Dynamics of Galaxies

About this book

Our understanding of galaxies, the building blocks of the Universe has advanced significantly in recent years. New observations from ground- and space-based telescopes, the discovery of dark matter, and new insights into its distribution have been instrumental in this. Dynamics of Galaxies provides graduate students with a modern introduction to the gravitationally determined structure and evolution of galaxies. Readers will also benefit from detailed discussions of the issues involved in the process of modeling complex stellar systems. Additionally, the text provides an accessible framework for interpreting observations and devising new observational tests. Based on the author's extensive teaching experience, this second edition features an up-to-date view of basic phenomenology, a discussion of the structure of dark halos in galaxies, the dynamics of quasi-relaxed stellar systems and globular clusters, galaxies and gravitational lensing and an introduction to self-gravitating accretion disks.
 

Contents

Preface to the first edition
Preface to the second edition
Acknowledgments

Part I. Basic Phenomenology
1. Scales
2. Observational windows
3. Classifications
4. Photometry, kinematics and dark matter
5. Basic questions, semiempirical approach and the dynamical window

Part II. Physical Models
6. Self-gravity and relation to plasma physics
7. Relaxation times, absence of thermodynamical equilibrium
8. Models
9. Equilibrium and stability: symmetry
10. Classical ellipsoids
11. Introduction to dispersive waves
12. Jeans instability

Part III. Spiral galaxies
13. Orbits
14. The basic state: vertical and horizontal equilibrium of the disk
15. Density waves
16. Roles of gas
17. Global spiral modes
18. Spiral structure in galaxies
19. Bending waves
20. Dark matter in spiral galaxies

Part IV. Elliptical Galaxies
21. Orbits
22. Stellar dynamical models
23. Stability
24. Dark matter in elliptical galaxies

Part V. In Perspective
25. Selected aspects of formation and evolution
26. Galaxies and gravitational lensing
27. Self-gravitating accretion disks

Bibliography
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Giuseppe Bertin is Professor of Physics at the University of Milan, Italy; previously he was in the faculty of the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa. He has also held several positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has been a member of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara (in 2006 and 2009). Professor Bertin is also author of Spiral Structure in Galaxies: A Density Wave Theory with C. C. Lin, and editor of the proceedings of a series of three international workshops on plasmas in the laboratory and in the universe. He is the recipient of the Italian National Academy's Premio del Presidente della Repubblica in Science for 2013.