Galaxy evolution, near and far

亚毫米（submm）的大气窗口可用于观测早期宇宙中尘埃遮挡活动的远红外（IR）发射。我的小组进行了第一次大规模的红移调查，对在亚微米强烈发射的星系进行了调查，描绘了这一重要星系群的演化特征，并促进了其他望远镜对星系的详细研究。这项研究发表在2003年的《自然》杂志上，在天文学所有论文中排名前0.1%。从一个补充的意义上说，了解星系形成和演化所需的许多信息可以从附近星系的高质量“化石记录”数据中收集到。我的小组已经开始了对我们最近的螺旋星系M31中的红巨星进行有史以来最大的径向速度和金属丰度调查。外光晕和盘状区域的大规模运动学特征产生了意想不到的重要发现，即一个半径约22万光年的巨大延伸盘，以及一个类似于我们银河系的非旋转金属贫乏的光晕。我们对M31外盘和光晕的运动学特征的描述在2005年的《天文学》杂志上排名前十。

The atmospheric windows in the submillimetre (submm) can be used to observe the far-infrared(IR) emission from dust-obscured activity in the early Universe. My group conducted the first large redshift survey of galaxies emitting strongly in the submm, characterising the evolution of this important galaxy population, and facilitating the detailed study of the galaxies with other telescopes. The work was announced in Nature (2003), and has a citation record in the top 0.1% of all papers in astronomy. In a complementary sense, much of the information required to understand the formation and evolution of galaxies can be gleaned from high quality `fossil record' data on nearby galaxies. My group has initiated the largest ever radial velocity and metallicity survey of red giant stars in our nearest spiral galaxy neighbor, M31. The large-scale kinematic characterisation of the outer halo and disk regions have yielded unexpected and important discoveries, namely a giant extended disk out to ~220,000 light years radius, and a non-rotating metal-poor halo analogous to that of our own Milky Way. Our kinematic characterisation of the outer disk and halo in M31 made the top-10 discoveries of 2005 in Astronomy magazine.