Personal Page of Marc Balcells

The GOYA Project

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With the GOYA collaboration (PI R. Guzmán, University of Florida), we aim to learn on the processes that led galaxies to grow to their present mass, shape and stellar content, by direct observation of early epochs of galaxy formation and evolution, at redshifts z=1 to 3.

This epoch, 8 to 11 billion years ago, or as early as 3 billion years after the birth of the Universe, appears to have been a major epoch of galaxy growth, with both intense star formation and frequent merging of pre-existing galaxies. Please visit the GOYA web site.

I am a founding member of GOYA, and was chairman of the GOYA Core Group (2000 - 2006). I lead the IAC group at IAC, and lead the subproject on early-type galaxies in GOYA.

At IAC we carried out the GOYA Photometric Survey, a near-infrared and optical imaging survey of the Groth and GOODS-N fields. We have completed four studies leading to PhD theses:

David Cristóbal-Hornillos (thesis 2003): NIR imaging of the Groth field in J and Ks bands. Ks-band number counts; the slope change of NIR galaxy counts. Number count models. Photometric masses of elliptical, spiral and star-bursting galaxies at intermediate redshifts, using a custom-made code to fit two Bruzual-Charlot (2003) populations to the observed SED of each galaxy. David went on to a postdoctoral position at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (Granada).

Cristobal-Hornillos (2003)

M. Carmen Eliche-Moral (thesis 2006): U and B imaging of the Groth strip. Number count models in U, B, Ks. Age constraints on the formation of early-type galaxies (around z~1.5). Numerical N-body simulation of the evolution of bulge-disk galaxies subject to minor mergers. Growth of bulges with disk material; evolution of global scaling relations. Carmen went on to a postdoctoral position at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Carlos López-Sanjuan (thesis 2009).

Lilian Domínguez-Palmero (thesis 2009).

Other ongoing projects within the GOYA collaboration


At the meeting of the GOYA core group, September 2008: left to right, Jesus Gallego, Paco Garzón, Roser Pelló, Mercedes Prieto, Rafael Guzmán, Marc Balcells.

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Last Modified: 03 March 2010