Materials related to AST1420 at the University of Toronto --- Galactic Structure and Dynamics

• Logistics
• Assignments
• Lecture notes
• Additional reading
• Slides

• Meeting time / room: Mon/Fri 1:10 - 2:30pm / AB 113

• Instructor: Jo Bovy

• Email: jo - dot - bovy - at - utoronto - dot - ca

• Syllabus: Full details can be found in the syllabus

• Slack channel: #ast1420-winter2024 on the Astro@UofT slack.

All assignments are due by 5pm on the day they are due (Wednesday).

• Assignment 1: Available here, due Feb. 7.

• Assignment 2: Available here, due Feb 28.

• Assignment 3: Available here, due Mar. 27. --> Apr. 2.

• Table of Contents

• Week 1:

  • Introduction
  • Appendix A: Coordinate systems

• Week 2:

  • Gravitation
  • Elements of classical mechanics
  • Orbits in spherical mass distributions

• Week 3:

  • Equilibria of collisionless stellar systems (except for Sec. 6.6.4)
  • Masses of spherical stellar systems

• Week 4:

  • Gravitation in galactic disks
  • Orbits in disks
  • The kinematics and dynamics of galactic rotation

• Week 5:

  • Equilibria of galactic disks (skip Sec. 11.2)
  • Sec. 13.1 of Gravitation in elliptical galaxies and dark matter halos
  • Sec. 15.3 of Equilibria of elliptical galaxies and dark matter halos
  • Sec. 17.1 and 17.2 of Mass modeling in elliptical galaxies.
  • Additional reading helpful to understanding orbits in elliptical galaxies is available in Orbits in triaxial mass distributions and surfaces of section.

• Week 6: N-body modeling

• Week 7: Formation of dark matter halos, but skip Sec. 18.1.5.

• Week 8: Chemical evolution in galaxies

• Week 9: Internal evolution in galaxies, mainly Sec. 21.1.1, 21.2.1, 21.2.3, 21.2.4, 21.3.1, 21.3.2, and 21.3.4 (so all but Sec. 21.1.2, 21.2.2, and 21.3.2).

• Week 11: Secs. 20.1 and 20.4 in Hierarchical galaxy formation.

Good additional sources of reading are the following books:

• Binney & Tremaine, Galactic Dynamics, 2nd Edition, 2008, Princeton University Press. See this link for errata.

• Binney & Merrifield, Galactic Astronomy, 1998, Princeton University Press. See this link for errata.

• Mo, van den Bosch, & White, 2010, Cambridge University Press. See this link for errata.

• Week 1:

  • Introduction
  • Background knowledge, overview of a typical galaxy

• Week 2:

  • Gravitation and spherical mass distributions
  • Classical mechanics and orbits

• Week 3:

  • Dynamical equilibria
  • Masses of spherical systems

• Week 4:

  • Gravitation and orbits in disks
  • Galactic rotation
  • Activity

• Week 5:

  • Equilibria of disks
  • Elliptical galaxies, Schwarzschild modeling, and supermassive black holes

• Week 6:

  • N-body solvers
  • Orbit integration and N-body sims

• Week 7:

  • The evolution of dark-matter and baryonic perturbations in the Universe
  • The formation of dark matter halos

• Week 8:

  • Chemical evolution in galaxies
  • Stellar population synthesis
  • Activity

• Week 9:

  • Disk stability and the Toomre criterion
  • Bars in galaxies
  • Spiral structure in galaxies

• Week 11:

  • Mergers
  • Dynamic friction
  • Tides

• Week 12:

  • Review