Proceedings of the XXIII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics on "Secular Evolution of Galaxies", chapter 9, in press, 88 pages, 19 figures, Lecture Notes edited by J. Falcon-Barroso and J.H. Knapen, Cambridge University Press.
astro-ph/1212.1463

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Abstract: I review the subject of the cosmological evolution of galaxies, including different aspects of growth in disk galaxies, by focussing on the angular momentum problem, mergers, and their by-products. I discuss the alternative to merger-driven growth - cold accretion and related issues. In the follow-up, I review possible feedback mechanisms and their role in galaxy evolution. Special attention is paid to high-redshift galaxies and their properties. In the next step, I discuss a number of processes, gas- and stellar-dynamical, within the central kiloparsec of disk galaxies, and their effect on the larger spatial scales, as well as on the formation and fuelling of the seed black holes in galactic centres at high redshifts.

Table of Contents

• INTRODUCTION: THE PARADIGM OF GALAXY EVOLUTION
• DISK GROWTH: THE ANGULAR MOMENTUM PROBLEM
• The angular momentum catastrophe
• The cosmological spin distribution and individual haloes
• The tidal torque theory and the origin of the universal angular momentum distribution
• DISK GROWTH: MERGERS
• Mergers and associated processes
• Dry and wet disk mergers: spheroids or rebuilding?
• MERGERS AND THEIR SECONDARY BY-PRODUCTS
• Tidal dwarfs
• Polar ring galaxies and ring galaxies
• 'Mergers' in clusters: galaxy harassment
• DISK GROWTH: COLD ACCRETION
• The standard view and the new paradigm
• Accretion shock?
• Cold flows: redshift evolution
• Cold flows: between the virial radius and the disk
• Cold accretion flows in the phase space
• DISK GROWTH: FEEDBACK
• Bulgeless disks
• What type of feedback ?
• Feedback and star formation
• HIGH-REDSHIFT GALAXIES
• The high-redshift galaxy zoo
• Mass and luminosity functions
• DISK EVOLUTION: THE CENTRAL KPC AND THE SMBHs
• Bars and the morphology of the central kpc
• The origin of SMBHs: the by-product of galaxy evolution ?
• SUMMARY AND FUTURE PROSPECTS
• REFERENCES