| Abstract : | Understanding the evolution of galaxies through cosmic time is one of the most important goals of modern cosmology. Recent optical/ultraviolet/infra-red studies of ‘deep fields’ have greatly improved our understanding of the cosmic evolution of the stellar properties of galaxies. However, a complete picture of how galaxies evolve through time requires a clear understanding of the evolution of neutral gas in galaxies, which acts as the fuel reservoir for star-formation. The evolution of neutral gas in galaxies, and its role in galaxy evolution, are still not clearly understood due to the lack of robust observational constraints. This thesis describes radio imaging and spectroscopic studies aimed at probing the evolution of the neutral atomic gas in star-forming galaxies over the past four billion years. Using a deep uGMRT observation and the method of spectral line stacking, we measured the average atomic gas properties of a sample of galaxies at z ∼ 0.35. These results were then compared with the atomic gas properties of local galaxies, available in the literature, to infer the evolution of atomic gas properties of galaxies from z ∼ 0.35 to z ∼ 0, i.e. in the past four billion years. |
