Martin Stringer

Paris Observatory

"Galaxy size evolution as a consequence of cosmology and feedback"

In the context of the wealth of recent work focusing on the contribution of discreet evolutionary processes to galaxy size growth, we aim to re-establish the importance of underlying cosmic evolution, examining how the radii of collapsed structures predicted by standard cosmology maps on to mass-size trends in the galaxy population. In particular, we find that trends in galactic radii can be seen as emerging from stellar mass content that varies strongly as a function of host structure properties (for physical reasons which we review), but that carries a characteristic specific angular momentum which remains an imprint of its host's. This interpretation is complementary to well known merger-based arguments, which it naturally incorporates as a limiting case, but includes and quantifies the roles of cooling, feedback and cosmology.