Evolution of Galaxies

Galaxies have a history. This has become clear from sky surveys, which have shown that distant galaxies, formed early in the life of the Universe, differ from the nearby ones. Observational windows at ultraviolet, infrared and millimetric wavelengths (provided by ROSAT, IRAM, IUE, IRAS, ISO) have revealed that galaxies contain a wealth of components: very hot gas, atomic hydrogen, molecules, dust, dark matterificant advance is expected from the results of new instruments (VLT, FIRST, XMM) which will allow one to explore the most distant Universe. Three Euroconferences punctuated this new epoch in galactic research, bringing together specialists in various fields of Astronomy. The first one, held in Granada (Spain) in May 2000, addressed the observational clues. The second one took place in October 2001 in St. Denis de la Reunion (France) and reviewed the basic building blocks and small-scale processes in galaxy evolution. The third conference was held in Kiel (Germany) in July 2002 and addressed the appropriate modelling of galaxy evolution from their cosmological formation to their presently observable structures. This book contains the proceedings of the third conference and presents the actual state-of-the-art of modelling galaxy evolution.