Related papers: Galaxy formation
We reconstruct the history of the cosmic star formation as well as the cosmic production of metals in the universe by means of detailed chemical evolution models for galaxies of different morphological types. We consider a picture of…
Spiral galaxies have most of their stellar mass in a large rotating disk, and only a modest fraction in a central spheroidal bulge. This poses a major challenge for cosmological models of galaxy formation. Galaxies form at the centre of…
In this series of four lectures, I discuss four important aspects of AGN host galaxies. In Lecture #1, I address the starburst-AGN connection. First, I briefly review the primary diagnostic tools that are used to quantify and distinguish…
The new element of theory of galaxy formation, strong primordial inhomogeneities, is shown to be a reflection of unstable large scale structures of topological defects, created in second order phase transitions in the inflationary Universe.…
The formation of stars is a key process in astrophysics. Detailed knowledge of the physical mechanisms that govern stellar birth is a prerequisite for understanding the formation and evolution of our galactic home, the Milky Way. A theory…
Formation and evolution of galaxies have been a central driving force in the studies of galaxies and cosmology. Recent studies provided a global picture of cosmic star formation history. However, what drives the evolution of star formation…
The standard disc formation scenario postulates that disc forms as the gas cools and flows into the centre of the dark matter halo, conserving the specific angular momentum. Major mergers have been shown to be able to destroy or highly…
After briefly reviewing the good agreement between large-scale observations and the predictions of the now-standard CDM theory and problems with the MOND alternative, I summarize several of the main areas of possible disagreement between…
There are several key open questions as to the nature and origin of AGN including: 1) what initiates the active phase, 2) the duration of the active phase, and 3) the effect of the AGN on the host galaxy. Critical new insights to these can…
Any realistic theory of galaxy formation must be set in the context of a model for the formation of structure in the universe. We describe a powerful approach -- semi-analytic modelling -- that combines a set of simple rules describing the…
Nearly a century after the true nature of galaxies as distant "island universes" was established, their origin and evolution remain great unsolved problems of modern astrophysics. One of the most promising ways to investigate galaxy…
Since the 1990s, we have known that there is a super-massive black hole in every galaxy, and that its mass is proportional to the mass of the bulge. To better understand how these black holes were formed, in symbiosis with their galaxies,…
How is the universe organized on large scales? How did this structure evolve from the unknown initial conditions to the present time? The answers to these questions will shed light on the cosmology we live in, the amount, composition and…
Our knowledge of the Universe remains discovery-led: in the absence of adequate physics-based theory, interpretation of new results requires a scientific methodology. Commonly, scientific progress in astrophysics is motivated by the…
Star formation history shows a gradual decline since the last 8-9 Gyr (z=1). The bulk of present-day stellar mass and metal content was formed at redshifts lower than 2-3, which is consistent with a hierarchical scenario of galaxy…
The rate of star formation varies between galaxy types and evolves with redshift. Most stars in the universe have formed in episodes of an exceptionally high star-forming activity, commonly called a starburst. We here summarize basic…
We review the current standard model for the evolution of the Universe from an early inflationary epoch to the complex hierarchy of structure seen today. We summarize and provide key references for the following topics: observations of the…
In this review we outline the major points of ab-initio cosmological models focusing on some galaxy evolution unresolved problems. In particular our knowledge of the star formation rate which leads galaxy evolution, i.e. luminosity, colors…
I review some recent progress made in our understanding of galaxy evolution and the cosmic history of star formation. Like bookends, the results obtained from deep ground-based spectroscopy and from the Hubble Deep Field imaging survey put…
The combination of huge databases of galaxy spectra and advances in evolutionary synthesis models in the past few years has renewed interest in an old question: How to estimate the star formation history of a galaxy out of its integrated…