280522 SE Chemodynamical Evolution of Galaxies (2023S)

Galaxies consist of various components, stars and multiple gas phases, that are intimately coupled by mass exchange and are affected by energetic processes. The evolution of galaxies is thus determined by a complex network of material, energetic, and dynamical interaction processes, both enforcing but also counteracting and, by this, mostly self-regulated. Stellar nucleosynthesis products are released to the interstellar medium, so that the subsequent stellar populations become chemically enriched, but with different element abundances and on different timescales according to their stellar progenitors and to the gas phase to which they are deposited.
Chemical abundances and their particular ratios are, therefore, one substantial corner stone (in addition to thestellar and gaseous mass fractions) that allows to trace the evolutionary history with respect to its various timescales, but also to dynamical and to mixing effects.
With the aid of observations this lecture will, at first, elaborate the important stellar and plasma physical processes, chemical signatures, and their dependence on the evolutionary state of a galaxy as well as on its environment. Moreover, this lecture aim at providing insights into the processes determining the dynamical and chemical evolution of galaxies and into their proper treatment in numerical modelling, the so-called chemo-dynamical prescription.
As (pre)requisites the course builds up on knowledges of principles of stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis, of plasma-physical processes, of chemical and dynamical evolution of galaxies, and, last but not least, of galaxies' environment.
Based on the present-day models of galaxy formation and evolution, the course will highlight brandnew very high-z observations of ALMA and JWST, which raise problems for our standard dynamical and chemical evolutionry scenario.