Massive galaxies and galaxy clusters gain much of their mass by merging with their neighbors; this hierarchical structure formation is the foundation of our understanding of galaxy evolution. Nevertheless, the detailed evolutionary processes needed to form the structures we see in the local Universe remain poorly understood. This thesis comprises four projects examining the growth of galaxies and clusters at high redshift by using radio, sub/millimeter, and X-ray observations to provide empirical constraints on their cosmic evolution. Chapter 2 presents deep 1.2mm imaging of the inner 20' x 20' of the Lockman Hole North (LHN) field to search for submillimeter galaxies (SMGs), rapidly star-forming, high-redshift galaxy mergers. We detect 41 SMGs with S/N>4.0 and use Monte Carlo simulations to estimate their number counts and angular clustering properties. Chapter 3 investigates the nuclear accretion properties of the LHN SMGs. In the sample's average rest-frame X-ray spectrum, we detect strong Fe K alpha emission (equivalent width EW>=1 keV) from highly-ionized Fe species -- evidence that beneath the galaxies' heavy obscuration, supermassive black holes may be growing rapidly. Chapter 4 describes a new 345 GHz and 2.1 GHz imaging campaign to study the intracluster media (ICM) of eleven massive Sunyaev Zel'dovich Effect (SZE)-detected clusters from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) southern survey. In six of eleven, 345 GHz SZE increments are detected and used to characterize the spatial distribution and energy content of the ICM at high (19.2") resolution. This work helps us understand how SZE-mass scaling relations are affected by contamination from other sources along the line of sight and by dynamical properties of the ICM. Chapter 5 studies the non-thermal radio emission in one exceptional z=0.870 binary cluster merger (ACTJ0102-4915, ``El Gordo'') with the help of newly-acquired radio observations. El Gordo is the highest-redshift cluster known to host double radio ``relics'' and a radio ``halo, '' and by characterizing the morphology, intensity, spectral index, and polarization of these structures, we extend our knowledge of ICM shocks and magnetic fields to an era when the Universe was only 50% its current age.

The high-redshift galaxies became a distinct research ?eld during the ?nal decade of the20thcentury. AtthattimetheLyman-breaktechniquemadeitpossibletoidentify signi?cant samples of such objects, and the new generation of 8 to 10-m telescopes resulted in ?rst good spectroscopic data. Today the high-redshift galaxies have developed into one of the important topics of astrophysics, accounting for about 5–10% of the publications in the major scienti?c journals devoted to astronomy. Because high-redshift galaxies is a rapidly developing ?eld and since new results are published constantly, writing a book on this topic is challenging. On the other hand, in view of the large amount of individual results now in the literature, and in view of the still growing interest in this topic, it appears worthwhile to summarize and evaluate the available data and to provide an introduction for those who wish to enter this ?eld, or who, for various reasons, might be interested in its results. The end of the ?rst decade of the 21st century appears to be a good point in time to attempt such a summary. The current generation of ground-based 8 to 10-m - optical telescopes, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the most important large radio telescopes have by now been in operation since about one or two decades. Although these instruments will continue to produce important scienti?c results for some time to come, many of the initial programs exploiting their unique new possibilities have been completed.

This volume presents lectures of the XI Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics written by experts in the field.

"To understand how the present day universe came to be, we must understand how the massive structures in which we live formed and evolved over the preceding billions of years. Constraining how galaxies grow are the most massive galaxies, called brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). These luminous and diffuse elliptical galaxies inhabit relaxed positions within their host cluster's gravitational potentials and provide a look at the high mass extreme of galaxy evolution. The relaxed structure, old stellar populations, and central location within the cluster indicate a high redshift formation scenario, however, star-forming BCGs have been observed at much more recent epochs. Addressing this evolutionary complexity, my dissertation consists of four studies to investigate the growth rates of BCGs over several epochs, and how they relate to the growth of the general galaxy population. In my first paper, I present a multiwavelength (far-ultraviolet to far-infrared) study of BCG star formation rates and stellar masses from 0.2 z 0.7 (Cooke et al. 2016), selected from the CLASH and SGAS surveys. I find that in-situ star formation in my sample is consistent with overall quiescence, and star-forming BCGs remain very rare. In my second paper (Cooke et al. 2018), my sample's redshift range is expanded to z ~ 1 with the addition of massive BCGs (M_Stellar 10^11 M_Solar) from galaxy clusters available in the COSMOS X-ray Group Catalog. I find that star formation is roughly constant in our sample of high mass BCGs from 0.3

Since it was first published in 1987, Galactic Dynamics has become the most widely used advanced textbook on the structure and dynamics of galaxies and one of the most cited references in astrophysics. Now, in this extensively revised and updated edition, James Binney and Scott Tremaine describe the dramatic recent advances in this subject, making Galactic Dynamics the most authoritative introduction to galactic astrophysics available to advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers. Every part of the book has been thoroughly overhauled, and many sections have been completely rewritten. Many new topics are covered, including N-body simulation methods, black holes in stellar systems, linear stability and response theory, and galaxy formation in the cosmological context. Binney and Tremaine, two of the world's leading astrophysicists, use the tools of theoretical physics to describe how galaxies and other stellar systems work, succinctly and lucidly explaining theoretical principles and their applications to observational phenomena. They provide readers with an understanding of stellar dynamics at the level needed to reach the frontiers of the subject. This new edition of the classic text is the definitive introduction to the field. ? A complete revision and update of one of the most cited references in astrophysics Provides a comprehensive description of the dynamical structure and evolution of galaxies and other stellar systems Serves as both a graduate textbook and a resource for researchers Includes 20 color illustrations, 205 figures, and more than 200 problems Covers the gravitational N-body problem, hierarchical galaxy formation, galaxy mergers, dark matter, spiral structure, numerical simulations, orbits and chaos, equilibrium and stability of stellar systems, evolution of binary stars and star clusters, and much more Companion volume to Galactic Astronomy, the definitive book on the phenomenology of galaxies and star clusters

Series of review papers covering clusters of galaxies and related phenomena.

The reviews presented in this volume cover a huge range of cluster of galaxies topics. Readers will find the book essential reading on subjects such as the physics of the ICM gas, the internal cluster dynamics, and the detection of clusters using different observational techniques. The expert chapter authors also cover the huge advances being made in analytical or numerical modeling of clusters, weak and strong lensing effects, and the large scale structure as traced by clusters.