We present a detailed, multi-wavelength study of star formation (SF) and active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity in 11 near-infrared (IR) selected, spectroscopically confirmed massive (greater than or similar to 10(14)M(circle dot)) galaxy clusters at 1 < z < 1.75. Using new deep Herschel/PACS imaging, we characterize the optical to far-IR spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for IR-luminous cluster galaxies, finding that they can, on average, be well described by field galaxy templates. Identification and decomposition of AGNs through SED fittings allows us to include the contribution to cluster SF from AGN host galaxies. We quantify the star-forming fraction, dust-obscured SF rates (SFRs) and specific SFRs for cluster galaxies as a function of cluster-centric radius and redshift. In good agreement with previous studies, we find that SF in cluster galaxies at z greater than or similar to 1.4 is largely consistent with field galaxies at similar epochs, indicating an era before significant quenching in the cluster cores (r < 0.5 Mpc). This is followed by a transition to lower SF activity as environmental quenching dominates by z similar to 1. Enhanced SFRs are found in lower mass (10.1< logM(kappa)/M-circle dot < 10.8) cluster galaxies. We find significant variation in SF from cluster to cluster within our uniformly selected sample, indicating that caution should be taken when evaluating individual clusters. We examine AGNs in clusters from z = 0.5-2, finding an excess AGN fraction at z greater than or similar to 1, suggesting environmental triggering of AGNs during this epoch. We argue that our results-a transition from field-like to quenched SF, enhanced SF in lower mass galaxies in the cluster cores, and excess AGNs-are consistent with a co-evolution between SF and AGNs in clusters and an increased merger rate in massive halos at high redshift.

We study the properties of the foreground galaxy of the Ruby, the brightest gravitationally lensed high-redshift galaxy on the sub-millimeter sky as probed by the Planck satellite, and part of our sample of Planck's dusty GEMS. The Ruby consists of an Einstein ring of 1.4" diameter at z = 3.005 observed with ALMA at 0.1" resolution, centered on a faint, red, massive lensing galaxy seen with HST/WFC3, which itself has an exceptionally high redshift, z = 1.525 +/- 0.001, as confirmed with VLT/X-shooter spectroscopy. Here we focus on the properties of the lens and the lensing model obtained with LENSTOOL. The rest-frame optical morphology of this system is strongly dominated by the lens, while the Ruby itself is highly obscured, and contributes less than 10% to the photometry out to the K band. The foreground galaxy has a lensing mass of (3.70 +/- 0.35) x 10(11) M-Theta Magnification factors are between 7 and 38 for individual clumps forming two image families along the Einstein ring. We present a decomposition of the foreground and background sources in the WFC3 images, and stellar population synthesis modeling with a range of star-formation histories for Chabrier and Salpeter initial mass functions (IMFs). Only the stellar mass range obtained with the latter agrees well with the lensing mass. This is consistent with the bottom-heavy IMFs of massive high-redshift galaxies expected from detailed studies of the stellar masses and mass profiles of their low-redshift descendants, and from models of turbulent gas fragmentation. This may be the first direct constraint on the IMF in a lens at z = 1.5, which is not a cluster central galaxy.

We present an analysis of high-resolution ALMA interferometry of CO(4-3) line emission and dust continuum in the "Ruby" (PLCK_G244.8+54.9), a bright, gravitationally lensed galaxy at z = 3.0 discovered with the Planck all-sky survey. The Ruby is the brightest of Planck's dusty GEMS, a sample of 11 of the brightest gravitationally lensed high-redshift galaxies on the extragalactic sub-mm sky. We resolve the high-surface-brightness continuum and CO line emission of the Ruby in several extended clumps along a partial, nearly circular Einstein ring with 1.4 '' diameter around a massive galaxy at z = 1.5. Local star-formation intensities are up to 2000 M-circle dot yr(-1) kpc(-2), amongst the highest observed at high redshift, and clearly in the range of maximal starbursts. Gas-mass surface densities are a few x10(4) M-circle dot pc(-2). The Ruby lies at, and in part even above, the starburst sequence in the Schmidt-Kennicutt diagram, and at the limit expected for star formation that is self-regulated through the kinetic energy injection from radiation pressure, stellar winds, and supernovae. We show that these processes can also inject sufficient kinetic energy and momentum into the gas to explain the turbulent line widths, which are consistent with marginally gravitationally bound molecular clouds embedded in a critically Toomre-stable disk. The star-formation efficiency is in the range 1-10% per free-fall time, consistent with the notion that the pressure balance that sets the local star-formation law in the Milky Way may well be universal out to the highest star-formation intensities. AGN feedback is not necessary to regulate the star formation in the Ruby, in agreement with the absence of a bright AGN component in the infrared and radio regimes.

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Depuis le milieu des années 1990, la taille des échantillons de galaxies situées à très grande distance (“redshift”) de nous, au tout début de la vie de l'univers a augmenté grace à la sensibilité croissante des télescopes optiques / infrarouge proche. Cependant, les propriétés des poussières continues dans ces galaxies sont mal connues en raison de l'absence d'observations profondes en infrarouge lointain et en sous-mm. Cette thèse explore les propriétés multi-longueur d'onde d'une population de galaxies observées ~ 2Gyr après le Big Bang. Notre échantillon comprend 22000 galaxies, et il a été sélectionné à partir de la discontinuité de Lyman. Nous utilisons une technique statistique, appelée analyse d'empilement, qui combine le signal provenant d'un grand nombre de sources individuellement non détectées dans le but d’ameliorer les limites de détection par rapport aux observations actuelles, à ces longueurs d'onde. Elle nous permet d'obtenir une distribution spectrale d’énergie complete de l’ultraviolet lointain à l’infrarouge lointain, et d'étudier la formation des étoiles et l'atténuation par la poussière sur ces galaxies. / Since the mid-1990s, the sample of galaxies in the early universe has been growing thanks to the increasing sensitivities in the Optical/NIR telescopes. However, their dust properties are poorly known due to the lack of deep far-infrared or sub-mm observations. This thesis explores the multi-wavelength properties of a population of galaxies observed ~2Gyr after the Big Bang. Our sample includes 22000 galaxies, and it has been selected by the classical U-dropout or Lyman Break technique. We use a statistical technique, called stacking analysis, that combines the signal from a large number of sources to lower the detection limits on the current long wavelengths observations. It allows us to obtain data over the full FUV-to-FIR spectral domain, and study the star formation and dust attenuation of these galaxies.

L'objectif de mon travail de thèse a consisté à tenter de comprendre quels sont les mécanismes principaux à l'origine de la formation d'étoiles dans les galaxies au cours des derniers dix milliards d'années. Alors qu'il avait été proposé dans le passé que le rôle des fusions de galaxies était dominant pour expliquer l'allumage de la formation d'étoiles dans les galaxies lointaines formant leurs étoiles à de très grands taux, des études plus récentes ont au contraire mis en évidence des lois d'échelles reliant le taux de formation d'étoiles des galaxies à leur masse stellaire ou masse de gaz. La faible dispersion de ces lois semblait être en contradiction avec l'idée d'épisodes stochastiques violents de formation stellaire liés à des interactions, mais plutôt en accord avec une nouvelle vision de l'histoire des galaxies où celles-ci sont nourries de manière continue en gaz intergalactique.Nous nous sommes particulièrement intéressés à l'une de ces lois d'échelles, la relation entre le taux de formation d'étoiles (SFR) et la masse stellaire des galaxies, appelées communément la séquence principale des galaxies à formation d'étoiles. Nous avons étudié cette séquence principale, SFR-M*, en fonction de la morphologie et d'autres paramètres physiques comme le rayon, la couleur, la clumpiness. Le but étant de comprendre l'origine de la dispersion de cette relation en lien avec les processus physiques responsables de cette séquence afin d'identifier le mode principal de formation d'étoile gouvernant cette séquence. Ce travail a nécessité une approche multi-longueurs d'ondes ainsi que l'utilisation de simulations de profils de galaxies pour distinguer les différents types morphologiques de galaxies impliqués dans la séquence principale. / The goal of my PhD study consists at attempt to understand what are the main processes at the origin of the star formation in the galaxies over the last 10 billions years. While it was proposed in the past that merging of galaxies has a dominant role to explain the triggering of the star formation in the distant galaxies having high star formation rates, in the opposite, more recent studies revealed scaling laws linking the star formation rate in the galaxies to their stellar mass or their gas mass. The small dispersion of these laws seems to be in contradiction with the idea of powerful stochastic events due to interactions, but rather in agreement with the new vision of galaxy history where the latter are continuously fed by intergalactic gas. We were especially interested in one of this scaling law, the relation between the star formation (SFR) and the stellar mass (M*) of galaxies, commonly called the main sequence of star forming galaxies. We studied this main sequence, SFR-M*, in function of the morphology and other physical parameters like the radius, the colour, the clumpiness. The goal was to understand the origin of the sequence’s dispersion related to the physical processes underlying this sequence in order to identify the main mode of star formation controlling this sequence. This work needed a multi-wavelength approach as well as the use of galaxies profile simulation to distinguish between the different galaxy morphological types implied in the main sequence.

We present multi-wavelength detections of nine candidate gravitationally lensed dusty starforming galaxies (DSFGs) selected at 218 GHz (1.4 mm) from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) equatorial survey. Among the brightest ACT sources, these represent the subset of the total ACT sample lying in Herschel SPIRE fields, and all nine of the 218 GHz detections were found to have bright Herschel counterparts. By fitting their spectral energy distributions (SEDs) with a modified blackbody model with power-law temperature distribution, we find the sample has a median redshift of z = 4.1(-1.0)(+1.1) (68 per cent confidence interval), as expected for 218 GHz selection, and an apparent total infrared luminosity of log10(mu LIR/L-circle dot) = 13.86(-0.30)(+0.33), which suggests that they are either strongly lensed sources or unresolved collections of unlensed DSFGs. The effective apparent diameter of the sample is root mu d = 4.2(-1.0)(+1.7) kpc, further evidence of strong lensing or multiplicity, since the typical diameter of DSFGs is 1.0-2.5 kpc. We emphasize that the effective apparent diameter derives from SED modelling without the assumption of optically thin dust (as opposed to image morphology). We find that the sources have substantial optical depth (tau = 4.2(-1.9)(+3.7)) to dust around the peak in the modified blackbody spectrum (lambda(obs) <= 500 mu m), a result that is robust to model choice.

We report the detection of diffuse Ly alpha emission, or Lya halos (LAHs), around star-forming galaxies at z approximate to 3.78 and 2.66 in the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey Bootes field. Our samples consist of a total of similar to 1400 galaxies, within two separate regions containing spectroscopically confirmed galaxy overdensities. They provide a unique opportunity to investigate how the LAH characteristics vary with host galaxy large-scale environment and physical properties. We stack Ly alpha images of different samples defined by these properties and measure their median LAH sizes by decomposing the stacked Ly alpha radial profile into a compact galaxy-like and an extended halo-like component. We find that the exponential scale-length of LAHs depends on UV continuum and Ly alpha luminosities, but not on Ly alpha equivalent widths or galaxy overdensity parameters. The full samples, which are dominated by low UV-continuum luminosity Lya emitters (M-UV greater than or similar to -21), exhibit LAH sizes of 5-6 kpc. However, the most UV- or Ly alpha-luminous galaxies have more extended halos with scale-lengths of 7-9 kpc. The stacked Ly alpha radial profiles decline more steeply than recent theoretical predictions that include the contributions from gravitational cooling of infalling gas and from low-level star formation in satellites. However, the LAH extent matches what one would expect for photons produced in the galaxy and then resonantly scattered by gas in an outflowing envelope. The observed trends of LAH sizes with host galaxy properties suggest that the physical conditions of the circumgalactic medium (covering fraction, H I column density, and outflow velocity) change with halo mass and/or star formation rates.

We present new observations of the field containing the z = 3.786 protocluster PC 217.96+ 32.3. We confirm that it is one of the largest known and most overdense high-redshift structures. Such structures are rare even in the largest cosmological simulations. We used the Mayall/MOSAIC1.1 imaging camera to image a 1 degrees.2 x 0 degrees.6 area (approximate to 150 x 75 comoving Mpc) surrounding the protocluster's core and discovered 165 candidate Ly alpha emitting galaxies (LAEs) and 788 candidate Lyman Break galaxies (LBGs). There are at least two overdense regions traced by the LAEs, the largest of which shows an areal overdensity in its core (i. e., within a radius of 2.5 comoving Mpc) of 14 +/- 7 relative to the average LAE spatial density ((rho) over bar) in the imaged field. Further, (rho) over bar is twice that derived by other field LAE surveys. Spectroscopy with Keck/DEIMOS yielded redshifts for 164 galaxies (79 LAEs and 85 LBGs); 65 lie at a redshift of 3.785 +/- 0.010. The velocity dispersion of galaxies near the core is sigma = 350 +/- 40 km s(-1), a value robust to selection effects. The overdensities are likely to collapse into systems with present-day masses of > 10(15)M(circle dot) and > 6 x 10(14)M(circle dot) The low velocity dispersion may suggest a dynamically young protocluster. We find a weak trend between narrow-band (Ly alpha) luminosity and environmental density: the Ly alpha luminosity is enhanced on average by 1.35x within the protocluster core. There is no evidence that the Ly alpha equivalent width depends on environment. These suggest that star formation and/or active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity is enhanced in the higher-density regions of the structure. PC. 217.96+ 32.3 is a Coma cluster analog, witnessed in the process of formation.

The far-infrared fine-structure line [C II] at 1900.5 GHz is known to be one of the brightest cooling lines in local galaxies, and therefore it has been suggested to be an efficient tracer for star formation in very high redshift galaxies. However, recent results for galaxies at z > 6 have yielded numerous non-detections in star-forming galaxies, except for quasars and submillimetre galaxies. We report the results of ALMA observations of two lensed, star-forming galaxies at z = 6.029 and z = 6.703. The galaxy A383-5.1 (star formation rate [SFR] of 3.2 M-circle dot yr(-1) and magnification of mu = 11.4 +/- 1.9) shows a line detection with L-[C II] = 8.9 x 10(6) L-circle dot, making it the lowest L-[C II] detection at z > 6. For MS0451-H (SFR = 0.4 M-circle dot yr(-1) and mu = 100 +/- 20) we provide an upper limit of L-[C II] < 3 x 10(5) L-circle dot, which is 1 dex below the local SFR-L-[C II] relations. The results are consistent with predictions for low-metallicity galaxies at z > 6; however, other effects could also play a role in terms of decreasing L-[CII]. The detection of A383-5.1 is encouraging and suggests that detections are possible, but much fainter than initially predicted.