69053 - Galaxy Astrophysics

Academic Year 2017/2018

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Astrophysics and cosmology (cod. 8018)

Learning outcomes

The aim of the course is to address some fundamental topics concerning the study of galaxies, and to prepare the student to read and understand important research papers on the following subjects: the dynamical structure of galaxies; a physical understanding of the main galaxy scaling laws, and of important relationships between morphological, structural and dynamical properties of the galaxies; the presence of dark matter; the role of the main properties of the stellar population in investigations of the dynamical structure; the discovery of supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies, and their importance in the evolution of the galaxies.

Course contents

The aim of the course is to study some important and current topics in the astrophysics of galaxies, a few of which have been already introduced in past courses dealing with galaxies that the students attended. After this study, the student will be able to read and understand research papers on the following main subjects:
1) structure of the galaxies and their different components;
2) physical understanding of the scaling laws of the galaxies, and of some important correlations between their structural/morphological/dynamical properties;
3) the presence of dark matter: discovery and methods of measurements;
4) relationship between the stellar and the gaseous component of galaxies; galactic flows; metal enrichment of the intracluster medium;
5) the central supermassive black holes: discovery, role in the galaxy evolution.

Readings/Bibliography

Research papers on various subjects, and two fundamental textbooks as reference for many topics:

Binney, Tremaine: Galactic Dynamics, Princeton University Press, 1987 (2007, 2nd edition)

Binney, Merrifield: Galactic Astronomy, Princeton University Press, 1998

Teaching methods

Oral lessons.

Assessment methods

Oral examination.

Teaching tools

Board and videoprojector.

Links to further information

http://www.bo.astro.it/~silvia/astrogals.html

Office hours

See the website of Silvia Pellegrini