3rd "Guillermo Haro" workshop on
THE FORMATION AND EVOLUTION OF GALAXIES
INAOE, July 6-31, 1998
Scientific overview
Over the last two decades it has become possible to study the evolution
of the universe through direct astronomical observation. The spectacular
advances in the sensitivity of detectors, the efficiency of astronomical
instrumentation, the increase of telescope apertures and access to space
observations mean that the faintest galaxies for which high quality observational
data can be obtained are typically so distant that their light has been
travelling for a substantial fraction of the age of the Universe. Moreover,
it is now possible to study light in many different spectral ranges, providing
a very comprehensive picture. Comparing such distant objects to their nearby
analogues thus provides an immediate measure of how the galaxy population
has evolved.
These new observational capabilities are being matched by a parallel
development of the interpretational tools needed to give an improved understanding
of how galaxies evolve. Here too there have been remarkable advances in
the last ten years. One is the emergence of a cosmological paradigms which
can reproduce most of the observed properties of large-scale structure.
Within such framework it has been possible to make predictions for how
galaxies should form. An equally important and related advance has been
the development of techniques for calculating the detailed spatial and
spectral evolution of galaxies. N-body and hydrodynamical methods are now
able to simulate the dynamical evolution of a mixture of gas, stars and
dark matter, while theoretical models for stellar evolution and for stellar
atmospheres can be combined with libraries of observed stellar spectra
to follow the spectroscopic evolution of the stellar population.
Future progress will come through combining data from innovative instrumentation
on large telescopes with a theoretical framework which incorporates them
into a coherent description of cosmic evolution over the last 90\% of time.
The very substantial resources required by such work encourage collaboration
across institutional and national boundaries, while the intricacies of
interpretation demand close cooperation between theoreticians and observers.
Research areas
We will have specific research areas that will lead into different
(but not necessarily disjoint) working groups. We summarise the main topics
here:
-
Field Galaxy Evolution: A very large database of photometry, spectroscopy
and HST imaging for randomly selected faint field galaxies is now available,
reaching vary faint limits and high redshifts. This data provide key constraints
on models for the general galaxy population (e.g., star formation history
of the Universe.
Within this research area, and additional topic will be distance estimators
for HII galaxies and their applications to cosmology.
-
Evolution of Cluster galaxies: In parallel to the field galaxy studies,
analysis of the galaxy populations in clusters of galaxies (again from
ground- and space-based imaging and spectroscopy) as a function of redshift
have explored the extreme rich and dense environment, where it is now recognised
that galaxy evolution must proceed in a different way than in the field.
-
Stellar population modelling: Evolutionary population synthesis
models are a very powerful tool to interpret the observational galaxy data.
The are able to link, via our knowledge of stellar evolution, the star
formation histories of the galaxies with their observational properties.
-
Phenomenological models for galaxy formation: It is now possible
to build models which, within a cosmological framework for structure formation,
put together dark matter, gas and stars and predict the observational properties
of the galaxy population today and in the past with reasonable accuracy.
They provide a global theoretical framework for the interpretation of the
observational data.
-
Numerical simulations of galaxies and clusters: Using powerful computers
and N-body codes (complemented with a numerical treatment of the gas properties)
different research groups are able to simulate the formation of galaxies
and galaxy clusters with increased resolution and dynamical range, providing
essential input for the semianalitic models described above and a complementary
way to interpret the observational data.
-
Galaxy Morphologies: The origin of morphological sequence for galaxies
can be understood in terms of the star formation efficiency at the time
of galaxy formation. Yet, several recent observations, such as the absence
of bulge in nearby galaxies classified as early-type, and relative rarity
of bulge component among high-redshift galaxies suggest for a revision
of the morphological scheme. It is important to study and device efficient
methods for galaxy classification to explore the large data sets that are
available and will be available in the near future. The study of the morphology
of galaxies and its dependence on redshift and the environment can help
us to unravel the physical origin of the different types and the effects
that could induce morphological changes.
It should be remembered that all these subareas are just different approaches
to studying the evolution of the galaxy population and that very sustantial
cross-fertilisation between them will perforce take place in the workshop.
List of
participants
Programme
of talks
Computing facilities
Extra activities
WORKSHOP ORGANISER: Alfonso Aragón-Salamanca (aas@ast.cam.ac.uk)
Local Organising Committee:
Omar Lopez-Cruz (Chairperson)(INAOE, Mexico),
Alberto Carramiñana (INAOE, Mexico),
Miguel Chavez-Dagostino (INAOE, Mexico),
Divakara Mayya (INAOE, Mexico),
Ivanio Puerari (INAOE, Mexico),
Ravi Kumar Gulati (INAOE, Mexico),
Paolo Padoan (INAOE, Mexico)
Elena Terlevich (INAOE, Mexico)
Roberto Terlevich (RGO, UK / INAOE, Mexico)
Erendira Alvarez
(Secretary)
Contact Address
Galaxy Formation Workshop
Astrofisica, INAOE
Luis Enrique Erro 1
Tonantzintla, Puebla 72840,
MEXICO
Phone: (52-22) 472-011
Fax: (52-22) 472-231
E-mail: progharo@inaoep.mx
http://www.inaoep.mx/~progharo/galform/
Earlier Workshops
Last Updated: 12 June 1998, by leea 11:42. 