The Origin of Galaxies

The Victor Rothschild Memorial Symposia

All lectures will take place at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies,
at the Edmond J. Safra, Givat Ram Campus

General Director: David Gross, University of California at Santa Barbara

Directors:

Sandra M. Faber, University of California, Santa Cruz
Avishai Dekel, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

 

How galaxies formed and evolved is a fundamental aspect of the universe we live in. A flood of multi-wavelength data from space and ground is revolutionizing our knowledge of both the local and distant universe. Although a "standard" cosmological model for the universe as a whole is emerging, many aspects of galaxy formation remain deeply puzzling. Fortunately, large telescopes allow us to observe galaxies far back in time at only a small fraction of their present age. The building blocks of present-day galaxies and their formation process are thus becoming directly observable. The need to understand these data has triggered extensive theoretical work, some of which uses state-of-the-art numerical techniques to simulate galaxy formation on supercomputers. These exciting observational and theoretical developments will be the focus of discussion in the School. The pedagogical lectures will start from the basics and reach the cutting-edge of issues and results.