Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

Course Description

This course addresses a range of topics, including:

• Size and Time Scales
• Historical Astronomy
• Astronomical Instrumentation
• Stars
  • Spectra
  • Classification
• Stellar Structure Equations and Survey of Stellar Evolution
• Stellar Oscillations
• Degenerate and Collapsed Stars
  • Radio Pulsars
• Interacting Binary Systems
  • Accretion Disks
  • X-ray Sources
• Gravitational Lenses
  • Dark Matter
• Interstellar Medium
  • HII Regions
  • Supernova Remnants
  • Molecular Clouds
  • Dust
  • Radiative Transfer
  • Jeans' Mass
  • Star Formation
• High-energy Astrophysics
  • Compton Scattering
  • Bremsstrahlung
  • Synchrotron Radiation
  • Cosmic Rays
• Galactic Stellar Distributions and Populations
  • Oort Constants
  • Oort Limit
  • Globular Clusters

Textbooks

Hansen, Carl J., Steven D. Kawaler, and Virginia Trimble. Stellar Interiors: Physical Principles, Structure and Evolution. New York, NY: Springer, 2004. ISBN: 9780387200897.

Carroll, Bradley W., and Dale A. Ostlie. An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Pub., 1995. ISBN: 9780201547306.

Kippenhahn, Rudolf, and Alfred Weigert. Stellar Structure and Evolution. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, 1990. ISBN: 9780387502113.

Shapiro, Stuart L., and Saul A. Teukolsky. Black Holes, White Dwarfs, and Neutron Stars. New York, NY: Wiley, 1983. ISBN: 9780471873167.

Prerequisites

Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (8.044), Quantum Mechanics II (8.05), or permission of the instructor.

Grading Policy