Seminar
How simple are galaxies?

Abstract

Galaxies are arguably complex systems. However, they also display many scaling relations between their physical properties, hinting that it might be possible to summarize all this complexity within a few phenomenological parameters. In this talk, we will first address the question of how many parameters are indeed necessary in order to describe a galaxy, and then discuss some of them in detail, aiming towards a self-consistent, cartoon (yet remarkably accurate) picture of galaxy formation and evolution.