Lessons from the Local Group, 2015
A Conference in honour of David Block and Bruce Elmegreen

 Our understanding of galaxy formation comes mostly from two sources: sensitive observations at high angular resolution of the high-redshift Universe, where galaxies are observed to be forming, and detailed observations of individual stars and clouds in the Local Group, where telltale remnants from its formative time remain and similar processes operate at a low level today. The current conference focusses on key aspects of the Local Group, composed of the Milky Way, Andromeda and Triangulum Spiral Galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Cloud galaxies, numerous dwarf and irregular galaxies, and intergalactic gas. Topics include the halo and thick disk of the Milky Way with its first stars and stellar streams; the Milky Way bar, bulge and outer edge; interstellar dust and turbulence; star formation processes and stellar scattering in spiral arms; views through the infrared Eyes of the Spitzer Space Telescope; globular clusters; the Local Gould Belt; stellar metallicities and elemental abundances; the environment and black hole in the Milky Way nucleus; orbits of the Magellanic Clouds and galaxy dwarfs; interstellar dust and turbulence; the outer disks and halos of the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies; ripples from a collision in Andromeda; and arcs of carbon stars in the Triangulum and intergalactic clouds.

This volume also discusses surveys of planetary nebulae, galaxy morphology at low and high redshift, cosmic evolution of star and galaxy formation and gas accretion, Lyman alpha emitting galaxies, ultra-low surface brightness imaging, and more. Readers are given a clear and comprehensive view of this wide range of topics written by specialists in each field. This is the proceedings of an International Conference at the Seychelles archipelago in May 2014, on the occasion of the 60th birthday of David Block and the millionth (base two) birthday of Bruce Elmegreen.

From the Contents: Lessons from the Milky Way.- Milky Way Halo and First Stars.- Milky Way Bulge.- Milky Way Thick Disk.- Milky Way Bar.- Milky Way Thin Disk and Spiral Structure.- Gould’s Belt.- Gas in the Milky Way.- Interstellar Gas Dynamics.- Interstellar Turbulence.- The Local Group through the Eyes of the Spitzer Space Telescope.- Dust in the Local Group.- Milky Way Metallicities and Fossil Cosmology.- The Interconnected Lives of Reynolds and Hubble.- History of the Discovery of Galaxies.- Stellar Migration in Galaxy Disks.- Cloud and Star Formation in Spiral Arms.- M31 Metallicities.- M31 Gas and Star Formation.- M31 and M33 Outer Disk and Halo.- M33 Gas and Star Formation.- Formation of Galaxy Groups.- Dynamics of the Local Group.- Morphological Evolution of Dwarf Galaxies in the Local Group.- Formation and Early Evolution of Globular Clusters.- MW Globular Clusters.- Globular Clusters in the Local Group.- History of the Magellanic Clouds.- LMC Stars.- LMC Gas and Star Formation.- SMC Stars.- SMC Gas and Star Formation.- LMC, SMC Orbits.- The Sgr Dwarf Galaxy.- Origin of Dwarf Galaxies.- Dwarf Satellites of the MW.- Vast Polar Structure of MW Dwarfs.- HVC and Intergalactic Clouds in the Local Group.- MW, M31, M33 Galaxy Centers: Gas and Star Formation.- MW Galactic Center Black Hole.- Galaxy Accretion and Cold Flows.- DM in Dwarf Galaxies and Mini Halos.- Planetary Nebulae.- Galaxy Morphology: Classical.- Galaxy Morphology: Quantitative Measures.- Galaxy Morphology: High Redshift.- The Earliest Galaxies.- Cosmic Evolution of Gas Content and Accretion.- High-z Galaxies: Gas and Star Formation.- Formation of Stars and Clusters over Cosmological Time.- Conference Summary.

Prof. Ken Freeman, FRS, is the Duffield Professor of Astronomy at the Australian National University. He has been bestowed with the highest accolade of the American Astronomical Society, the Henry Russell Norris Lecture. In 2012, he was awarded the Australian Prime Minister's Prize for Science. Freeman has devoted his career to the study of galaxies, and is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of dark matter. He has supervised 55 PhD students to date.

Dr. Bruce Elmegreen is a staff member in the Research Division of IBM. He received the 2001 Dannie Heineman Prize from the American Astronomical Society and the American Physical Society, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Prof. David Block is Professor of Computational and Applied Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He is the only scientist in Africa whose research has twice been featured on the cover of Nature. A recipient of the Vice-Chancellor’s Research Award, Block and his team also spearheaded the discovery and amount of cold cosmic dust in our Universe using optical and near-infrared arrays. He has been a guest investigator at many of the world’s foremost universities and observatories, including Harvard University and the European Southern Observatory. Block co-authored the book Shrouds of the Night, published by Springer, together with Ken Freeman.

Matthew Woolway is a tutor in the School of Computational & Applied Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. His key focus lies in the domain of image and signal processing. He is a recipient of the Colin James Young Award.

Presents a comprehensive summary of the essential components of the Milky Way and neighboring galaxies

An organized compendium of invited reviews by the world’s leading experts in the field

Proceedings from the 2014 international conference honoring David Block and Bruce Elmegreen, focusing on the Local Group as an example of galactic-scale processes

Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras