Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF)

Ultra-diffuse galaxies are remarkable for their very low stellar surface brightness and very extended size given their low dynamical masses. They reside in almost all possible environments in the universe such as cluster, group, field, filament, even void, making them an important population of the universe. They are found with a range of properties in terms of their atomic hydrogen gas content, richness of dark matter, morphology, star formation rate etc. Besides, these galaxies can be characterized as an evolutionary link to other dwarf galaxies, as suggested by the spectroscopic observations. There are several hypotheses proposed to explain their formation and evolution yet the primary formation mechanism is still elusive; in fact, their diversity suggests that the environmental effects can be crucial for their origination. Given their extraordinarily faint appearance, these galaxies remained unexplored until recently and are extremely challenging to detect. The main objective of this thesis project is to perform numerical, analytical and statistical studies of the ultra-diffuse galaxies to understand their formation and evolution, also, several other aspects which are possibly responsible for their extraordinary attributes.