University of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
Phone: (519) 888-4567 ext 32215
Fax: (519) 746-8115
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Professor Balogh's research uses the world’s largest telescopes to study the physical properties of distant galaxies. Through spectroscopy we can learn about the distances, ages, chemical composition and star formation histories of these galaxies. As the light we observe from more distant objects originated at earlier times, by observing ever more distant systems we can reconstruct the changes that occur over time to populations of galaxies. His particular expertise lies in trying to understand the source of the puzzling link between galaxy growth rates and surrounding large-scale structure, many orders of magnitude larger than the galaxies themselves.
Contact information
Office: PHY 254
Phone: 519 888-4567 ext. 37518
Email: mbalogh@uwaterloo.ca
Website: http://quixote.uwaterloo.ca/~mbalogh/
Most of the mass in our Universe is made up of dark matter, which interacts only gravitationally. Gravity causes this dark matter to form larger and larger structures as time goes on, leading to a characteristic filamentary distribution of mass that is reflected in the large scale distribution of galaxies today. This structure is the foundation on which galaxies form and evolve; but the growth of galaxies is a much more complex process that involves exchanges of vast amount of energies over large spatial and time scales. Professor Balogh uses the the world's largest telescopes to measure how the mass, age and chemical composition of galaxies changes with time, and how that relates to the surrounding large scale dark matter structure. This requires careful photometric and spectroscopic measurements at optical and near-infrared wavelengths; interpreting the data requires both the development of toy models to identify the driving parameters, as well as detailed comparison with numerical simulations to understand the interplay between competing physical processes.
Balogh, Michael L., McGee, Sean L., Mok, Angus, Wilman, David J., Finoguenov, Alexis, Bower, Richard G., Mulchaey, John S., Parker, Laura C., Tanaka, Masayuki. The GEEC2 spectroscopic survey of Galaxy groups at 0.8 < z < 1. MNRAS (3), volume 443, pp. 2679-2694.
McGee, Sean L., Balogh, Michael L., Wilman, David J., Bower, Richard G., Mulchaey, John S., Parker, Laura C., Oemler, Augustus Jr. The Dawn of the Red: star formation histories of group galaxies over the past 5 billion years. MNRAS (2), volume 413, pp 996-1012.
McGee, Sean L., Balogh, Michael L., Bower, Richard G., Font, Andreea S., McCarthy, Ian G. The accretion of galaxies into groups and clusters. MNRAS (2), volume 400, pp 937-950.
Balogh, Michael L., McCarthy, Ian G., Bower, Richard G., Eke, Vincent R. Testing cold dark matter with the hierarchical build-up of stellar light. MNRAS (2), volume 385, pp 1003-1014.
Gilbank, David G., Balogh, Michael L. Tracking down a critical halo mass for killing galaxies through the growth of the red sequence. MNRAS (1), volume 385, pp L116-L119.
Please see SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System for a complete list of Professor Balogh's publications.
1999 PhD Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC Canada
1995 BSc Honours Mathematics and Physics, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON Canada
The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. Our main campus is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land granted to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. Our active work toward reconciliation takes place across our campuses through research, learning, teaching, and community building, and is centralized within our Indigenous Initiatives Office.