@phdthesis{discovery10204584, title = {Multi-Object Spectroscopy: 4MOST Instrumentation \& Observational Analysis using CIII]}, note = {Copyright {\copyright} The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author's request.}, month = {February}, school = {UCL (University College London)}, year = {2025}, author = {Cunningham, Mark Hugh}, url = {https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10204584/}, abstract = {This thesis is an interdisciplinary endeavor spanning the realms of both astronomy instrumentation and scientific inquiry. Embodying a unique fusion of spectroscopic instrument development and the analysis of spectroscopic data. This thesis details the assembly, alignment and integration of the 4MOST Wide Field Corrector (WFC). 4MOST is a new Multi-Object Spectroscopic (MOS) instrument with a hexagonal 4.2 square degree field of view, a high-multiplex fibre-fed spectrograph and a capability to simultaneously obtain spectra of {$\sim$}2400 objects, that will be mounted at the focus of the 4m-VISTA telescope, Chile. To achieve its science goals, aligning each lens of the WFC within {$\sim$}100{\ensuremath{\mu}}m of the optical axis posed a significant challenge. This was addressed through contact metrology methods, supplemented by pencil beam laser probes. The thesis outlines the opto-mechanical instrumentation at UCL for aligning the lenses within their cells, detailing the assembly process and presenting comprehensive results on lens positioning and the anticipated WFC performance. Using a MOS instrument, the second half of this thesis investigates the utility of CIII]{\ensuremath{\lambda}}{\ensuremath{\lambda}}1907,1909 emission, usually the brightest UV line after Ly{\ensuremath{\alpha}}, as a proxy for Ly{\ensuremath{\alpha}} velocity offset in analogues of reionisation era galaxies. The velocity offset of Ly{\ensuremath{\alpha}} emission from its systemic redshift is an excellent tracer of conditions that may enable the escape of hydrogen ionising Lyman continuum (LyC) photons. However at z {$\ge$} 6, Ly{\ensuremath{\alpha}} is often heavily attenuated by the neutral intergalactic medium. By utilising a sample of 52 star-forming galaxies selected from the VANDELS survey spanning a redshift of z {$\sim$} 3?4 with robust detections of the C III] emission line as well as Ly{\ensuremath{\alpha}} we constrain a new correlation between C III] and Ly{\ensuremath{\alpha}} velocity.} }