13 January 2005

Review of the observed properties of stars I: luminosity; derivation of mass, size and surface temperature from binary systems.

Links: Malkov's and Popper's data on binary stars; Terry Herter's binary star simulation; in-class problems and their detailed solution

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 7 (pp. 201-221)

18 January 2005

Review of the observed properties of stars II: stellar spectra, spectral classification, and the observed H-R diagram.

 Links: Stellar spectra from David Silva's Ph.D. thesis, and from Okayama Astrophysical Observatory

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 8 (pp. 223-254)

20 January 2005

Stellar atmospheres I: the radiation field and its moments; optical depth.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 9, pp. 255-269 

25 January 2005

Stellar atmospheres II: sources of opacity; the Rosseland mean opacity; the equation of radiative transfer.

Links: accurate calculations of the Rosseland mean opacity by the OPAL project 

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 9, pp. 269-282 

27 January 2005

Stellar atmospheres III: the plane-parallel approximation; gray atmospheres; the Eddington approximation; limb darkening.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 9, pp. 283-292

1 February 2005

Stellar atmospheres IV: structure of spectral lines; the curve of growth; element abundances.

Links: curve-of-growth analysis of Fe I, Fe II, Ti I and Ti II in the Sun's atmosphere: in pdf, or the original Mathcad document

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 9, pp. 293-306

3 February 2005

Stellar atmospheres V: model atmospheres.

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8 February 2005

Stellar interiors I: hydrostatic equilibrium; the pressure equation of state.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 10, pp. 315-328

10 February 2005

Stellar interiors II: nuclear energy sources; fusion; the p-p chains.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 10, pp. 329-344

15 February 2005

Stellar interiors III: the CNO cycle; energy transport.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 10, pp. 345-355

17 February 2005

Stellar interiors IV: quick thermodynamics; adiabatic processes and polytropes; convection and mixing-length theory.

Links: Magioli's and Cattaneo's movies of computer simulations of stellar convection

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 10, pp. 356-365 

22 February 2005

Stellar interiors V: model stellar interiors; the linear stellar model - an approximation that yields an analytical solution with approximately correct behavior; StatStar, a computer solution to the stellar structure equations; the main sequence

Links: download StatStar99 from Carroll and Ostlie's website.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 10, pp. 356-365; Stein, pp. 3-38

24 February 2005

The Sun I: models of the solar interior; the former solar neutrino problem; the solar atmosphere and chromosphere.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 11, pp. 381-405

1 March 2005

The Sun II: the corona; the solar wind; sunspots, prominences and the solar cycle; polytropes and the Lane-Emden equation.

Links: Cool images and movies of sunspot structure from the Dutch Open Telescope and the NASA TRACE satellite

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 11, pp. 406-430

3 March 2005

Post-main-sequence stellar evolution I: evolution on the main sequence; onset of degeneracy.

Links: John Lattanzio's stellar-evolution demo

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 13, pp. 483-494

15 March 2005

Post-main-sequence stellar evolution II: full convection, polytropes, and the ascent of the red giant branch; late stellar evolution; planetary nebulae and white-dwarf production, evidence of evolution in stellar clusters..

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 13, pp. 495-516

17 March 2005

Post-main-sequence evolution III: the fate of massive stars, black hole and neutron-star production, supernovae; explosive nucleosynthesis.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 13, pp. 517-533

22 March 2005

Stellar pulsation I: Cepheids, RR Lyrae stars, W Virginis stars; the e, k and g mechanisms, the one-zone model.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 14, pp. 541-556

24 March 2005

Stellar pulsation II: Models of non-radial pulsation, p-, f- and g-modes; helio- and asteroseismology. 
Links: solar oscillation data and images from GONG and BiSON.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 14, pp. 557-571

29 March 2005

Degenerate stars I: white dwarfs; the equation of state of degenerate gases of fermions is polytropic.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 15, pp. 577-591

31 March 2005

Degenerate stars II: cooling of white dwarfs and the age of the Universe; neutron stars.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 15, pp. 592-607

5 April 2005

Degenerate stars III: the Chandrasekhar (exact) solution for the structure of a white dwarf.

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7 April 2005

Degenerate stars IV: pulsars are rotating neutron stars; pulsars and supernova remnants; pulsar magnetospheres.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 15, pp. 608-626

12 April 2005

Black holes I: their formation in stellar collapse; elements of the general theory of relativity; the Schwarzschild metric and absolute interval; geodesics, proper time, proper length; gravitational redshift and the Schwarzschild singularity.

Links: animations of virtual trips to, and into, black holes: Robert Nemiroff's and Andrew Hamilton's.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 16, pp. 633-648

14 April 2005

Black holes II: the properties of space and orbits near a Schwarzschild black hole.
Links: everything you need to know about rotating and nonrotating black holes, by Jim Bardeen, Bill Press and Saul Teukolsky (BPT 1972)

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 16, pp. 648-661

19 April 2005

Black holes III: Rotating black holes and the Kerr metric; black-hole energetics and Hawking radiation; detection of black holes.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 16, pp. 661-676

21 April 2005

Close binary systems I: Lagrange points and Roche lobes; types of close binary systems; accretion disks.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 17, pp. 683-710

26 April 2005

Close binary systems II: cataclysmic variables, (white) dwarf novae; neutron stars and black holes in binary systems.

Carroll and Ostlie, chapter 17, pp. 710-745