Project level: PhD, Honours, Summer/Winter

A galaxy's morphology is quantified by the ratio of light in its central bulge compared with total luminosity. This 'bulge-to-total ratio' works reasonably well for nearby, well-resolved and regular galaxies, but not as well for distant galaxies which are more difficult to observe and are more often clumpy and irregular. The distribution of angular momentum within a galaxy fundamentally encodes information about that galaxy's evolution and morphology and consequently is a new physically-grounded method for classifying galaxies.

This project involves developing this classification method for galaxies of all morphological types and at all redshifts.

Project members

Dr Sarah Sweet

ARC DECRA Research Fellow
Physics