The impact of shocks and outflows on galaxy assembly

How the most massive galaxies in our universe assembled is one of the major outstanding problems in astronomy. We will attack this problem by investigating the two critical, but little understood physical processes responsible for transforming galaxies: shocks and galaxy-wide gas flows. We will combine innovative new Australian optical instrumentation with the world's largest telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope to capture a comprehensive sample of galaxies in the process of transformation. This project builds on the solid foundation laid by our detailed theoretical galaxy modeling. We will apply our latest theoretical outflow shock and star-formation models to gain an unprecedented understanding of galaxy formation and evolution.