Galaxy Formation and Evolution

I strongly recommend all physicists read this book so that they learn the history of our universe post-big bang. This book is everything you need to understand how tiny perturbations in the early universe evolved into the galaxies we see today, going beyond the simplistic picture presented by introductory cosmology texts. It is complete both in a review of our theoretical understanding and observational evidence, even giving some details on how such evidence is obtained and analyzed. I know multiple grad students and professors who regularly turn back to this book to aid in their research.

This is written at the graduate / research level. It provides a detailed explanation of both cosmological and galaxy evolution topics. I particularly enjoyed the discussion of cosmological perturbations, inflation and the CMB. I have many times used it as a starting point when investigating a new topic in my research field.It is extremely densely written, but all the information and equations are there. It may be dense but it is well explained, provided you take the time to read it. This is a great companion text to Binney and Tremaine's "Galactic Dynamics".

Book of good quality and arrived within estimated time

I have little doubt that this text is an excellent reference for graduate-level study in cosmology. Readers with more general interest and readers lacking an advanced degree in mathematics should probably steer clear of this extremely dense and theory-laden text (unless you are looking for a 4 lb doorstop or something to keep on your coffee table to impress your neighbors), because you won't get past page 5 in this 800+ page reference work.

It is a whole review of LSS and Galaxy formation.If you finish this book, you will become an expert onlate cosmology. By 'LATE', I mean the cosmology afterthe CMB.

Sold as new but it had many pen markings.

Although there are several excellent textbooks in the area, I firmly believe that this one will become the standard reference in the area. The breadth of the topics covered alone would make it shoot up to the ranks of the top, and when one factors in all the detailed calculations and results that are presented to make the book wholly self-contained, it is easy to see why this book deserves to become the definitive work in galaxy formation and evolution.The first two chapters present a general theoretical and observational overview of the subject, but the real fun begins from the third chapter. The three authors have chosen to follow the cosmological timeline, and hence chapters 3 and 4 deal with cosmology. Chapter 3 which lays the background for cosmology is brilliant, and could serve as a self-contained monograph on the subject. The next chapter which treats cosmological perturbations is equally noteworthy for its treatment, both Newtonian and relativistic, of small perturbations. Chapter 5 leads up to the episode of gravitational collapse and the subsequent consequences. At this point, several techniques used in probing the cosmos such as correlation functions, gravitational lensing, etc are presented in Chapter 6. Chapters 7 and 8 focus on halo formation, the former on dark matter and the latter on gas. Both these chapters cover some very important topics such as the Press-Schechter formalism, radiative cooling, etc. Chapter 8 also features a nice, though compact, discussion of fluid dynamics and instabilities. Chapters 9 and 10 are concerned with the formation and evolution of stars. Topics such as the star formation efficiency, the IMF, population synthesis, etc were presented in a clear and detailed manner. Chapters 11, 12 and 13 are primarily concerned with the types of galaxies and the interactions that can occur between galaxies. The formation of disk and elliptic galaxies, sections on dynamical friction and disk instabilities are some of the best features in these chapters. Chapter 14 deals with AGNs and the properties of active galaxies. The statistics and distribution of galaxies are looked at in Chapter 15. The last chapter is on the IGM and is one of the best chapters in the book; it could again serve as a monograph on the subject by itself.There are several cutting edge topics presented through all the chapters. For instance, Chapter 9 features an entire section on Pop III stars, which is an active area of research currently. In a book this long and packed with detail, there are bound to be a few aspects of the book which one may find fault with. I felt that some topics such as gravitational lensing and the Press-Schechter formalism could have been covered in a more lucid manner, since some of the derivations and the discussion tended to get unnecessarily complicated at times.These are only a few minor glitches in an outstanding work. A truly remarkable book and (one hopes) is destined to become the Bible of galaxy formation and evolution.

The cover and some pages were damaged, otherwise the book came in good and ahead of schedule