The Star Formation History and Stellar Assembly of High Redshift Galaxies

Abstract

I discuss current observational constraints on the star-formation and stellar-assembly histories of galaxies at high redshifts. The data on massive galaxies at z<1 implies that their stellar populations formed at z>2, and that their morphological configuration was in place soon thereafter. Spitzer Space Telescope 24 micron observations indicate that a substantial fraction of massive galaxies at z ~ 1.5-3 have high IR luminosities, suggesting they are rapidly forming stars, accreting material onto supermassive black holes, or both. I compare how observations of these IR-active phases in the histories of massive galaxies constrain current galaxy-formation models.

4 pages, Invited Review Talk for IAU Symposium 235, Galaxies Across the Hubble Time, J. Palous & F. Combes, eds. Uses iaus.cls, included

References in corpus (3)

• Stellar Population Diagnostics of Elliptical Galaxy Formation
• Star Formation and Extinction in Redshift z~2 Galaxies: Inferences from Spitzer MIPS Observations
• Measuring the Average Evolution of Luminous Galaxies at z<3: The Rest-frame Optical Luminosity Density, Spectral Energy Distribution, and Stellar Mass Density