Star formation quenching and feedback in galaxies throughout the cosmic epochs

"Throughout the whole life of the universe only 4% of the baryons have beenconverted into stars, implying that some physical processes must be responsiblefor suppressing star formation in galaxies. Within this context, one of themost hotly debated open questions is the identification of the processresponsible for quenching star formation in galaxies and transforming them into passive and quiescent (gas poor) systems. Theories of galaxyformation have proposed various possible mechanisms, such as: gasremoval by powerful outflows or ram pressure stripping, heatingand photoionization of the interstellar medium, turbulent orgravitational quenching, halting of the gas supply inflow (often referred to as ""strangulation""). The relevance andrelative role of these mechanisms (as a function of cosmic epoch, galaxy properties and environment), especially at high redshift, are not yet understood because the constraints providedby current observational data have not yet been able to discriminatebetween different scenarios.In the proposed project I will make use of some of the most advanced observational facilities that will be available in the coming yearsto tackle this major outstanding open issue. More specifically, I willexploit the James Webb Space Telescope, MOONS (the next generationmulti-object spectrograph at the ESO-VLT) and the Atacama Large MillimeterArray (ALMA).Observing programs making use of these unique facilitieswill provide an unprecedented amount of information, with unprecedented quality, that will enable us to discriminate between various quenching and feedback processes proposedby theories. More specifically, the aim of this project is toidentify and quantify the dominant quenching and feedback mechanisms in galaxies as a function of redshift, as a function of galaxy propertiesand as a function of environment. The groundbreaking results of this project will bea benchmark for any model of galaxy evolution."