Authors: Simon P. Driver and the GAMA team (inc. Alister W. Graham)
Abstract: The Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) redshift survey is the latest, in a long tradition of high-impact spectroscopic surveys, now underway on the 3.9 m Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory. GAMA is engineered to map extragalactic structures on scales of 1 kpc - 1 Mpc to a redshift of 0.1, and on scales of 10 kpc - 10M pc to z = 0.5. This covers the size range of galaxy groups, pairs, bulges, bars and discs. The headline science is to conduct a number of tests of the currently favoured hierarchical structure formation paradigm, i.e., cold dark matter (CDM). The tests considered consist of robust measurements of: (1) the Dark Matter Halo Mass Function (as inferred from galaxy group velocity dispersions), (2) the baryonic processes, such as star-formation and galaxy formation efficiency (as derived from Galaxy Stellar Mass Functions), and (3) the evolution of galaxy merger rates over a 5 Gyr timespan (via galaxy close pairs and galaxy system asymmetries). Additionally, this data will form the central part of a new galaxy database, aimed at building a definitive blueprint of the nearby galaxy population and its recent evolution. The final GAMA database aims to contain 75,000 galaxies with multiwavelength coverage from coordinated observations with the latest international ground and space based facilities: GALEX, VST, VISTA,WISE, HERSCHEL, GMRT and ASKAP. Together these data will provide increased depth (over 2 magnitudes), doubled spatial resolution (0.7 arcseconds), and significantly extended wavelength coverage (UV through Far-IR to radio) over the main SDSS spectroscopic survey for five sq. deg. regions. Such a database will allow for combined studies of the stars, dust, gas and dark matter plus detailed investigations of the structural, chemical, and dynamical properties of all galaxy types, across all environments, and over a 5 billion year timeline.