Our current knowledge of the properties of neutral gas at high redshifts has been obtained predominantly through absorption spectroscopy. The strongest HI absorbers, DLAs, are the most conspicuous, and make up the bulk of the cosmic HI budget. Their large HI column density and metal enrichment strongly implies -- although indirectly -- a close link with galaxies. Numerous studies have...
Jellyfish galaxies have tentacles of material that stretch tens of kpc beyond their disks. These tentacles show signatures of ram-pressure stripping that happens when the hot, dense and powerful ICM pressure blows the gas out of the gravitational potential of the galaxies and creates tail-like structures out of the disk, stimulating star formation within them. The GASP (GAs Stripping Phenomena...
Star-forming dwarf galaxies are the most numerous galaxies in the nearby Universe, with many properties in common with the first galaxies that formed. They represent a goldmine in our own backyard for studying the baryon cycle in the smallest galaxies. Recent large multi-wavelength surveys of the Local Volume have made it possible to study these galaxies in considerable detail. Atomic hydrogen...
Studying the multiphase circum-galactic medium (CGM) and its connection to the baryons in the host galaxies through the cosmic baryon cycle is an important step towards a better understanding of the evolution of galaxies. Large steps forward have been made in detecting the multiphase CGM through absorption line studies and connecting the CGM to its host galaxy. However, the link to the...
We present the detection of the average H$_2$ absorption signal in the overall population of neutral gas absorption systems at $z \sim 3$ using composite absorption spectra built from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III damped Lyman $\alpha$ catalogue. We present a new technique to directly measure the H$_2$ column density distribution function $f_{\rm H_2}(N)$ from the average H$_2$ absorption...
Combining QSO absorption-line spectroscopy with IFU emission-line observations provides a powerful probe of the multiphase gaseous environments of galaxies. We will discuss systems for which these observations have illuminated the co-evolution of galaxies and the circumgalactic medium and the promise of this approach in the era of 30m-class telescopes. We will then focus on the subset of QSO...
Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) and Super Luminous Supernovae (SLSNe) are the brightest explosions in the Universe, originating in the core-collapse of massive stars, located in hearts of star-forming regions. Although the link between GRBs/SLSNe and massive stars is well established, the physical conditions for the formation of their progenitors remain speculative. A likely hypothesis is that they...
