Course description

Galaxies are composed of a large ensemble of stars, gas and dark matter, held together by gravity. Galaxies are the basic building blocks of the large-scale structure of the Universe. This general course aims to present a contemporary perspective of extragalactic astrophysics, focused on current challenges in this area. The basic elements of galaxy formation and evolution, including their stellar, interstellar, black-hole and dark matter components. Properties of clusters of galaxies, intergalactic medium, cosmic background radiations and a brief introduction to Cosmology will also be discussed.

Requisites

Basic knowledge of general astronomy is required, including (very) basic concepts and equations of radiative transfer, quantum mechanics, and gravitational dynamics. No prior knowledge about the general theory of relativity is required, and a necessary part of relativity will be covered in the class.

Details

Details on the course as well as the proogram are available through the CANVAS platform for UDP students.

When:

Every Tuesday and Thursday from 9:00am-10:20am.

Where:

Currently Zoom online call.

Syllabus.

About half of the course will be devoted to "revisit" key topics of extragalactic science. Most of these are expected to have been observed in previous courses in the undergrad or Masters, however, we will review them for completeness. The other half of the course will be devoted to studying galaxy evolution and formation. This will be done through review article readings and individual presentations of them, a few lectures and a science project on the topic.

How:

In this version of the course, we will partly base our readings on the book "Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology" (Schneider, P. ; 2nd edition; Springer)". Significant part of the course will be based on reading review articles.

Grades:

• Presentations based on the reading of review articles

• A semester scientific project

• Oral exam

Chapters to be reviewed/discussed (from link above):

• Unit 1. Introduction and Overview.

• Unit 2. The Milky Way.

• Unit 3: Gravitational lensing [Intermezzo 1 -- on a best effort basis, if time allows].

• Unit 4. Galaxies.

• Unit 5. Active Galactic Nuclei.

• Unit 6. Galaxy clusters.

• Unit 7: Basic Cosmology [Intermezzo 2 -- on a best effort basis, if time allows]

• Unit 8: High-z galaxies (~half of the course)