In order to stimulate discussion during the conference, the SOC has asked all speakers to address one or more of the questions below in their talks or posters. Moreover, all participants are encouraged to contribute to the discussion by submitting additional questions on the 4 main conference topics using the form at this link. A `real’ mail box will also be available for paper submissions during the conference.
The leaders of each discussion session will collate all submissions and attempt to include at least a few of them in their discussion.
- What regulates the star formation efficiency of galaxies at a Giant Molecular Cloud level?
- Is there a physical connection between local and global star formation efficiency?
- Observationally, integrated SFEs are defined as the ratio between current SFR and global gas content. Is this directly related to the local SFE? Are there any biases affecting the comparison of global SFEs for different galaxies and at different redshifts?
- What are the challenges/open questions for this field (both observationally and theoretically)?
- Is there any observational evidence supporting the idea that bulges directly affect star formation?
- From a theoretical point of view, how can bulges directly affect star formation?
- What exactly does morphological quenching mean? Do we have evidence that it plays a role in galaxy evolution?
- What are the challenges/open questions for this field (both observationally and theoretically)?
- How far are we from reconstructing meaningful SFHs for galaxies at different redshifts? What are the pros and cons of using photometry vs. spectroscopy? Is it critical to have both photometry and spectroscopy?
- How much does progenitor bias hamper our ability to reconstruct galaxy evolution? Can we ignore it?
- How far are we from being able to directly link progenitors and progeny across redshifts?
- What are the challenges/open questions for this field (both observationally and theoretically)?
- Is the region between the active and the passive population a meaningful parameter space for galaxy evolution studies? If so, how to make progress given the many different ways to define such parameter space?
- Is this region just a “transition zone”? What is the observational and theoretical evidence supporting this?
- Do transition galaxies give us any clues on the physics of quenching (timescales and physical processes)?
- What are the challenges/open questions for this field (both observationally and theoretically)?