Fundamentals of Galaxy Dynamics, Formation and Evolution

Fundamentals of Galaxy Dynamics, Formation and Evolution

Author: Ignacio Ferreras

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2019-04-02

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1911307614

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Galaxies, along with their underlying dark matter halos, constitute the building blocks of structure in the Universe. Of all fundamental forces, gravity is the dominant one that drives the evolution of structures from small density seeds at early times to the galaxies we see today. The interactions among myriads of stars, or dark matter particles, in a gravitating structure produce a system with fascinating connotations to thermodynamics, with some analogies and some fundamental differences. Ignacio Ferreras presents a concise introduction to extragalactic astrophysics, with emphasis on stellar dynamics, and the growth of density fluctuations in an expanding Universe. Additional chapters are devoted to smaller systems (stellar clusters) and larger ones (galaxy clusters). Fundamentals of Galaxy Dynamics, Formation and Evolution is written for advanced undergraduates and beginning postgraduate students, providing a useful tool to get up to speed in a starting research career. Some of the derivations for the most important results are presented in detail to enable students appreciate the beauty of maths as a tool to understand the workings of galaxies. Each chapter includes a set of problems to help the student advance with the material.


Chemical Evolution of Galaxies

Chemical Evolution of Galaxies

Author: Francesca Matteucci

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-01-05

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 3642224911

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The term “chemical evolution of galaxies” refers to the evolution of abundances of chemical species in galaxies, which is due to nuclear processes occurring in stars and to gas flows into and out of galaxies. This book deals with the chemical evolution of galaxies of all morphological types (ellipticals, spirals and irregulars) and stresses the importance of the star formation histories in determining the properties of stellar populations in different galaxies. The topic is approached in a didactical and logical manner via galaxy evolution models which are compared with observational results obtained in the last two decades: The reader is given an introduction to the concept of chemical abundances and learns about the main stellar populations in our Galaxy as well as about the classification of galaxy types and their main observables. In the core of the book, the construction and solution of chemical evolution models are discussed in detail, followed by descriptions and interpretations of observations of the chemical evolution of the Milky Way, spheroidal galaxies, irregular galaxies and of cosmic chemical evolution. The aim of this book is to provide an introduction to students as well as to amend our present ideas in research; the book also summarizes the efforts made by authors in the past several years in order to further future research in the field.


New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics

New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2011-02-04

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0309157994

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Driven by discoveries, and enabled by leaps in technology and imagination, our understanding of the universe has changed dramatically during the course of the last few decades. The fields of astronomy and astrophysics are making new connections to physics, chemistry, biology, and computer science. Based on a broad and comprehensive survey of scientific opportunities, infrastructure, and organization in a national and international context, New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics outlines a plan for ground- and space- based astronomy and astrophysics for the decade of the 2010's. Realizing these scientific opportunities is contingent upon maintaining and strengthening the foundations of the research enterprise including technological development, theory, computation and data handling, laboratory experiments, and human resources. New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics proposes enhancing innovative but moderate-cost programs in space and on the ground that will enable the community to respond rapidly and flexibly to new scientific discoveries. The book recommends beginning construction on survey telescopes in space and on the ground to investigate the nature of dark energy, as well as the next generation of large ground-based giant optical telescopes and a new class of space-based gravitational observatory to observe the merging of distant black holes and precisely test theories of gravity. New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics recommends a balanced and executable program that will support research surrounding the most profound questions about the cosmos. The discoveries ahead will facilitate the search for habitable planets, shed light on dark energy and dark matter, and aid our understanding of the history of the universe and how the earliest stars and galaxies formed. The book is a useful resource for agencies supporting the field of astronomy and astrophysics, the Congressional committees with jurisdiction over those agencies, the scientific community, and the public.


Observational Astrophysics

Observational Astrophysics

Author: Pierre Lena

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-09

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 366202554X

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For the last twenty years astronomy has been developing dramatically. Until the nineteen-fifties, telescopes, spectrometers, and photographic plates consti tuted a relatively simple set of tools which had been refined to a high degree of perfection by the joint efforts of physicists and astronomers. Indeed these tools helped at the birth of modern astrophysics: the discovery of the expan sion of the Universe. Then came radioastronomy and the advent of electronics; the last thirty years have seen the application to astrophysics of a wealth of new experimental techniques, based on the most advanced fields of physics, and a constant interchange of ideas between physicists and astronomers. Last, but not least, modern computers have sharply reduced the burden of dealing with the information painfully extracted from the skies, whether from ever scarce photons, or from the gigantic data flows provided by satellites and large telescopes. The aim of this book is not to give an extensive overview of all the tech niques currently in use in astronomy, nor to provide detailed instructions for preparing or carrying out an astronomical project. Its purpose is methodologi cal: photons are still the main carriers of information between celestial sources and the observer. How we are to collect, sample, measure, and store this infor mation is the unifying theme of the book. Rather than the diversity of tech niques appropriate for each wavelength range, we emphasize the physical and mathematical bases which are common to all wavelength regimes.


The Most Interesting Galaxies in the Universe

The Most Interesting Galaxies in the Universe

Author: Joel L Schiff

Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers

Published: 2018-09-13

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 1643270044

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Prior to the 1920s it was generally thought, with a few exceptions, that our galaxy, the Milky Way, was the entire Universe. Based on the work of Henrietta Leavitt with Cepheid variables, astronomer Edwin Hubble was able to determine that the Andromeda Galaxy and others had to lie outside our own. Moreover, based on the work of Vesto Slipher, involving the redshifts of these galaxies, Hubble was able to determine that the Universe was not static, as had been previously thought, but expanding. The number of galaxies has also been expanding, with estimates varying from 100 billion to 2 trillion. While every galaxy in the Universe is interesting just by its very fact of being, the author has selected 51 of those that possess some unusual qualities that make them of some particular interest. These galaxies have complex evolutionary histories, with some having supermassive black holes at their core, others are powerful radio sources, a very few are relatively nearby and even visible to the naked eye, whereas the light from one recent discovery has been travelling for the past 13.4 billion years to show us its infancy, and from a time when the Universe was in its infancy. And in spite of the vastness of the Universe, some galaxies are colliding with others, embraced in a graceful gravitational dance. Indeed, as the Andromeda Galaxy is heading towards us, a similar fate awaits our Milky Way. When looking at a modern image of a galaxy, one is in awe at the shear wondrous nature of such a magnificent creation, with its boundless secrets that it is keeping from us, its endless possibilities for harboring alien civilizations, and we remain left with the ultimate knowledge that we are connected to its glory.


Star-Formation Rates of Galaxies

Star-Formation Rates of Galaxies

Author: Andreas Zezas

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-04-29

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1316877523

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Star-formation is one of the key processes that shape the current state and evolution of galaxies. This volume provides a comprehensive presentation of the different methods used to measure the intensity of recent or on-going star-forming activity in galaxies, discussing their advantages and complications in detail. It includes a thorough overview of the theoretical underpinnings of star-formation rate indicators, including topics such as stellar evolution and stellar spectra, the stellar initial mass function, and the physical conditions in the interstellar medium. The authors bring together in one place detailed and comparative discussions of traditional and new star-formation rate indicators, star-formation rate measurements in different spatial scales, and comparisons of star-formation rate indicators probing different stellar populations, along with the corresponding theoretical background. This is a useful reference for students and researchers working in the field of extragalactic astrophysics and studying star-formation in local and higher-redshift galaxies.


Old Stellar Populations

Old Stellar Populations

Author: Santi Cassisi

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-08-29

Total Pages: 506

ISBN-13: 3527665544

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The book discusses the theoretical path to decoding the information gathered from observations of old stellar systems. It focuses on old stellar systems because these are the fossil record of galaxy formation and provide invaluable information ont he evolution of cosmic structures and the universe as a whole. The aim is to present results obtained in the past few years for theoretical developments in low mass star research and in advances in our knowledge of the evolution of old stellar systems. A particularly representative case is the recent discovery of multiple stellar populations in galactic globular clusters that represents one of the hottest topics in stellar and galactic astrophysics and is discussed in detail. Santi Cassisi has authored about 270 scientific papers, 150 of them in peer-reviewed journals, and the title Evolution of Stars and Stellar Populations.


Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies

Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies

Author: Gerard de Vaucouleurs

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-09

Total Pages: 731

ISBN-13: 1475743602

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H h This third volume of RC3 indudes data for galaxies between 12 and 24 . For convenience, we repeat the explanation of the catalogue entries below. Details of the reduction procedures, and Notes, References, and Appendices are in Volume 1. 2. The Catalogue The data for each galaxy are found on four successive lines on a single page. The entries are as follows: Column 1: Positions Line 1: RA and DEC = right ascension and dedination for the equinox 2000.0, precessed from the 1950.0 position in Column 1, Line 4, given to 0.1 second of time and 1 arcsec when available, and to 0.1 minute of time and 1 arcmin otherwise (Section 3.1.a). Line 2: land b = galactic longitude and latitude in the lAU 1958 system (Blaauw et al. 1960); both to O~O1. Line 3: SGL and SGB = supergalactic longitude and latitude in the RC2 system (Section 3.1.b), both to O~O1. Line 4: RA and DEC = right ascension and dedination for the equinox 1950.0 (Sec tion 3.1.a). Column 2: Names = commonly used designations for the galaxies (Section 3.2). Line 1: Names (e.g., LMC, SMC) or NGC and IC designations. Line 2: UGC (Nilson 1973), ESO (Lauberts 1982), MCG (Vorontsov-Velyaminov et al. 1962-1974), UGCA (Nilson 1974), and CGCG (Zwicky et al. 1961-1968) des ignations, given in that order of preference. MCG designations not listed here are given in UGC and ESO.


Galaxies in the Local Volume

Galaxies in the Local Volume

Author: Bärbel Silvia Koribalski

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2009-04-29

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 1402069332

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This timely book presents an overview of the galaxies within the Local Volume, including the Local Group and our closest neighbours, the Andromeda Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds. Presented here are the latest results from radio, infrared and optical surveys as well as detailed multi-wavelength studies of individual galaxies. The book aims to provide a vibrant forum for presentations and discussions across a broad range of astrophysical topics.


Galaxies at High Redshift

Galaxies at High Redshift

Author: I. Pérez-Fournon

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2003-03-20

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 9780521825917

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This volume presents lectures of the XI Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics written by experts in the field.