Arjen van der Wel
MPIA Heidelberg
We have precise constraints on the evolution of the cosmic stellar mass density and how stars are distributed over galaxies with different masses, sizes and morphologies. The next challenge is to decipher the observed evolution of the population and infer the evolution of individual galaxies. This requires high-quality spectroscopic data of galaxies at large lookback time, which is provided by LEGA-C, a Public Spectroscopic Survey at the VLT. These new data enable us to measure for the first time for distant galaxies their stellar populations and kinematics. I will present the first set of results from LEGA-C for z~1 galaxies: 1) directly measured star-formation histories; 2) a tight relationship between star-formation activity and dynamical structure; 3) stellar rotation curves.