Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Uncovering the physics of galaxy evolution has been a longstanding problem for astronomers. Physical galaxy properties like the star formation rate, stellar mass, and metallicity can tell us not only how these properties change over generations of galaxies, but they also give us a window into the conditions of the universe at the time of galaxy formation. Galaxy surveys, which are predominantly used to measure these properties, only observe the brightest galaxies, which are a biased sample. Line intensity mapping (LIM) observes the aggregate emission from brighter and fainter galaxies over much larger volumes. The EXCLAIM survey is a pathfinder for this technique, and has the potential to aid in constructing a full census of galaxy emission while minimizing sample variance. In this talk I will present how we can use LIM surveys to construct a galaxy property census. Specifically, I will discuss currently planned methods using LIM to uncover galaxy properties like molecular hydrogen density, star formation, and metallicity properties, as well as their limitations. I will also discuss potential ways we could get around these hurdles using hydrodynamic simulations along with semi-analytic star formation models. Finally we will discuss how these methods could be applied to EXCLAIM and other upcoming LIM surveys.