Related papers: A Phase Change scenario for Galaxy Formation
Explaining the formation and evolution of galaxies is one of the most challenging problems in observational cosmology. Many observations suggest that galaxies we see today could have evolved from the merging of smaller subsystems. Evolution…
Stars and planets are the fundamental objects of the Universe. Their formation processes, though related, may differ in important ways. Stars almost certainly form from gravitational collapse and probably have formed this way since the…
Galaxies can form in a sufficiently deep gravitational potential so that efficient gas cooling occurs. We estimate that such potential is provided by a halo of mass $M \gtsim M_{c} \approx 7.0 \times 10^{12} ~ (\Delta_{c}(z)…
Galaxy morphology is a product of how galaxies formed, how they interacted with their environment, how they were influenced by internal perturbations, AGN, and dark matter, and of their varied star formation histories. This article reviews…
Numerical simulations have become a major tool for understanding galaxy formation and evolution. Over the decades the field has made significant progress. It is now possible to simulate the formation of individual galaxies and galaxy…
We study galaxy clustering using halo models, where gravitational clustering is described in terms of dark matter halos. At small scales, clustering statistics are dominated by halo density profiles, whereas at large scales, correlations…
Although the basic physics of star formation is classical, numerical simulations have yielded essential insights into how stars form. They show that star formation is a highly nonuniform runaway process characterized by the emergence of…
There is observed a trend that a lower mass galaxy forms stars at a later epoch. This downsizing of star-forming galaxies has been attributed to hydrodynamical or radiative feedback processes that regulate star formation. However, here we…
Cosmological galaxy formation simulations can now produce rich and diverse ensembles of galaxy histories. These simulated galaxy histories, taken all together, provide an answer to the question "how do galaxies form?" for the models used to…
Massive galaxies, such as nearby ellipticals, have relatively low number densities, yet they host the majority of the stellar mass in the universe. Understanding their origin is a central problem of galaxy formation. Age dating of stellar…
Properties of galaxies like their absolute magnitude and their stellar mass content are correlated. These correlations are tighter for close pairs of galaxies, which is called galactic conformity. In hierarchical structure formation…
We investigate the origin of the Hubble sequence by analysing the evolution of the kinematic morphologies of central galaxies in the EAGLE cosmological simulation. By separating each galaxy into disk and spheroidal stellar components and…
This paper argues that star forming environments should be classified into finer divisions than the traditional isolated and clustered modes. Using the observed set of galactic open clusters and theoretical considerations regarding cluster…
We show that the gas in growing density perturbations is vulnerable to the influence of winds outflowing from nearby collapsed galaxies that have already formed stars. This suggests that the formation of nearby galaxies with masses less…
A new view on our Galaxy has recently emerged, with large consequences on its formation scenarios. Not only new dwarf satellites have been detected, still orbiting and tidally disrupting, but also a multitude of stellar streams or tidal…
Current ideas on the formation of the Galaxy are reviewed. Many of the observed characteristics of our Milky Way System are consistent with a scenario in which the Galaxy formed inside out, with the inner part of it evolving by rapid…
We investigate the dependence of galaxy structure on a variety of galactic and environmental parameters for ~500,000 galaxies at z<0.2, taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data release 7 (SDSS-DR7). We utilise bulge-to-total stellar…
Modeling galaxy formation in a cosmological context presents one of the greatest challenges in astrophysics today, due to the vast range of scales and numerous physical processes involved. Here we review the current status of models that…
Gravitational lensing studies suggest that the Universe may contain a population of dark galaxies; we investigate this intriguing possibility and propose a mechanism to explain their nature. In this mechanism a dark galaxy is formed with a…
Compact groups (CGs) of galaxies are extreme environments for morphological transformations and the cessation of star formation. Though initially considered isolated, it is now recognised that many CGs are embedded in larger structures. We…