Related papers: What determines galactic evolution?
In this lecture I will introduce the concept of galactic chemical evolution, namely the study of how and where the chemical elements formed and how they were distributed in the stars and gas in galaxies. The main ingredients to build models…
Star clusters and their stellar populations play a significant role in the context of galaxy evolution, across space (from local to high redshift) and time (from currently forming to fossil remnants). We are now within reach of answering a…
Dynamical evolution plays a key role in shaping the current properties of star clusters and star cluster systems. A detailed understanding of the effects of evolutionary processes is essential to be able to disentangle the properties which…
Chemical evolution of galaxies brings together ideas on stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis with theories of galaxy formation, star formation and galaxy evolution, with all their associated uncertainties. In a new perspective brought…
The basic principles underlying galactic chemical evolution and the most important results of chemical evolution models are discussed. In particular, the chemical evolution of the Milky Way galaxy, for which we possess the majority of…
Essentially everything of astronomical interest is either part of a galaxy, or from a galaxy, or otherwise relevant to the origin or evolution of galaxies. Diverse examples are that the isotropic composition of meteorites provides clues to…
We explore the motivation behind large stellar surveys in Galactic astronomy, in particular, surveys that measure the photometric, phase space and abundance properties of thousands or millions of stars. These observations are essential to…
Since stellar populations enhance particular element abundances according to the yields and lifetimes of the stellar progenitors, the chemical evolution of galaxies serves as one of the key tools that allows the tracing of galaxy evolution.…
The evolution of galaxies results from a combination of internal and external processes. The star formation is an internal process transforming cold and dense cores of molecular clouds to stars. It may be triggered internally by expanding…
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…
Adopting a single-zone framework, with accretion of primordial gas on a free-fall timescale, the chemical evolution of the Galactic bulge is calculated, assuming (i) a corresponding rapid timescale for star formation, and (ii) an initial…
The formalism of the simple model of galactic chemical evolution (GCE) and its main ingredients (stellar properties, initial mass function, star formation rate and gas flows) are presented in this tutorial. It is stressed that GCE is not…
In this review, I provide an overview of theoretical aspects related to the evolution of galaxies as a function of environment. I discuss the main physical processes at play, their characteristic time-scales and environmental dependency,…
Stellar Populations are the fossil record of Galactic evolution. Interpretation of this record in the Local Group allows one to determine reliably the dominant physics controlling the evolution of those galaxies which are typical of the…
Increasingly good statistical data on the galaxy population at high and low redshift enable the development of new phenomenological approaches to galaxy evolution based on application of the simplest continuity equations. This has given new…
The star-formation histories of the main stellar components of the Milky Way constrain critical aspects of galaxy formation and evolution. I discuss recent determinations of such histories, together with their interpretation in terms of…
The primary present-day observables upon which theories of galaxy evolution are based are a system's morphology, dynamics, colour, and chemistry. Individually, each provides an important constraint to any given model; in concert, the four…
This review discusses (i) dynamical methods for determining the masses of Galactic and extragalactic star clusters, (ii) dynamical processes and their time-scales for the evolution of clusters, including evaporation, mass segregation, core…
The dependence of star formation rate on galaxian environment is a key issue in the understanding of galaxy formation and evolution. However, the study of this subject is complex and observationally challenging. This paper reviews some of…
The conditions that lead to self-regulated star formation, star bursts and the formation of massive stellar clusters are discussed. Massive stars have a strong impact on their environment, especially on the evolution of dwarf galaxies which…