Thursday, February 03, 2011

The Downsizing Problem for Galaxies

It was commonly thought that galaxies form and grow larger by mergers of smaller masses. However, it has been observed that galaxies with high redshifts (which indicates that they are being observed at an early time) are on average larger than galaxies at low redshifts. This is the Downsizing Problem. The preprints Feedback in Galaxy Formation and The Many Manifestations of Downsizing: Hierarchical Galaxy Formation Models confront Observations discuss this and other problems in galaxy formation theory.