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Galactic Evolution Advanced Track, Epoch 2 Table of Contents • Cosmic Evolution Galactic Evolution • Temporal Sequence • Chance and Necessity • Galaxy-Formation Problem This Advanced Track provides a technical • Galaxy Evolution supplement to the introductory web site on cosmic • Φm for Galaxies evolution, produced by Eric Chaisson and based on • Galaxies in Perspective courses taught mainly at Harvard University for • Galaxy Complexity the past few decades: • In Sum http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~ejchaisson/cosmic_evolution/docs/splash.html Cosmic Evolution Currently, this Advanced Track is abbreviated Galactic evolution is a subset of the larger category while addressing mainly the concept of energy of physical evolution, which is itself part of the grand rate density—a numerical quantity proposed as a scenario of cosmic evolution: useful complexity metric for an underlying, Cosmic evolution = physical evolution + biological unifying process that guides the origin, evolution, evolution + cultural evolution. and destiny of all organized systems across the During this second, galactic epoch, energy rate arrow of time, from big bang to humankind. In density, Φm ≈ 0.01 - 50 erg/s/g, as some of the first the summer of 2014, this supplement will grow organized structures began emerging in the Universe. dramatically, providing much more pertinent technical material at an advanced, quantitative Temporal Sequence level (suitable for colleague scientists and The proposed sequence of events in cosmic graduate students) well beyond that presented in evolution—mainly galaxies, stars, planets, and life— the above-linked introductory web site (which is holds as a general ordering of major activities across meant for non-scientists and beginning students). the arrow of time, from big bang to humankind. This temporal sequence pertains cleanly and clearly to those systems that gave rise specifically to us—namely, in A summary of this Advanced Track is here: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~ejchaisson/advanced_track_sitesum.pdf turn, the Milky Way, then the Sun, followed by Earth, and most recently humanity—and which is thus of Further material related to the subject of limited interest to “big historians.” More expansively and of general interest to “cosmic evolutionists,” this cosmic evolution is available at: sequencing displays some overlap in space and time http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~ejchaisson including a collection of recent research papers throughout the Universe that is inherently messy. Galaxies and stars might have emerged easily accessed and downloadable at: simultaneously (“coevolved”); some of the oldest http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~ejchaisson/current_research.pdf globular star clusters (“Population-II” and ~12 Gy old) are virtually as old as their parent galaxies. This material is ©2013, by Eric J. Chaisson Conceivably, some “first stars” (“Population-III”) might have preceded the galaxies, possibly becoming the building blocks of those galaxies. But in the main, since galaxies largely stopped originating (for reasons unknown) in the relatively early Universe, and since stars (“Population-I”) have continued to form ever since, the epoch of galaxy formation must have mostly preceded the epoch of star formation; the stars we see today almost surely originated only after the bulk of the galaxies had taken shape. Since the primordial “first stars” would have had pristine blends of H and He and no heavier elements, http:www.cfa.harvard.edu/~ejchaisson/cosmic_evolution/docs/splash.html Epoch 2 - 1 they must have been very much more massive than any reptiles, the cosmic epochs in this work contain a stars existing today, hence very much shorter lived variety of objects. The seven epochs delineated here than any stars now known. Such pure gas, lacking in C are meant to identify the dominantly complex objects and O that normally help clouds to cool and condense, likely originating at any given time. It is in that sense, would have needed more mass to contract than stars knowing that galaxy origins came forth during the first typically now, >10 Gy after the bang. Without those few Gy in the history of the Universe and then star heavy-element cooling agents, the earliest protostars formation peaked a few Gy thereafter, that we take would have retained much of their heat from the Galactic Epoch to precede the Stellar Epoch. contraction, thus been unable to continue becoming Think of it as chronological bookkeeping—an attempt to genuine stars unless they accumulated more mass than impart some order and organization to the meandering stars typically do today. How much more is unknown, sequence of events that brought forth, in turn, every but if Pop-III stars really did exist, they must have known type of complex object in Nature writ large. contained hundreds of solar masses. No such colossal stars are seen today, the most massive star ever Chance and Necessity definitively “weighed” being ~76 M. (Repeated claims Chance is surely a factor throughout all aspects of of discoveries for stars >100 M have in all cases been cosmic evolution. Although we now know that chance shown, under higher angular resolution, to be clusters cannot be the sole instrument of change in the of smaller stars.) Universe, chance does play an integral role across the Modern cosmology contends that the dark matter arrow of time. Even as long ago as 1692, Newton dominating galactic halos, which is typically ~6X more reasoned that a uniform, static cloud of gas will, massive than the combination of stars, gas, and dust naturally and of its own accord, randomly develop within the luminous parts of galaxies, is non-baryonic. inhomogeneities here and there. Einstein’s relativity Furthermore, roughly spherical accumulations of dark supports this tendency of a uniform gas to fragment, matter likely helped initiate galaxy formation by even if expanding. (Einstein also though that chance gravitationally trapping H gas, which is then further played little role in Nature, but we simply think he was concentrated by dissipative interactions and angular- wrong.) momentum conservation into flattened, spinning disks Solely by chance, a cloud’s matter will spawn where most star formation has occurred during the gravitational fluctuations that become the seeds for past ~10 Gy. Both Pop-II and Pop-III stars likely bigger things; in the early primordial gas clouds, this formed before most galaxies had developed into less type of change likely led to the galaxies themselves. spherical and more elongated disks where nearly all Such random fluctuations obey well-understood Pop-I stars form today (though all three of these statistical laws, one of which states that the stellar populations may well have had some coterminous magnitude of fluctuations goes like N1/2, where N is the overlap). Thus far, there is no observational evidence average number of gas particles in a system. Thus, if for any stars forming earlier than the protogalaxies of the system in question is a galaxy, wherein the member 6-8 68 mass ~ 10 M; in fact, no evidence yet for any Pop- atoms typically number 10 , then random fluctuations III stars containing zero heavy elements. On the house, at any given time or place, ~1034 atoms. And the whole, observational evidence supports the contention fractional fluctuation, N1/2/N, equals a minute 10-34, that the bulk of most galaxies formed prior to the which is far too small for density inhomogeneities to formation of most (perhaps all) stars—in other words, have grown into full-fledged galaxies within the age of the bulk of most galaxies had originated within the the Universe. Alternatively stated, if the total number first 1-2 Gy, well before star formation began in of atoms (~1068) required to fashion a typical galaxy is earnest ~4-5 Gy after the big bang. to be accumulated exclusively by random encounters of Consequently, some stars (the very earliest ones gas particles, then we face a serious problem: A chance formed) likely existed during the early galaxy epoch, gathering of such a vast quantity of atoms would take just as galaxies exist in the following stellar epoch; the several tens of billions of years, implying that few, if grand epochs of the cosmos do not have hard-and-fast any, such galaxies should now exist in a Universe ~14 Gy stops and well-defined starts. Some overlap is old. The observational evidence that galaxies do in inevitable. Much as the later natural-history periods fact exist, and richly so in every direction sampled, known as the “age of reptiles” contained mammals and strongly implies that chance could not have been the the subsequent “age of mammals” also contained http:www.cfa.harvard.edu/~ejchaisson/cosmic_evolution/docs/splash.html Epoch 2 - 2 only factor governing the origin of these magnificent indeed that they are now mostly still forming; cosmic systems. hierarchical-merger scenarios became popular over the In addition to random chance that initially triggered past 20 years, whereby normal galaxies were then matter fluctuations within primordial clouds, theorized to assemble when smaller building blocks 6-9 deterministic gravity also played a role in their (~10 M typical of dwarf galaxies) collided and subsequent fragmentation. Furthermore, other agents, merged frequently (Searle and Zinn, Ap J, v225, p357, including turbulence and shocks, and especially dark 1978; Blumenthal, et al, Nature, v311, p517, 1984) while matter, likely accelerated the growth of the also perhaps accreting globular clusters and cold inhomogeneities so that myriad galaxies could have intergalactic gas (Dekel, et al, Nature, v457, p451, formed within a time scale shorter than the age of the 2009). Current observations are generally consistent Universe. In fact, the enhancement process (which is with this hierarchical model, as young galactic now thought to have been caused mostly by dark fragments at great distances often appear smaller in matter) must have been highly efficient since size and more irregular in shape than nearby, present- observations strongly imply that the bulk of all galaxies day counterparts.
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