Dynamical Models of Observed Galaxies

A five-day Workshop & Busyweek will be held at the University of Sydney from the 3rd to the 7th of June 2019, covering all aspects of dynamical models that can be applied to galaxies with observed stellar dynamical data.

Large new IFS Galaxy Surveys allow for a more detailed insight in the dynamical properties of galaxies than ever before. IFS instruments such as VLT-MUSE, AAT-SAMI, and MaNGA are now intensively used by the Australian community to understand how galaxies build up their mass and angular momentum over time. At the same time, there has been a revolution in surveying the Milky Way with ESA-Gaia, GALAH and APOGEE, resulting in an extraordinary number of recent publications on the dynamical properties of our own Galaxy.

Dynamical models of galaxies are crucial for interpreting all these stellar kinematic measurements, but fitting these models still requires a significant amount of effort and expertise. This workshop is aimed at making dynamical fitting and modelling more accessible to the Galactic and extragalactic community.

One of the main goals of this meeting will be to utilise the power of Schwarzschild orbit-based dynamical models applied or adapted to SAMI Galaxy Survey and MUSE data. Schwarzschild models are already widely used to uncover the internal dynamics of elliptical and spiral galaxies and globular clusters. A recent demonstration with these types of models was presented by Zhu, van de Ven, et al. 2018 published in Nature Astronomy. These results showed that the orbits of CALIFA galaxies are naturally separated into three components, and that these components are related to the photometric structures of galaxies (e.g., disk and bulge).

Participants are encouraged to give a short presentation on a specific research issue or discuss their goal for the week.

Thanks to a generous contribution of the Hunstead Fund for Astrophysics and the Astro3D Science Visitor Program, there is no registration fee to attend the workshop. However, please indicate your attendance via the registration page. While there will not be an official conference dinner, we encourage participants to keep the evening of the 6th of June free for social events. Registration deadline is the 20th of May 2019.