New Perspectives on Galaxy Evolution
Observations now allow us to probe galaxies and black holes out to z~7, but many details of galaxy evolution are still poorly understood. In the first part of this talk, I will use the results from our survey of extreme starbursts to illuminate the role of a number of *local* processes (e.g., infall and outflows) important to galaxies in a cosmological context. In the second part of this talk, I will present an exciting new project designed to target the *global* process of galaxy evolution through the comparison of deep galaxy surveys with theory predictions. Key to this project is a new implementation of the Millennium Simulations that produces artificial yet highly realistic multi-wavelength data in the observer's frame. I will demonstrate this "virtual observatory", discuss its practical purposes for studying galaxy (cluster) evolution, and present various online services that will be made available to the community.