Galaxies

Graduate Block Lecture Course

March 10 - 18, 2011

Lecturers: Fabian Walter (walter@mpia.de) and Hans-Walter Rix (rix@mpia.de) 

Location: ARI Seminarraum

Scope

This lecture course is the compact equivalent of the semester-long course on galaxies that is established part of the Astronomy/Physics graduate student curriculum. The course is aimed at Masters and Phd students in both Physics and Astronomy, who have knowledge of astronomy at the level of the 2 semester introductory course, and who have a second foundation in Physics. Bachelor students with such qualifications are also encouraged to attend. The course will convey a broad and up-to date perspective on the current state of knowledge and on the physical principles that shape the properties and evolution of the galaxy population, both at the present epoch and at high redshift. While the cosmological context will be stressed throughout, this class is not a cosmology course, nor has its main focus on modelling galaxy formation. Emphasis will be given to viewing galaxies as 'baryon condensates' in the cosmic dark matter web, to recent quantitative approaches for characterizing the galaxy population properties; there will be focus on the Milky Way and the Local Group—to understand galaxies, when resolved into individual stars; on galaxy dynamics, the role of dark matter in galaxy formation and on black holes at the center; on the various gas phases (and dust) in galaxies. To prepare students for research, the lectures will also discuss the most actively pursued open questions in this field. There will be one group project assigned and discussed in the last lectures.

Prerequisites

Introduction to Astronomy I and II (or equivalent); basic knowledge of cosmology.

The first set of lectures each day is from 9:00- 10:50, the second set is from 11:10 - 13:00.

Lectures

March 10, Thu 9:00 – 10:50

Introduction Introduction to the topic Diagnostic tools in astrophysics

[FW]

March 10, Thu 11:10 – 13:00

Cosmology Primer Project assignment

[HWR] [AvdW]

March 11, Fri 9:00 – 10:50

Observable Constituents of Galaxies I: Stars Stellar populations, CMDs, age diagnostics, (star formation rate diagnostics)

[HWR]

March 11, Fri 11:10 – 13:00

Observable Constituents of Galaxies II: Gas and Dust Radiative transfer, excited transitions, different tracer molecules and forbidden atomic lines

[FW]

March 14, Mon 9:00 – 10:50

Galaxy Dynamics N-body, dynamical friction, merging, (why are galaxies disks, why are they spheroids)

[HWR]

March 14, Mon 11:10 – 13:00

Dark Matter In and Around Galaxies

[FW]

March 15, Tue 9:00 – 10:50

The Present-Day Galaxy Population Parameter relations, Hubble sequence, galaxy mass/luminosity function, galaxy clustering, galaxy clusters

[HWR]

March 15, Tue 11:10 – 13:00

Black Holes and AGN M-sigma, black hole growth, QSOs, unified picture, Seyferts, BLR, reverberation mapping, Galactic BH

[FW]

March 16, Wed 9:00 – 10:50

Physics of Galaxy Evolution Feedback (SN vs. AGN), SF law

[FW]

March 16, Wed 11:10 – 13:00

Observational Galaxy Evolution through Cosmic Times Madau plot, build-up of stellar mass, optical/IR/FIR/radio surveys/deep fields

[HWR]

March 17, Thu 9:00 – 10:50

Epoch of Reionization First black holes, early structure formation, enrichment, Pop III stars, reionization probes

[FW]

March 17, Thu 11:10 – 13:00

Milky Way and Local Group Near-field cosmology, dwarf satellites [M31 etc]

[HWR] [NM]

March 18, Fri

Global Discussion: answered and open question Homework exercise

[HWR] [FW] [AvdW]