GAMA: a new galaxy survey

The case is outlined for a new galaxy survey, including spectroscopy with AAOmega and sub-arcsecond multi-band imaging, that bridges a crucial gap between the SDSS and VVDS surveys. The science focus is to study structure and the relationship between matter and light on kpc-to-Mpc scales. The range of scales probed will enable direct constraints on the Cold Dark Matter model by: (1) measuring the halo mass function down to $10^{12}M_{\odot}$ and its evolution to z ~ 0.4; (2) measuring the galaxy stellar mass function to very low mass limits of $10⁷M_{\odot}$ constraining baryonic feedback processes; and (3) quantifying the environment-dependent merger rate since z ~ 0.4. Here, we highlight the fact that the high-resolution imaging will enable the bulge-disk decomposition of ~200000 galaxies in u-K, providing a valuable resource for statistical studies of bulge properties.