Related papers: Galactic Structure and Evolution: a decade of surv…
The alignments between galaxies, their underlying matter structures, and the cosmic web constitute vital ingredients for a comprehensive understanding of gravity, the nature of matter, and structure formation in the Universe. We provide an…
We review knowledge of galaxy structures obtained by their emitted light and in the local universe where they can be studied in great detail. We discuss the shapes of, and stellar motions within, galaxies, compositional clues derived from…
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the effective beginning of large, systematic redshift surveys of galaxies. These surveys have had a major impact on observational cosmology and on our current understanding of large-scale structures…
This article reviews the prevailing paradigm for how galaxies and larger structures formed in the universe: gravitational instability. Basic observational facts are summarized to motivate the standard cosmological framework underlying most…
After a polemical introduction about the proper activity of an astrophysicist facing a dominant theoretical model and many Tb of highly informative data, I review a few recent results on the properties of galaxies in the nearby (redshift…
This paper reviews selected aspects of the growth of cosmological structure, covering the following general areas: (1) expected characteristics of linear density perturbations according to various candidate theories for the origin of…
Cosmic surveys of large scale structure have imaged hundreds of millions of galaxies and mapped the 3D positions of over a million. Surveys starting over the next few years will increase these numbers more than tenfold. Simultaneously,…
I review progress in the past few years in studying the large-scale structure of the universe through redshift surveys of galaxies. Of the many statistical methods used to describe the galaxy distribution, I concentrate here on the power…
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…
During the last decade, the understanding of fine features of the structure and evolution of stars has become possible as a result of enormous progress made in the acquisition of high-quality observational and experimental data and of new…
Our knowledge of the Galaxy is being revolutionised by a series of photometric, spectroscopic and astrometric surveys. Already an enormous body of data is available from completed surveys, and data of ever increasing quality and richness…
Galaxy haloes contain fundamental clues about the galaxy formation and evolution process: hierarchical cosmological models predict haloes to be ubiquitous, and to be (at least in part) the product of past merger and/or accretion events. The…
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…
The beginning of the 21st century marked the "modern era of galaxy surveys" in astronomy. Rapid innovation in observing technology, combined with the base built by galaxy catalogs and atlases dating back centuries, sparked an explosion of…
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…
Galaxy formation is at the heart of our understanding of cosmic evolution. Although there is a consensus that galaxies emerged from the expanding matter background by gravitational instability of primordial fluctuations, a number of…
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.
Selected results obtained in major observational sky surveys (DSS, 2MASS, 2dF, SDSS) and deep field observations (HDF, GOODS, HUDF, etc.) are reviewed. Modern surveys provide information on the characteristics and space distribution of…
Stellar halos around galaxies retain fundamental evidence of the processes which lead to their build up. Sophisticated models of galaxy formation in a cosmological context yield quantitative predictions about various observable…
Theoretical models for structure formation with Gaussian initial fluctuations have been worked out in considerable detail and compared with observations on various scales. It is on nonlinear scales $\lsim 10 \ h^{-1}\ {\rm Mpc}$ that the…