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Galaxy Morphology

Galaxy morphology has many structures that are suggestive of various processes or stages of secular evolution. Internal perturbations such as bars can drive secular evolution through gravity torques that move gas into the central regions and build up a flattened, disk-like central bulge, or which may convert an open spiral pseudoring into a more closed ring. Interaction between individual components of a galaxy, such as between a bar and a dark halo, a bar and a central mass concentration, or between a perturbation and the basic state of a stellar disk, can also drive secular transformations. In this series of lectures, I review many aspects of galaxy morphology with a view to delineating some of the possible evolutionary pathways between different galaxy types.