The decade of galaxy formation: pitfalls in the path ahead

At the turn of the decade we arguably move from the era of precision cosmology to the era of galaxy formation. One approach to this problem will be via the construction of comprehensive galaxy samples. In this review I take the opportunity to highlight a number of challenges which must be overcome before we can use such data to construct a robust empirical blueprint of galaxy evolution. The issues briefly highlighted here are: the Hubble tuning fork versus galaxy components, the hierarchy of structure, the accuracy of structural decompositions, galaxy photometry, incompleteness, cosmic variance, photometric versus spectroscopic redshifts, wavelength bias, dust attenuation, and the disconnect with theory. These concerns essentially form one of the key motivations of the GAMA survey which, as one of its goals, will establish a complete comprehensive kpc-resolution 3D multi-wavelength (UV-Opt-IR-Radio) database of 250k galaxy systems to z <0.5.Comment: Review paper (12 pages, 11 figures) in "Hunting for the Dark: The Hidden Side of Galaxy Formation", Malta, 19-23 Oct. 2009, eds. V.P.Debattista & C.C.Popescu, AIP Conf. Ser., in pres

Are disappearing dwarfs just lying low ?

Recent redshift surveys have shown that the excess galaxies seen in faint galaxy number counts (above those expected given the local galaxy luminosity function) are not evolved giants at high redshifts, but low to moderate luminosity objects at more modest redshifts. This has led to the suggestion that there was once an additional population of dwarf galaxies which has since disappeared, ie. there is non-conservation of galaxy number. Here we investigate the possibility that these disappearing dwarfs have actually evolved to become the population of very low surface brightness galaxies which is now being detected in nearby clusters.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures. Figures available from http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~spd/bib.htm

The local supermassive black hole mass density: corrections for dependencies on the Hubble constant

We have investigated past measurements of the local supermassive black hole mass density, correcting for hitherto unknown dependencies on the Hubble constant, which, in some cases, had led to an underestimation of the mass density by factors of ~2. Correcting for this, we note that the majority of past studies yield a local supermassive black hole mas density that is consistent with the range 4.4-5.9 x 10^5 f(H_0) M_Sun / Mpc^3 (when using H_0 = 70 km/s/Mpc). In addition, we address a number of ways in which these past estimates can be further developed. In particular, we tabulate realistic bulge-to-total flux ratios which can be used to estimate the luminosity of bulges and subsequently their central black hole masses.Comment: MNRAS, accepte