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Formation and Evolution of Galaxies

Class at Faculty of Mathematics and Physics |
NAST012

Syllabus

1. Modern morphological, spectro-photometric and kinematical classifications of galaxies

2. Galaxies at different cosmological distances (z=0-10). Observational methods at different cosmological distances Main photometric and spectroscopic surveys of galaxies: 2dFGRS, SDSS, GEMS, VVDS, COSMOS, SAURON, ATLAS3D, CALIFA, ...

3. Color diagram of galaxies: red sequence, blue cloud, green valley. Passive vs. active evolution of galaxies.

4. Spatially resolved stellar populations in galaxies. History of star formation in different types of galaxies. Schmidt-Kennicutt law of star-formation.

5. Dark matter and Modified Newtonian dynamics as its alternative. Universality of the dark halo density profile. Navarro-Frenk-White and Einasto profiles. Triaxiality, orientation and truncation of the halo.

6. Interactions of galaxies. Galaxy mergers: minor vs. major mergers. Tidal deformations. Collisional debris (shells, rings, bridges, tidal tails). Transformation of galactic type due to galaxy interaction. Galaxy formation during interaction

7. Cosmological evolution of the mass and luminosity functions of galaxies. Cosmological evolution of the global star formation rate. Influence of galaxy interactions on the star formation rate

8. Co-evolution of galaxies and central super-massive black-holes. Feedback AGN-host galaxy. Correlations between the central black-hole mass and properties of host galaxies. Cosmological evolution of these correlations. The influence of the central black-hole on the radial profile of the stellar density. Nuclear star clusters. Binary supermassive black-holes, binary quasars

9. Theory of the spiral density waves - history and presence. Instability of disks. Stationary vs. transient density waves. Kinematical vs dynamical density waves.

10. Migration mechanisms in galaxies. Bars, double-bars. Angular momentum exchange on Lindblad resonances and corotation resonance. Migration caused by transient spiral arms. Migration caused by resonance overlap. Other migration mechanisms.

11. Chemodynamical evolution of galaxies. Radial gradients of abundances. Age-metallicity and age-velocity relations. Metallicity distribution function. The G-dwarf problem.

12. Current standard Lambda-CDM cosmological model and its implications for the formation and evolution of galaxies and galaxy clusters/superclusters. Evolution of galaxy mass. Galaxy collisions vs cold and hot accretion.

13. N-body/hydrodynamical simulations of galaxies and of the cosmic structure (Millenium, Aquarius, Via Lactea, ...) Literature: - Mo, H., van den Bosch, F., White, S., Galaxy Formation and Evolution, Cambridge University Press; 1st edition (2010), ISBN-13: 978-0521857932 - study materials prepared by the lecturer - papers recommended by the lecturer

Annotation

The lecture focuses at acquainting with the progress achieved in exploration of galaxies within approximately the last decade thanks to combining new observational data, theoretical models and supercomputer simulations. It will review the state of knowledge concerning the formation and evolution of galaxies in the context of the currently standard cosmological model and will provide a theoretical framework for interpreting new observations of galaxies carried out with present/future ground-based and cosmic telescopes.