Feb 21, 2013
Mark Brodwin, University of Missouri - Kansas City
"Evolution of Galaxy Populations in the Most Distant Galaxy Clusters"
I will describe the emerging evidence for an epoch of significant growth of cluster galaxies at z ~ 1.5, about 10 billion years in the past. This evidence rules out the (overly) simplistic galaxy formation models that seem to fit the data at later times (ie. at z < 1). New measurements of rapid evolution in a number of critical probes of the growth of cluster galaxies — including a census of their stars, the colors of those stars, and the rates of star formation, mergers and black hole activity — all suggest the z ~ 1.5 era is a very active one in the formation and assembly of massive cluster galaxies.