The role of molecular gas in galaxy evolution
by
FC61
AlbaNova Main Building
Cold molecular gas is the primary fuel for star formation and a key regulator of galaxy evolution across cosmic time. In this talk, I will discuss how ALMA observations can be used to trace molecular gas in galaxies from global to local scales, drawing on work from my PhD dissertation.
First, I will introduce the ALMA Calibrator Survey (ALMACAL), an untargeted survey of over one thousand calibrator fields covering more than 1000 square arcminutes. By probing large cosmic volumes and mitigating cosmic variance, ALMACAL provides new constraints on the molecular gas content of galaxies and its evolution out to z~6.
I will then move to local scales and present early results from an ongoing ALMA Large Program from the MUSE-ALMA Haloes survey, which targets galaxies selected through HI absorption at z~0.5. By combining CO observations with optical spectroscopy from VLT/MUSE and HST, this program explores how molecular gas, star formation efficiency, and chemical enrichment vary in galaxies identified through HI absorption in their circumgalactic medium.
Finally, I will briefly introduce ongoing work on Lyα radiative transfer during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR, z>6). Using machine‑learning techniques, I am developing a model to predict the intrinsic Lyα line profiles from UV–optical galaxy properties in high-z local analogs, which can then be applied at high redshift to constrain IGM attenuation.
Andrii and Helena