The role of environment in the evolution and fate of distant galaxies

Abstract

This thesis investigated the relationship between galaxy evolution and environment when the universe was approximately 3.2 to 1.4 billion years old. This project used data from the FourStar Galaxy Evolution (ZFOURGE) survey, and the previously developed seventh nearest neighbour metric to find and quantify distant galaxy environments. By using various galaxy properties (e.g. quiescence, dustiness, star formation activity), this thesis finds evidence that the local galaxy evolution-environment correlation appears to be present in the early universe at approximately 2.7 billion years old. This thesis presents encouraging results for the future of early galaxy evolution studies.