Related papers: Galactic Structure and Evolution: a decade of surv…
I review the standard paradigm for understanding the formation and evolution of cosmic structure, based on the gravitational instability of dark matter, but many variations on this basic theme are viable. Despite the great progress that has…
In this brief, partial, incomplete and egregiously self-citing review I will summarise some of the key results in the past few years in surveys for dusty star-forming galaxies and some exciting prospects for forthcoming surveys.
Galaxy shapes are not randomly oriented, rather they are statistically aligned in a way that can depend on formation environment, history and galaxy type. Studying the alignment of galaxies can therefore deliver important information about…
Studies of galaxy evolution at optical and near-infrared wavelengths have reached an interesting point in their historical development and the arrival of a new millenium provides an appropriate occasion to review the overall direction in…
In this review I will describe a number of recent advances in extragalactic astronomy. First of all I will describe our current best estimates of the star formation history of the Universe. Then I will describe measurements of local…
Theoretical galaxy formation models are an established and powerful tool for interpreting the astrophysical significance of observational data, particularly galaxy surveys. Such models have been utilised with great success by optical…
The study of the properties of cosmic structures in the universe is one of the most fascinating subject of the modern cosmology research. Far from being predicted, the large scale structure of the matter distribution is a very recent…
The secular evolution process which slowly transforms the morphology of a given galaxy over its lifetime through mostly internal dynamical mechanisms could naturally account for most of the observed properties of physical galaxies (Zhang…
These lectures deal with our current knowledge of the matter distribution in the universe, focusing on how this is studied via the large-scale structure seen in galaxy surveys. We first assemble the necessary basics needed to understand the…
The full spatio-chemo-dynamical structure of galaxies of all types and environments at low redshift provides a critical accompaniment to observations of galaxy formation at high redshift. The next decade brings the observational opportunity…
Studies of nearby galaxies including the Milky Way have provided fundamental information on the evolution of structure in the Universe, the existence and nature of dark matter, the origin and evolution of galaxies, and the global features…
Studies of galaxy clusters have proved crucial in helping to establish the standard model of cosmology, with a universe dominated by dark matter and dark energy. A theoretical basis that describes clusters as massive, multi-component,…
Over the last decades, cosmological simulations of galaxy formation have been instrumental for advancing our understanding of structure and galaxy formation in the Universe. These simulations follow the non-linear evolution of galaxies…
How is the universe organized on large scales? How did this structure evolve from the unknown initial conditions of a rather smooth early universe to the present time? The answers to these questions will shed light on the cosmology we live…
An overview over the current status of modeling galaxies by means of numerical simulations is given. After a short description of how galaxies form in hierarchically clustering scenarios, success and failures of current simulations are…
The stellar populations of galaxies contain a wealth of detailed information. From the youngest, most massive stars, to almost invisible remnants, the history of star formation is encoded in the stars that make up a galaxy. Extracting some,…
Models of population synthesis for the Galaxy have been developed in order to understand galactic structure and evolution. They allow to test scenarii of evolution by comparisons between model predictions and observed distributions.…
The galaxies of the Local Group that are currently forming stars can serve as our laboratories for understanding star formation and the evolution of massive stars. In this talk I will summarize what I think we've learned about these topics…
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…
Galaxy redshift surveys are outstanding tools for observational cosmology. Mapping the universe as outlined by galaxies leads to fundamental measurements which refine our knowledge of its structure and evolution. Redshift acquisition has…