A SCUBA-2 survey of high-redshift galaxy protoclusters & The calibration of the JCMT Transient regions

Abstract

Part 1) The brightest high-redshift sub-millimetre galaxies (SMGs) represent the rarest and most extreme star-forming events in the Universe and are thought to be the progenitors to some of the most massive local galaxies. While short-lived, these SMGs contain intense stellar nurseries, which greatly affect the Universe’s evolution, and are found in protoclusters, the progenitors of the most massive local galaxy clusters. I present a sub-millimetre study of two high-redshift protoclusters in attempt to understand how galaxy assembly is accelerated in over-dense environments in the early Universe.

Part 2) The evolution of the mass accretion rate remains largely unconstrained for the early stages of low-mass star formation. Examining the variation in the rate at which mass is accreted onto the central protostar is critical to understanding the physics of star formation. I present The JCMT Transient Survey's data reduction techniques and propose an improvement on their post-calibration image alignment methods.