This book constitutes the proceedings of a very topical workshop aimed at understanding the shapes of the baryonic and dark matter components of galaxies. Several groups presented their recent results from observations and numerical N-body simulations.

This book constitutes the proceedings of a very topical workshop aimed at understanding the shapes of the baryonic and dark matter components of galaxies. Several groups presented their recent results from observations and numerical N-body simulations.

How does it happen that billions of stars can cooperate to produce the beautiful spirals that characterize so many galaxies, including ours? This book reviews the history behind the discovery of spiral galaxies and the problems faced when trying to explain the existence of spiral structure within them. In the book, subjects such as galaxy morphology and structure are addressed as well as several models for spiral structure. The evidence in favor or against these models is discussed. The book ends by discussing how spiral structure can be used as a proxy for other properties of spiral galaxies, such as their dark matter content and their central supermassive black hole masses, and why this is important.

A coherent introduction for researchers in astronomy, particle physics, and cosmology on the formation and evolution of galaxies.

Gravity plays a central role in the dynamics of all astrophysical systems - from stars to the Universe as a whole. This timely volume examines all aspects of gravitational dynamics - from stellar systems and galaxy disks, to the dynamics of the Local Group, large scale structures and motions, galaxy formation and general relativity. Each chapter is written by a world expert renowned for original contributions to the field. The authors are: James Binney, Roger Blandford, David Burstein, Tim de Zeeuw, George Efstathiou, Steve Gull, Nick Kaiser, J. Katz, Donald Lynden-Bell, Ruth Lynden-Bell, Douglas Lin, Jeremiah Ostriker, T. Padmanabhan, J. Papaloizou, Jim Peebles, Jim Pringle, Martin Rees, Maarteen Schmidt, Scott Tremaine and Simon White. This volume provides a broad, pedagogical introduction to gravitational dynamics for graduate students, and an up-to-date review for researchers in cosmology, astrophysics, mathematical physics and applied mathematics.

This book shows how modern cosmology has led to the idea of dark matter in the universe, and presents a new theory to explain it.

No modern astronomer made a more profound contribution to our understanding of the cosmos than did Edwin Hubble, who first conclusively demonstrated that the universe is expanding. Basing his theory on the observation of the change in distanct galaxies, called red shift, Hubble showed that this is a Doppler effect, or alteration in the wavelength of light, resulting from the rapid motion of celestial objects away from Earth. In 1935, Hubble described his principal observations and conclusions in the Silliman lectures at Yale University. These lectures were published the following year as "The Realm of the Nebulae," which quickly became a classic work.

Gravitational lensing is a consequence of general relativity, where the gravitational force due to a massive object bends the paths of light originating from distant objects lying behind it. Using very little general relativity and no higher level mathematics, this text presents the basics of gravitational lensing, focusing on the equations needed to understand the phenomena. It then applies them to a diverse set of topics, including multiply imaged objects, time delays, extrasolar planets, microlensing, cluster masses, galaxy shape measurements, cosmic shear, and lensing of the cosmic microwave background. This approach allows undergraduate students and others to get quickly up to speed on the basics and the important issues. The text will be especially relevant as large surveys such as LSST and Euclid begin to dominate the astronomical landscape. Designed for a one semester course, it is accessible to anyone with two years of undergraduate physics background.

The amount of cosmological data has dramatically increased in the past decades due to an unprecedented development of telescopes, detectors and satellites. Efficiently handling and analysing new data of the order of terabytes per day requires not only computer power to be processed but also the development of sophisticated algorithms and pipelines. Aiming at students and researchers the lecture notes in this volume explain in pedagogical manner the best techniques used to extract information from cosmological data, as well as reliable methods that should help us improve our view of the universe.