Thesis

Investigating Structure Formation around Massive Galaxies through a Radio-Infrared Synergy

• Call:

  IDPASC Portugal - PHD Programme 2019

• Academic Year:

  2019 / 2020

• Domains:

  Cosmology | Astrophysics

• Supervisor:

  José Afonso

• Co-Supervisor:

  Catarina Lobo

• Institution:

  Faculdade de Ciências - Universidade de Lisboa

• Host Institution:

  IA, Universidade de Lisboa / IA, Universidade do Porto

• Abstract:

  One of the greatest challenges facing observational cosmology is understanding the formation of large scale structure in the Universe. Hierarchical models for structure formation developed over the last few years, achieving the high degree of predictive success that they do, are however still unconstrained, in particular in helping to understand how the light (galaxies) traces the underlying (dark) matter and how this relation evolves over time. We will address this problem by performing a systematic study of the evolution of the densest regions of the Universe, as traced by the most massive galaxies and their environments, improving our understanding of how the most massive regions of the Universe form and evolve. This will only be possible by using data from a deep mid-infrared wide-field survey, the extended Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey (SERVS), now including over 2700 hours of deep mid-infrared observations and capable of finally overcoming long-standing observational limitations.