Book Description

IAU Symposium 127 was held in Princeton on May 28-31, 1986, at the Institute for Advanced Study. There were 150 participants from 19 countries. This was the first IAU Symposium devoted exclusively to elliptical galaxies. The last decade has been a period of exceptionally rapid progress regard ing our understanding of elliptical galaxies, driven on the observational side by a wealth of new photometric and spectroscopic data, and on the theoretical side by the recognition that ellipticals are slowly rotating triaxial systems, instead of rotationally flattened bodies. The 30 invited speakers reviewed all aspects of this progress, its consequences, and the major outstanding problems. Nearly 80 poster contributions were displayed for the duration of the meeting. These contained many of the most recent developments. The first part of these Proceedings contains the written versions of the invited reviews and the summary, in the order of their presentation. The accompanying discussions are based on the written versions of questions and answers as handed in by the participants. The second part of this book is devoted to the poster contribu tions. They have been grouped in a thematic order, proceeding from morphology to theory. Indices of objects, subjects, and names are provided. Unfortunately, none of the invited participants from the USSR were able to attend the Symposium. The Proceedings include the written versions of the planned contributions by Popov and Polyachenko.