Connecting Galaxies with Host Dark Matter Halos with Next Generation Sky Surveys

How galaxies form in dark matter halos is still not understood in detail. This project is an observational study of the link between the galaxies we see and the dark matter, both in terms of the large-scale structure, and of the properties of the dark halos themselves.

It builds on work already done combining the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) galaxy catalog with weak lensing studies using the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS). Both GAMA and KiDS are state of the art but are about to be superseded by even larger and more powerful surveys. KiDS was performed with the 2.6m VST on Paranal in Chile.

Right now a project on the 8m Subaru telescope is already underway with more sensitive lensing measurements, and in 2022 two new observatories - the Rubin observatory in Chile and the Euclid satellite of the European Space Agency - will start to map large areas of the sky with even higher precision, transforming this research field. At the same time, massive spectroscopic galaxy surveys will eclipse GAMA, which contains data for some 300,000 galaxies.

In particular, the WAVES survey will measure millions of galaxies, over a wider area and to fainter limits than GAMA. The combination of these next-generation data sets will allow us to study the galaxy-halo connection with much higher precision, and in more detail, than was possible so far. This information is vital, fundamental input to galaxy formation theory.