretion history, and constraining the nature of dark matter. While Gaia is powerful for measuring PMs, its performance is limited for faint sources (G > 20 mag). Previous studies on Gaia + Hubble Space Telescope (HST) astrometry have shown that combining telescopes achieved...
