Related papers: Theoretical problems and perspectives
The notion that nature is subject to laws is exciting from many different viewpoints. This paper is based on the context of modern cosmology and presents a more philosophical discussion. It will list the significant interdisciplinary…
Environment is one of the primary drivers of galaxy evolution; via multiple mechanisms, it can control the critical process of transforming galaxies from star forming to quiescent, commonly termed "quenching". Despite its importance,…
We survey some of the philosophical challenges and pitfalls within origins research. Several of these challenges exhibit circularities, paradoxes, or anthropic biases. We present origins approaches in terms of three broad categories:…
During this last decade our knowledge of the evolutionary properties of stars has significantly improved. This result has been achieved thanks to our improved understanding of the physical behavior of stellar matter in the thermal regimes…
Properties of nearby dwarf galaxies are briefly discussed. Dwarf galaxies vary widely in their star formation histories, the ages of their subpopulations, and in their enrichment history. Furthermore, many dwarf galaxies show evidence for…
In this review/tutorial we explore planetary nebulae as a stage in the evolution of low-to-intermediate-mass stars, as major contributors to the mass and chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium, and as astrophysical laboratories. We…
This pedagogical chapter covers the theory of planet formation, with an emphasis on the physical processes relevant to current research. After summarizing empirical constraints from astronomical and geophysical data, we describe the…
While purely philosophical in the early times, and still very speculative at the beginning of the twentieth century, Cosmology has gradually entered into the realm of experimental science over the past eighty years. It has raised some…
In this chapter we briefly review the basics of the theory of stellar evolution.
The theory of stellar evolution plays a central role in astrophysics as stellar models are used to infer properties for Galactic and Extragalactic stellar populations as well as exoplanetary systems. However, despite decades of experience,…
The investigation of the orientation of galaxies is a standard test concerning to scenarios of galaxy formation, because different theories of galaxy formation make various predictions regarding to the angular momentum of galaxies. The new…
We will discuss here how structures observed in clusters of galaxies can provide us insight on the formation and evolution of these objects. We will focus primarily on X-ray observations and results from hydrodynamical $N$-body simulations.…
This book provides an introduction to the field of star formation at a level suitable for graduate students or advanced undergraduates in astronomy or physics. The structure of the book is as follows. The first two chapters begin with a…
These lecture notes introduce key concepts of mathematical population genetics within the most elementary setting and describe a few recent applications to microbial evolution experiments. Pointers to the literature for further reading are…
We present a review of recent studies of the formation and evolution of the Milky Way galaxy, in particular based on large samples of non-kinematically selected stars with available proper motions. The Milky Way is argued to be a reasonable…
Nature's many varied complex systems (including galaxies, stars, planets, life, and society) are islands of order within the increasingly disordered universe. All organized systems are subject to physical, biological or cultural evolution,…
These lectures were addressed to nonspecialists willing to learn some basic facts, approaches, tools and observational evidence which conform modern cosmology. The aim is also to try to complement the many excellent treatises that exists on…
The history of the formation and evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy is found in the spatial distribution, kinematics, age and chemical abundance distributions of long-lived stars. From this fossil record one can in principle extract the star…
In this introductory talk I give an elementary overview of the development, current status, and near term outlook for three probes of large scale structure; galaxy clustering, bulk flows and weak lensing observations.
At the turn of the decade we arguably move from the era of precision cosmology to the era of galaxy formation. One approach to this problem will be via the construction of comprehensive galaxy samples. In this review I take the opportunity…