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T.M. Glassman, J.E. Larkin (UCLA)
Many questions about galaxy formation and evolution have remained unanswered because of the difficulty of observing distant galaxies with sufficient angular resolution, especially in the infrared. In order to study galaxy evolution as a function of morphology and size, we are conducting an infrared survey that takes advantage of the high resolution offered by the Adaptive Optics system on the 10-meter Keck telescope. This is the first survey of its type and we are already obtaining accurate morphologies of galaxies at z~0.5. Results from our small initial sample show that galaxy disks at moderate redshifts were ~1 mag arcsec-2 brighter than and ~80% the size of local disks. Much larger samples in the near future will extend ~3 mag fainter than the current one, thereby pushing the average redshift closer to z=1 and providing even stronger constraints on galaxy evolution