The origin and evolution of galaxies

我建议研究银河系结构在宇宙时间内的演化。这项研究将在大约110亿年的时间范围内探测星系，这一时间范围涵盖了宇宙中主要的恒星质量积累阶段。这项拟议的研究的核心问题是：星系在高红移时是什么样子的？我们怎样才能最好地量化地描述这些系统呢？哈勃序列是如何从这些遥远的星系中出现的？星系结构的变化如何映射到星系演化的基本物理概念上？这项拟议的研究是对局部群中非常近的星系的调查(重点是已分解的恒星群)，以及对已知存在的红移最高的星系的调查的补充。

I propose to investigate the evolution of galactic structures over cosmic time. This research will probe galaxies over a time range of about 11 billion years, which encompasses the major stellar mass-building phase of the universe. The central questions underlying the proposed research are: What did galaxies look like at high redshifts? How can we best describe these systems in a quantitative way? How does the Hubble Sequence emerge from these distant galaxies? How do changes in galactic structure map onto ideas for the underlying physics of galaxy evolution? The proposed research is complementary to investigations of very nearby galaxies in the Local Group (which focus on resolved stellar populations), and to investigations of galaxies at the highest redshifts at which they are known to exist.