Related papers: Galactic Neighborhood and Laboratory Astrophysics
A combination of observation, theory, modeling, and laboratory plasma experiments provides a multifaceted approach to develop a much greater understanding of how magnetic fields arise in galactic settings and how these magnetic fields…
An emerging theme in modern astrophysics is the connection between astronomical observations and the underlying physical phenomena that drive our cosmos. Both the mechanisms responsible for the observed astrophysical phenomena and the tools…
The intergalactic medium - the cosmic gas that fills the great spaces between the galaxies - is affected by processes ranging from quantum fluctuations in the very early universe to radiative emission from newly-formed stars. This gives the…
The cosmic Middle Ages, spanning the last 8-10 Gyr of the Universe, is a critical period in which massive early-formed systems coexist with global star formation quenching in less massive galaxies, yet galaxies experience further dynamical,…
With the start of the Gaia era, the time has come to address the major challenge of deriving the star formation history and evolution of the disk of our MilkyWay. Here we review our present knowledge of the outer regions of the Milky Way…
The dark matter distribution of the Milky Way remains among the major unsolved problems about our home galaxy. The masses of other spiral galaxies can be determined from their rotation curves through long-slit spectroscopy. But for the…
For nearly a century, more mass has been measured in galaxies than is contained in the luminous stars and gas. Through continual advances in observations and theory, it has become clear that the dark matter in galaxies is not comprised of…
The dwarf galaxy companions to the Milky Way are unique cosmological laboratories. With luminosities as low as 10^-7 L_MW, they inhabit the lowest mass dark matter halos known to host stars and are presently the most direct tracers of the…
How do galaxies form and evolve? This is one of the most puzzling questions in astronomy. Galaxy assembly takes place throughout the entire history of the Universe, but our understanding of it is hampered by the unfortunate fact that we can…
This review compiles the results of recent studies of molecular gas conditions in the central six hundred parsecs of our Galaxy. The review begins by placing our Galactic center into context with the rest of our galaxy. It next discusses…
One of the next decade's most exciting prospects is to explore the cosmic "dark ages," during which the first stars in the Universe formed, with the 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen. At z>6, this light redshifts into the low-frequency radio…
The cosmic dark ages and the epoch of reionization, during which the first generations of stars and galaxies formed, are among the most compelling frontiers of extragalactic astrophysics and cosmology. Here we describe an exciting new probe…
We review cosmological inference from galaxy surveys at low and high redshifts, with emphasis on new Southern sky surveys. We focus on several issues: (i) The importance of understanding selection effects in catalogues and matching Northern…
The formation and evolution of galaxies is one of the great outstanding problems of astrophysics. Within the broad context of hierachical structure formation, we have only a crude picture of how galaxies like our own came into existence. A…
How and when do galaxies form? Studies of the microwave background radiation reveal that the Universe is spectacularly homogenous at redshift z~1000. Observations of the local Universe reveal that by z=0 much of the luminous matter has…
The recent availability of wideband receivers and high sensitivity instruments in the mm and submm wavelengths has opened the possibility of studying in detail the chemistry of the interstellar medium in extragalactic objects. Within the…
The last decade has been dense with new developments in the search for the sources of Galactic cosmic rays. Some of these developments have confirmed the tight connection between cosmic rays and supernovae in our Galaxy, through the…
Galaxy evolution is driven by processes occurring across a wide range of scales, from star formation within giant molecular clouds (parsec scales) to outflows and secular evolution across entire galaxies (kpc scales), and the interplay…
The study of Galactic diffuse $\gamma$ radiation combined with the knowledge of the distribution of the molecular hydrogen in the Galaxy offers a unique tool to probe the cosmic ray flux in the Galaxy. A methodology to study the level of…
The gas surrounding galaxies outside their disks or interstellar medium and inside their virial radii is known as the circumgalactic medium (CGM). In recent years this component of galaxies has assumed an important role in our understanding…