Astro 504 -- Extragalactic Astronomy

This course will cover topics in extragalactic astronomy and cosmology. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I will present the material in a traditional "lecture" format. On Fridays, we will discuss the current results of a topic in a "seminar" format. During these Fridays, the entire class will be expected to participate in an informed discussion. To facilitate these conversations, two students will be responsible for leading the discussion, and "encouraging" contributions from his/her classmates.

Your grade in this class will be based on

• Jan   9 - 20:    Basic Formulae of Cosmology
• Jan 23 - 25:    Galaxy Types and Classifications
• Jan 30 - 01:    Basic Properties of Galaxies            Jaffe and Hernquist models (appendix)
• Feb  6 -  8:      Photometric Evolution of Stellar Systems
• Feb 13 - 15:    Chemical Evolution
• Feb 20 - 22:    X-ray Clusters
• Feb 27 - 01:    Bulk Flows and Clustering
• Mar 13 - 22:    Emission Line Physics
• Mar 27 - 29:    The Tully-Fisher Relation
• Apr 3 - 5:    The Distance Ladder
• Apr 11-13:    Supernovae and the SZ Effect
• Apr 17-19:    Gravitational Lenses
• Apr 24-26:    The Growth of Structure

• Jan 27: Start with Conselice 2003, Ap. J. Supp., 147, 1. The paper references many others.
  
  
• Feb 3: This topic touches on a number of issues, so you'll to skim several papers (and probably divide up the work). From the photometric standpoint, look at the short review by Faber et al. 1999, Ap.&S.S., 267, 273, and skim the article I did for last week's Journal Club. From the dynamical point of view, look at Romanowsky et al. 2003 in I.A.U Symp. 220, Dark Matter in Galaxies, p. 165 , then the recent Nature article by Dekel et al. 2005, Nature 437, 707. Finally there are a number of papers that look at elliptical galaxy formation using cosmological simulations; a very recent one is De Lucia et al. 2006, MNRAS (January)
  
  
• Feb 10: There are an abundance of observations of high redshift galaxies: some key names in the game are Steidel, Madau, Rhoads, Giavalisco. Unfortunately, the field is changing too fast for there to be a single good summary paper. So go to the ADS and choose a couple. Stick to papers whose main focus is galaxy evolution, rather than large-scale structure, the intergalactic medium, AGN, or other topics.
  
  
• Feb 17: There are several recent examples of observational studies of chemical evolution. A comprehensive study of the Milky Way is given in a paper by Goswami & Prantzos 2000, Astro. Ap, 359, 191. To see what is possible in nearby dwarf galaxies, there is van Zee & Haynes 2006, Ap.J., 636, 214. Finally, a nice photometric study of M31's bulge is presented by Sarajedini & Jablonka 2005, A.J., 130, 1627.
  
  
• Feb 24: There has never been a shortage of papers reviewing the state of x-ray observations of galaxy clusters. Three recent proceedings which summarize the state of the field are by Mushotsky 2003, in Clusters of Galaxies: Probes of Cosmological Structure and Galaxy Evolution, p. 23, Loewenstein 2004, in Origin and Evolution of the Elements, p. 422, and Buote 2003 in The IGM/Galaxy Connection. The Distribution of Baryons at z=0, p. 87. That should get you started.
  
  
• Mar 23: My discussions of emission-line physics have concentrated on the theory. The actual application of these relations is somewhat different. For examples of how it really works, see Kobulnicky, Kennicutt, & Pizagno 1999, Ap. J., 514, 544, and a couple of papers from the KISS group Lee, Salzer, & Melbourne 2004, Ap. J., 616, 762 and Salzer et al., 2005, Ap. J., 624, 661.
  
  
• Mar 31: A good starting for the connection between the Tully-Fisher relation and dark matter halos is a short review article by McGaugh 2005, Phys. Rev. Letters 95, 171302. Read that, and skim some of its references. That should be more than enough for a good discussion.
  
  
• Apr 7: The Hubble Constant is no longer controversial: everyone now quotes a single value in their work. But maybe we should look into the details. Start with the final results of the HST Distance Scale Key Project Freedman et al. 2001, Ap. J., 553, 47. Then perhaps look at Ciardullo et al. 2002, Ap. J., 577, 31, and Jensen et al. 2003, Ap. J., 550, 503. Also, for a nice (but less detailed) summary of the status of things, there is a review paper on astro-ph by Jensen, Tonry, & Blakeslee 2003, in Measuring and Modeling the Universe, p.~99.
  
  
• Apr 14: There are lots of papers now discussing the results from supernova surveys and possible selection effects. Two heavily cited ones are from the Harvard group Riess et al., 2004, Ap. J., 607, 665 and and from the California/Canada group Astier et al. 2006, Astro. Ap., 447, 31.
  
  
• Apr 21: An extremely hot topic in astronomy these days is the potential of weak lensing measurements to probe cosmology. As an example of what's been done already, you can look at Parker et al. 2005, Ap. J. 634, 806 and Dietrich, et al. 2005, Astro. Ap., 440, 453. To see what's to come, there are several short papers on topic in the book, Observing Dark Energy, ASP Conference Series, Vol. 339, Proceedings of a meeting held 18-20 March 2004 in Tucson, Arizona. The most useful talks aren't on-line anywhere, but I'll put the book in the Reading Room on Monday. You should especially look at the contribution by Tyson.
  
  
• Apr 28: The WMAP web site contains all the latest information and papers from the satellite. Look at some of the web pages, then go to the latest technical papers. To get an appreciation of the observational difficulties, skim over the Hinshaw et al. paper on the temperature analysis and the Page et al. paper on the polarization measurements. Then go to the Spergel et al. paper on the results.

• Answers to Homework Set 1
• Answers to Homework Set 2
  
  
• Answers to Midterm
• Answers to Final

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