Opinions on the large-scale structure of the early universe range widely from primeval chaos to a well-ordered mass distribution. P.J.E. Peebles argues that the evolution proceeded from a nearly uniform initial state to a progressively more irregular and clumpy universe. The discussion centers on the largest known structures, the clusters of galaxies, the empirical evidence of the nature of the clustering, and the theories of how the clustering evolves in an expanding universe.

In Chapter One the author provides an historical introduction to the subject. Chapter Two contains a survey of methods used to deal with the Newtonian approximation to the theory of the evolution of the mass distribution. Recent progress in the use of statistical measures of the clustering is described in Chapter Three. Chapters Four and Five return to techniques for dealing with cosmic evolution, in the statistical measures of clustering and under general relativity theory. Lastly, in Chapter Six Professor Peebles assesses the progress in attempts to link theory and observation to arrive at a well established physical picture of the nature and evolution of the universe.

Dwarf galaxy research constitutes an extremely vibrant field of astrophysical research, with many long-standing questions still unsettled and new ones constantly arising. The intriguing diversity of the dwarf galaxy population, observed with advanced ground-based and space-borne observatories over a wide spectral window providing an unprecedented level of detail, poses new challenges for both observers and theoreticians.
The aim of this symposium was to bring together these two groups to exchange ideas and new results on the many evolutionary aspects of and open issues concerning dwarf galaxies. The main topics addressed include: the birth of dwarf galaxies: theoretical concepts and observable relics across wavelengths and time, the morphological, structural and chemical evolution of dwarf galaxies, possible evolutionary connections between early-type and late-type dwarfs, the star formation history of dwarf galaxies and its dependence on intrinsic and environmental properties, the origin and implications of starburst activity in dwarf galaxies, the fate of dwarfish systems born out of tidally ejected matter in galaxy collisions.

In this PhD thesis, which was nominated for publication in this series by the Astronomical Institute at Charles University, Prague, the author investigates the orbital evolution of an initially thin stellar disc around a supermassive black hole, considering various perturbative sources of gravity. His findings, obtained by both direct numerical N-body modelling and using standard perturbation methods, offer a viable theoretical explanation for the observed configuration of young stars in the Galactic Centre. This marks a significant contribution to a topic of great interest in contemporary astrophysics. The author also shows in his thesis that a secular instability (m = 1 mode) may occur in the embedding spherical cluster of old stars. This increases the richness of possible evolution scenarios of the embedding cluster and may lead to effective feeding of supermassive black holes through tidal disruption of stars on extremely eccentric orbits.

This volume contains the proceedings from the conference "The Labyrinth of Star Formation" that was held in Crete, Greece, in June 2012, to honour the contributions to the study of star formation made by Professor Anthony Whitworth of Cardiff University.

The book covers many aspects of theoretical and observational star formation: low-mass star formation; young circumstellar discs; computational methods; triggered star formation; the stellar initial mass function; high-mass star formation and stellar clusters. Each section starts with a review paper, followed by papers discussing recent theoretical and observational work.

This volume summarises our current understanding of star formation and is useful for both graduate students and researchers alike.

Based on a number of new discoveries resulting from 10 years of Chandra and XMM-Newton observations and corresponding theoretical works, this is the first book to address significant progress in the research of the Hot Interstellar Matter in Elliptical Galaxies. A fundamental understanding of the physical properties of the hot ISM in elliptical galaxies is critical, because they are directly related to the formation and evolution of elliptical galaxies via star formation episodes, environmental effects such as stripping, infall, and mergers, and the growth of super-massive black holes. Thanks to the outstanding spatial resolution of Chandra and the large collecting area of XMM-Newton, various fine structures of the hot gas have been imaged in detail and key physical quantities have been accurately measured, allowing theoretical interpretations/predictions to be compared and tested against observational results. This book will bring all readers up-to-date on this essential field of research.

Starburst regions in nearby and distant galaxies have a profound impact on our understanding of the early universe. This new, substantially updated and extended edition of Norbert Schulz's unique book "From Dust to Stars" describes complex physical processes involved in the creation and early evolution of stars. It illustrates how these processes reveal themselves from radio wavelengths to high energy X-rays and gamma-rays, with special reference towards high energy signatures. Several sections devoted to key analysis techniques demonstrate how modern research in this field is pursued and new chapters are introduced on massive star formation, proto-planetary disks and observations of young exoplanets. Recent advances and contemporary research on the theory of star formation are explained, as are new observations, specifically from the three great observatories of the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory which all now operate at the same time and make high resolution space based observing in its prime. As indicated by the new title two new chapters have been included on proto-planetary disks and young exoplanets. Many more colour images illustrate attractive old and new topics that have evolved in recent years. The author gives updates in theory, fragmentation, dust, and circumstellar disks and emphasizes and strengthens the targeting of graduate students and young researchers, focusing more on computational approaches in this edition.

The publication of the morphology - density relation by Alan Dressler in 1980 brought into the limelight the role played by environment in the formation and evolution of galaxies. The symposium Environment and the Formation of Galaxies: 30 years later, was organised with the purpose of establishing the environmental impact on the evolution of galaxies and its dependence on look-back time. Special emphasis was placed on the physical mechanisms that are responsible for transforming galaxies once they are accreted by a group or a cluster, including the observable imprint left in the galaxy HI distribution. Other major topics of the symposium were the environmental dependence of galaxy properties at z 1 and the implementation of environmental effects in cosmological models of galaxy formation and evolution. This book presents the edited proceedings of this stimulating meeting.

Understanding star formation is one of the key fields in present-day astrophysics. This book treats a wide variety of the physical processes involved, as well as the main observational discoveries, with key points being discussed in detail. The current star formation in our galaxy is emphasized, because the most detailed observations are available for this case. The book presents a comparison of the various scenarios for star formation, discusses the basic physics underlying each one, and follows in detail the history of a star from its initial state in the interstellar gas to its becoming a condensed object in equilibrium. Both theoretical and observational evidence to support the validity of the general evolutionary path are presented, and methods for comparing the two are emphasized. The author is a recognized expert in calculations of the evolution of protostars, the structure and evolution of disks, and stellar evolution in general. This book will be of value to graduate students in astronomy and astrophysics as well as to active researchers in the field.

This volume is the proceedings of the IAU Symposium "Star Clusters." It includes the invited papers, brief accounts of the contributed papers, and the associated discussion. The topics discussed at the symposium included many aspects of recent research on open clusters and globular clusters. Because cluster studies touch on so many areas of stellar, galactic and extragalactic astronomy, this volume should be of interest to a wide astronomical readership. In setting up the scientific program for this symposium, the scientific organizers were mindful of a very successful NATO Advanced Study Institute at Cambridge (UK) in August, 1978, at which recent advances in globular cluster studies were thoroughly reviewed. So the emphasis at this symposium was on open clusters and problems common to open and globular clusters. One day only was scheduled exclusively for globular clusters, and the topics chosen for that day are ones in which rapid progress is being made. We would like to mention here two aspects of this symposium which contributed significantly to the useful and relaxed discussion following the scientific contributions.

More than a decade has passed since pulsars were discovered at Cambridge by J. Bell and A. Hewish. The past 13 years have seen ex tensive and at first rather hectic research, and a considerable amount of observational and theoretical knowledge has been accumulated. Looking back over one decade of pulsar research, it seems worth while to ask what the real impact of the detection was and if our view of the universe has changed as a result of this discovery. The excite ment of the first months and years has ebbed down considerably, with the result that pulsar research has become the task of a few scientists, working in small groups, scattered over many countries. As more and more knowledge was acquired, pulsars changed eventually from the bizarre pUlsing objects -- as they were considered in the beginning -- to more normal stars of astrophysical interest. Still, pulsars are the manifestation of matter in its most extreme form -- neutron star matter -- for which an equivalent can be found on earth only in the very nucleus of an atom. Neutron stars were predicted quite early in the history of modern astrophysics, and although many of their features were already known from theoretical studies, astro physicists were not sure if we had the slightest chance to actually "see" these objects. It therefore took some time after the historical detection paper of Hewish and coworkers before astronomers became con vinced that pulsars were neutron stars."

The term chemical evolution of galaxies refers to the evolution of abundances of chemical species in galaxies, which is due to nuclear processes occurring in stars and to gas flows into and out of galaxies.

This book deals with the chemical evolution of galaxies of all morphological types (ellipticals, spirals and irregulars) and stresses the importance of the star formation histories in determining the properties of stellar populations in different galaxies. The topic is approached in adidactical and logical manner via galaxy evolution models which are compared with observational results obtained in the last two decades: The reader is given an introduction to the concept of chemical abundances and learns about the main stellar populations in our Galaxy as well as about the classification of galaxy types and their main observables. In the core of the book, the construction and solution of chemical evolution modelsare discussed in detail, followed by descriptions and interpretations of observations of the chemical evolution of the Milky Way, spheroidal galaxies, irregular galaxies and of cosmic chemical evolution.

The aim of this book is to provide an introduction to students as well as toamend our present ideas in research; the book also summarizes the efforts made by authors in the past several years in order tofurther future research in the field.

"

Problems associated with a general scarcity of observations of the southern sky have persisted since the present era of galactic research began some sixty years ago. In his 1930 Halley Lecture A. S. Eddington commented on the observational support given to J. H. Oort's theory of galactic rotation by the stellar radial velocities measured by Plaskett o 0 and Pearce: " . . . out of 250 stars only 4 were between 193 and 343 0 galactic longitude [=GBP1: 225 < GBP11 < 15~; a stretch of one-third of the whole circuit was unrepresented by a single star. This is the operation which Kapteyn used to describe as "flying with one wing". By mathematical dexterity the required constants of rotation have been extracted from the lopsided data; but no mathematical dexterity can avert the possi bility that the neglected part of the sky may spring an unpleasant sur prise. As a spectator I watch the achievements of our monopterous avia tors with keen enthusiasm; but I confess to a feeling of nervousness when my turn comes to depend on this mode of progression. " During the past few years substantial gains have been made in securing fundamental data on the southern sky. Interpretations based on combined southern and northern surveys are producing a balanced descrip tion of galactic morphology. These matters were discussed at a Workshop held at the Leiden Observatory, August 4-6, 1982, attended by some 60 astronomers from 9 countries.

Review: Review of the first edition: 'A fresh and exciting introduction to modern galactic physics on the grand scale, and of its connections to other broad domains of contemporary physics. Graduate students in particular, will appreciate the clarity of presentation.' Bruno Coppi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Review of the first edition: 'This book fills a major need for a graduate-level, physically-based introduction to galaxies, and will be of a very wide appeal as a course text. The original approach leads to a rich physical intuition of real kinematical systems. A particular strength is the detailed analysis of the limitations of current methods and theories.' Gerry Gilmore, University of Cambridge Review of the first edition: 'Giuseppe Bertin's Dynamics of Galaxies is an elucidating account of a graduate course given by Bertin over the past two decades ... His] book is particularly useful for students interested in mathematical methods of galactic dynamics. Bertin's comparisons between galactic dynamics and plasma physics are also innovative and illustrative.' Debra Elmegreen, Physics Today

The outstanding question in astronomy at the turn of the twentieth century was: What are the stars and why are they as they are? In this volume, the story of how the answer to this fundamental question was unravelled is narrated in an informal style, with emphasis on the underlying physics. Although the foundations of astrophysics were laid down by 1870, and the edifice was sufficiently built up by 1920, the definitive proof of many of the prescient conjectures made in the 1920s and 1930s came to be established less than ten years ago. This book discusses these recent developments in the context of discussing the nature of the stars, their stability and the source of the energy they radiate.

Reading this book will get young students excited about the presently unfolding revolution in astronomy and the challenges that await them in the world of physics, engineering and technology. General readers will also find the book appealing for its highly accessible narrative of the physics of stars.

... "The readers will find Dr Srinivasan, an internationally acclaimed leader in this enterprise, to be a clear and enthusiastic guide to the wonders and mysteries of the cosmos."

Lord Martin Rees

Astronomer Royal

Master of Trinity College, Cambridge

"I know of no comparable book in the present-day literature that so successfully conveys ""the excitement of the development of ideas pertaining to the physics of stars, including the newest discoveries, and at the same time explains the fundamentals so well. "

""

E. P. J. van den Heuvel

Professor of Astrophysics

Winner of the Spinoza and Descartes Prizes

University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

"

This volume is devoted to one of the fascinating things about stars: how they evolve as they age. This evolution is different for stars of different masses. How stars end their lives when their supply of energy is exhausted also depends on their masses. Interestingly, astronomers conjectured about the ultimate fate of the stars even before the details of their evolution became clear. Part I of this book gives an account of the remarkable predictions made during the 1920s and 1930s concerning the ultimate fate of stars. Since much of this development hinged on quantum physics that emerged during this time, a detailed introduction to the relevant physics is included in the book. Part II is a summary of the life history of stars. This discussion is divided into three parts: low-mass stars, like our Sun, intermediate-mass stars, and massive stars. Many of the concepts of contemporary astrophysics were built on the foundation erected by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar in the 1930s. This book, written during his birth centenary, includes a brief biographical sketch of the brilliant scientist, which readers will find fascinating.

Reading this book will get young students excited about the presently unfolding revolution in astronomy and the challenges that await them in the world of physics, engineering and technology. General readers will also find the book appealing for its highly accessible narrative of the physics of stars.

This book is a companion volume of What are the Stars? by the same author.

""I know of no other book on the evolution of stars of a similar scope and breadth that is so accessible for undergraduate students.""

E P J van den Heuvel
Professor of Astrophysics

Winner of the Spinoza and Descartes PrizesUniversity of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

"

It has been known for a long time that stars are similar to our Sun. But it was only in 1810 that they were shown to be made of an incandescent gas. The chemical composition of this gas began to be determined in 1860. In 1940, it was demonstrated that the energy radiated by the stars is of thermonuclear origin. How stars form from interstellar matter and how they evolve and die was understood only recently, with our knowledge still incomplete. It was also realized recently that close double stars present a wide variety of extraordinary phenomena, which are far from being completely explored.This book explains all these aspects, and also discusses how the evolution of stars determine that of galaxies. The most interesting observations are illustrated by spectacular images, while the theory is explained as simply as possible, without however avoiding some mathematical or physical developments when they are necessary for a good understanding of what happens in stars. Without being a textbook for specialists, this book can be profitably read by students or amateurs possessing some basic scientific knowledge, who would like to be initiated in-depth to the fascinating world of stars.The author, an emeritus astronomer of the Paris Observatory, worked in various domains of astronomy connected with the subject of this book: interstellar matter and evolution of stars and galaxies. He directed the Marseilles observatory from 1983 to 1988 and served for fifteen years as Chief Editor of the professional European journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. He has written many articles and books about physics and astronomy at different levels.

This thesis represents the first wide-field photometric and spectroscopic survey of star clusters in the nearby late-spiral galaxy M33. This system is the nearest example of a dwarf spiral galaxy, which may have a unique role in the process of galaxy formation and evolution. The cold dark matter paradigm of galaxy formation envisions large spiral galaxies, such as the Milky Way, being formed from the merger and accretion of many smaller dwarf galaxies. The role that dwarf spiral galaxies play in this process is largely unclear. One of the goals of this thesis is to use the star cluster population of M33 to study its formation and evolution from its early stages to the present. The thesis presents a new comprehensive catalog of M33 star clusters, which includes magnitudes, colors, structural parameters, and several preliminary velocity measurements. Based on an analysis of these data, the thesis concludes that, among other things, the evolution of M33 has likely been influenced by its nearby massive neighbor M31.

The aim of the inaugural meeting of the Sant Cugat Forum on Astrophysics was to address, in a global context, the current understanding of and challenges in high-energy emissions from isolated and non-isolated neutron stars, and to confront the theoretical picture with observations of both the Fermi satellite and the currently operating ground-based Cherenkov telescopes. Participants have also discussed the prospects for possible observations with planned instruments across the multi-wavelength spectrum (e.g. SKA, LOFAR, E-VLT, IXO, CTA) and how they will impact our theoretical understanding of these systems. In keeping with the goals of the Forum, this book not only represents the proceedings of the meeting, but also a reflection on the state-of-the-art in the topic.

Galaxy groups and clusters provide excellent laboratories for studying galaxy properties in different environments and at different look-back times. In particular, the recent detections of high-redshift cluster candidates, only possible with the current high-technology instrumentation, add a new dimension to the problem. Along with the ever increasing computing power and sophisticated algorithms to model clusters of galaxies, it may help us to understand the origins of today's groups and clusters, as well as of their member galaxies. These workshop proceedings provide a snapshot of the current research in this subject, covering the observations, theory and numerical simulations relevant to galaxy evolution in groups and clusters. In this book, intended primarily to researchers in the field, particular emphasis is given to the recent impressive progress in the field, on important new results, and on the future prospects and open questions to be tackled.

The"4thCologne-Bonn-ZermattSymposium: TheDenseInterstellarMedium in Galaxies" took place in Zermatt, Switzerland, from September 22nd to 26th, 2003. This symposium continued the series of conferences on the dense interstellar medium which has been organized every 5 years since 1988 by the I. Physikalisches Institut der Unversit] at ] zuKoln. ] Re?ecting the by now well established and fruitful collaboration between the MPI ffur ] ] Radioastronomie, the Radioastronomisches Institut der Universit] at ] Bonn and the I. Physikal- ches Institut der Universit] at ] zu Koln ] in the context of the Sonderforschun- bereich 494 "The Evolution of Interstellar Matter: THz-Spectroscopy in the Laboratory and in Space," the symposium is now organized jointly by these three institutes. The conference covered a wide range of topics: starting at the largest scales and earliest times in the history of the Universe, it focussed next on galaxy evolution and their structure and dynamics. New and very exciting results on the black hole in the center of the Milky Way and the violent ISM in its immediate vicinity were presented. It continued on the cosmic cycle of star formation and evolution, and reached down to the microphysical p- cesses determining the physical and chemical conditions of the interstellar matter as the important agent for this cosmic cycle."

This is volume 5 of Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems, a six-volume compendium of modern astronomical research, covering subjects of key interest to the main fields of contemporary astronomy. This volume on Galactic Structure and Stellar Populations, edited by Gerard F. Gilmore, presents accessible review chapters on Stellar Populations, Chemical Abundances as Population Tracers, Metal-Poor Stars and the Chemical Enrichment of the Universe, The Stellar and Sub-Stellar Initial Mass Function of Simple and Composite Populations, The Galactic Nucleus, The Galactic Bulge, Open Clusters and Their Role in the Galaxy, Star Counts and the Nature of Galactic Thick Disk, The Infrared Galaxy, Interstellar PAHs and Dust, Galactic Neutral Hydrogen, High-Velocity Clouds, Magnetic Fields in Galaxies, Astrophysics of Galactic Charged Cosmic Rays, Gamma-Ray Emission of Supernova Remnants and the Origin of Galactic Cosmic Rays, Galactic Distance Scales, Globular Cluster Dynamical Evolution, Dynamics of Disks and Warps, Mass Distribution and Rotation Curve in the Galaxy, Dark Matter in the GalacticDwarf Spheroidal Satellites, and History of Dark Matter in Galaxies.

All chapters of the handbook were written by practicing professionals. They include sufficient background material and references to the current literature to allow readers to learn enough about a specialty within astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology to get started on their own practical research projects. In the spirit of the series Stars and Stellar Systems published by Chicago University Press in the 1960s and 1970s, each chapter of Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems can stand on its own as a fundamental review of its respective sub-discipline, and each volume can be used as a textbook or recommended reference work for advanced undergraduate or postgraduate courses. Advanced students and professional astronomers in their roles as both lecturers and researchers will welcome Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems as a comprehensive and pedagogical reference work on astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology.

This thesis presents a study of the origin of an apparently extended X-ray emission associated with the Galactic ridge. The study was carried out with broadband spectra obtained from mapping observations in the Galactic bulge region conducted in 2005-2010 by the Suzaku space X-ray observatory. The spectra were analyzed with a newly constructed X-ray spectral model of an accreting white dwarf binary that is one of the proposed candidate stars for the origin of the Galactic ridge emission in the higher energy band. Fitting of the observed Galactic ridge spectra with the model showed that there is another spectral component that fills the gap between the observed X-ray flux and the component expected from the accreting white dwarf spectral model in the lower energy band. This additional soft spectral component was nicely explained by an X-ray spectral model of normal stars. The result, together with previously reported high-resolution imaging results, strongly supports the idea that the Galactic ridge X-ray emission is an assembly of dim, discrete X-ray point sources.

This book takes the reader on an exploration of the structure and evolution of our universe. The basis for our knowledge is the Big Bang theory of the expanding universe. This book then tells the story of our search for the first stars and galaxies using current and planned telescopes. These telescopes are marvels of technology far removed from Galileo's first telescope but continuing astronomy in his ground breaking spirit. We show the reader how these first stars and galaxies shaped the universe we see today. This story is one of the great scientific adventures of all time.

This volume synthesizes the results of work carried out by several international teams of the SIROCO (Seismology for Rotation and Convection) collaboration. It provides the theoretical background required to interpret the huge quantity of high-quality observational data recently provided by space experiments such as CoRoT and Kepler. Asteroseismology allows astrophysicists to test, to model and to understand stellar structure and evolution as never before. The chapters in this book address the two groups of topics summarized as "Stellar Rotation and Associated Seismology" as well as "Stellar Convection and Associated Seismology". The book offers the reader solid theoretical background knowledge and adapted seismic diagnostic techniques.

IAU Symposium Number 52 on Interstellar Dust and Related Topics was held at Albany, N.Y., on the campus of the State University of New York at Albany from May 29 to June 2, 1972. The members of the Organizing Committee were: Dr A. D. Code, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis., U.S.A. Dr B. D. Donn, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., U.S.A. Dr A. Elvius, Stockholm Observatory, Saltsjobaden, Sweden. Dr T. Gehrels, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz., U.S.A. Dr J. M. Greenberg (Chairman), State University of New York at Albany, Albany, N.Y., U.S.A. Dr H. C. van de Hulst, Sterrewacht, Leiden, Holland. Dr S. B. Pikel'ner, Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow, U.S.S.R. Dr E. E. Salpeter, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., U.S.A. Dr B. E. Turner, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, Va., U.S.A. The suggestion was first made in 1971 that a symposium on interstellar grains would be timely. The response to the first preliminary announcement, which was sent out on November 29, 1971, was well beyond our expectations. The meeting was locally sponsored by the State University and by Dudley Observatory. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation con tributed along with the IAU. There were 158 participants of whom 49 were from 15 countries outside the United States. A total of 92 papers were presented."