Aim of the course
This graduate level course is meant for a general education on problems related to galaxies. The final goals: understand astronomy colloquia, pass your qualify, and identify interesting problems for research. You will also learn how to run N-body simulations to study galaxy dynamics.
Course Contents:
Milky way: facts and puzzles; spherical potentials; non-spherical potentials; orbits, epicycles; distribution function; Jeans equations; motion in the solar neighbourhood; disk dynamics: spirals and bars; formation and evolution of the Milky way; elliptical galaxies and Schwarzschild modelling; globular clusters; dynamical friction; 2-body relaxation; numerical techniques; tides; spherical collapses; action-angle variables.
Textbook:
Binney & Tremaine, 2008, Galactic Dynamics (2nd edition, also eBook
available) — theory
Binney & Merrifield, 1998, Galactic Astronomy — phenomenology
