The build-up of stellar mass in primeval galaxies

by Dr. Lukas Furtak

BGU

at Astrophysics and Cosmology Seminar

Wed, 23 Mar 2022, 11:10
Sacta-Rashi Building for Physics (54), room 207

Abstract

Early star-forming galaxies at redshifts z>6 in the epoch of cosmic reionization are at the frontier of observability with the current instrumentation and represent the primeval states of present-day galaxies. The galaxy stellar mass function (GSMF) at z~6-9 is therefore a robust and crucial tool to study the build-up of stellar mass in the Universe and provides the tightest constraints on cosmological simulations.
These high-redshift galaxies are among the faintest objects observed to date and thus particularly hard to observe in blank fields. Strong gravitational lensing by massive galaxy clusters however allows to probe z>6 galaxies down to 10⁶ solar masses, providing valuable constraints on the very low-mass end of the mass function. In my presentation I will give and overview of high-redshift galaxy studies using gravitational lensing and present our recent work on the low-mass end of the galaxy stellar mass function at z~6-7 using the strong lensing Hubble Frontier Fields clusters. I will discuss these results regarding strong lensing and SED-fitting uncertainties in order to assess what is believable in the resulting mass function regarding these uncertainties and present the methods we have developed to overcome these limitations.

Created on 19-03-2022 by Zitrin, Adi (zitrin)
Updaded on 19-03-2022 by Zitrin, Adi (zitrin)