Vorschau

PDF, Englisch Download (20MB) | Nutzungsbedingungen

Abstract

This thesis describes a new widefield survey of the UV broadband emission from a complete flux-limited sample of galaxies in the local Universe conducted with the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX). I develop techniques to reliably measure UV photometry from galaxies catalogued in the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) spectroscopic survey, accounting for the influence of varying UV background, neighbouring sources and measurement artefacts. I also develop the framework for a statistical technique for the inference of the intrinsic UV emission of stars in the population of spiral galaxies, correcting for the effects of attenuation of UV light by dust in flux-limited samples. This technique incorporates for the first time an explicit treatment of the dependency of the attenuation on orientation, size, and morphology of the galaxies. This is a prerequisite for the use of the UV data to infer the present and past evolution of local Universe galaxies from the UV-optical photometry.