GAMA is a project to exploit the latest generation of ground-based wide-field survey facilities to study galaxy formation and evolution. GAMA will bring together data from the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT), the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), and the Herschel and Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) space telescopes in order to construct a state-of-the-art database of ~250,000 galaxies in the local Universe over a 240 deg2 region of sky.

Each of the telescopes will provide complementary datasets: VST and VISTA will provide deep, high-resolution optical (ugri) and near-IR (zYJHK) imaging, respectively, the AAT will supply moderate resolution optical spectroscopy, ASKAP will deliver radio continuum and HI line width measurements, and GALEX and Herschel will provide UV and far-IR photometry, respectively.

The main objective of GAMA is to study structure on scales of 1 kpc to 1 Mpc. This includes galaxy clusters, groups, mergers and coarse measurements of galaxy structure (i.e., bulges and discs). It is on these scales where baryons play a critical role in the galaxy formation and subsequent evolutionary processes and where our understanding of structure in the Universe breaks down.

Our primary goal is to test the CDM paradigm of structure formation. In particular, the key scientific objectives are:

1. A measurement of the dark matter halo mass function of groups and clusters using group velocity dispersion measurements.
2. A comprehensive determination of the galaxy stellar mass function to Magellanic Cloud masses to constrain baryonic feedback processes.
3. A direct measurement of the recent galaxy merger rates as a function of mass, mass ratio, local environment and galaxy type.

More details on GAMA and its science case can be found in the proposal, in our publications and here.