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A.L. Heiderman (University of California, Berkeley)
To study the rate at which stars form in distant galaxies and the connection between this and their properties, a detailed analysis of data from the DEEP2 Redshift Survey is being performed. DEEP2 is studying a sample of ~60,000 distant galaxies, 6-8 billion light years away, using DEIMOS, an instrument at the Keck II telescope. The amount of star formation in these galaxies is being investigated by measuring the equivalent width (EW) of [OII], or the amount of light emitted by ionized oxygen. Based on galaxies in the nearby Universe, correlations are expected to be found between the equivalent width values and the brightness of galaxies. Since DEEP2 is looking a distant galaxies, this is only a hypothesis, and conclusions will be established from the measured [OII] EW’s. A similar trend is that nearby galaxies in dense clusters tend to have stopped star formation, while galaxies in less dense regions have higher oxygen equivalent widths and contain young stars. Further analysis of the DEEP2 data may lead to a better understanding of evolution and distribution of galaxies in the universe.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: heidrman@ugastro.berkeley.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.