Related papers: Galaxy Collisions
The initial conditions, physics, and outcome of planet formation are now constrained by detailed observations of protoplanetary disks, laboratory experiments, and the discovery of thousands of extrasolar planetary systems. These…
The interstellar medium of galaxies is composed of multiple phases, including molecular, atomic, and ionized gas, as well as dust. Stars are formed within this medium from cold molecular gas clouds, which collapse due to their gravitational…
The epoch of galaxy assembly from 2<=z<=4 marks a critical stage during the evolution of today's galaxy population. During this period the star-formation activity in the Universe was at its peak level, and the structural patterns observed…
I review several of the current issues in the theory of disk galaxy formation. There is sti ll much to be done, observationally and theoretically, before we can expect to approach an understanding of disk galaxies that is reliable enough to…
I begin by summarizing the evidence that there is a close relationship between the evolution of galaxies and supermassive black holes. They evidently share a common fuel source, and feedback from the black hole may be needed to suppress…
The clustered nature of star formation should produce a high degree of structure in the combined phase and chemical space in the Galactic disk. To date, observed structure of this kind has been mostly limited to bound clusters and moving…
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…
Massive stars have a profound influence on the Universe, but their formation remains poorly understood. We review the current status of observational and theoretical research in this field, describing the various stages of an evolutionary…
Interactions between galaxies are common and are an important factor in determining their physical properties such as position along the Hubble sequence and star-formation rate. There are many possible galaxy interaction mechanisms,…
The dynamical history of most merging galaxies is not well understood. Correlations between galaxy interaction and star formation have been found in previous studies, but require the context of the physical history of merging systems for…
Optical and X-ray studies have established the prevalence of significant substructure in clusters of galaxies, indicating that clusters are young systems, and that recent major mergers have occurred in many clusters. Numerical simulations…
Great strides have been made in the last two decades in determining how galaxies evolve from their initial dark matter seeds to the complex structures we observe at z=0. The role of mergers has been documented through both observations and…
It appears that the dynamical status of clusters and groups of galaxies is related to the large-scale structure of the Universe. A few interesting trends have been established: (1) The Cluster Substructure - Alignment Connection, by which…
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 environment is known to affect the formation and evolution of galaxies considerably best visible through the well-known morphology-density relationship. We study the effect of environment on the evolution of early-type galaxies for a…
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…
The young star clusters we observe today are the building blocks of a new generation of stars and planets in our Galaxy and beyond. Despite their fundamental role we still lack knowledge about the conditions under which star clusters form…
Galaxy disks evolve through angular momentum transfers between sub-components, like gas, stars, or dark matter halos, through non axi-symmetric instabilities. The speed of this evolution is boosted in presence of a large fraction of cold…
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…
The structure of the universe is believed to have formed by clustering hierarchically from small to large scales. Much of this evolution occurs very slowly but at a few special times more, rapid, violent activity may occur as major subunits…