e-Merlin and the e-MERGE star-formation survey

Summary form only given. e-MERGE is an ambitious Legacy survey to exploit e-MERLIN´s unique combination of sensitivity and spatial resolution to study the formation and evolution of star-forming galaxies and AGN out to redshifts of z > 5. These observations will provide a powerful, obscuration-independent tool for measuring the massive star formation and AGN activity in high-redshift galaxies, hence tracing the development of the stellar populations and the black hole growth in the first massive galaxies. With a resolution of 50-200 mas in C-and L-Bands, corresponding to <; 0.5-1.5kpc at z > 1, e-MERLIN gives us our first truly reliable view of the distribution of star-formation within typical galaxies at the epoch where the bulk of the stars in the present-day Universe were being formed. e-MERLIN will disentangle the relative contributions of AGN and starformation, an essential step given the apparently simultaneous growth of the black holes and stellar populations in galaxies. e-MERGE will also statistically characterize the nature of the sub-μJy radio population which are the target objects for the SKA.