Star Formation and Gas Consumption in High Redshift Galaxies

Questions of when and where the Universe's primordial hydrogen gas clouds collapse to form stars and galaxies go to the essence of "galaxy formation," one of the major unresolved issues of present day astronomy. This proposal unites radio, optical, and near-IR observations to map the evolution of stars and gas in both cluster and field galaxies over two-thirds of the Universe's history. The key result will be to follow the accretion and consumption of neutral gas in optically-identified populations of star-forming galaxies using novel radio observations. The analysis includes star-formation rates from new and published optical spectroscopy and the total stellar masses from available and new near-IR imaging.