ASTR 391 -- Spring 2024

Syllabus, schedule, and other docs
PSets and solutions
Lecture notes
Relevant Readings
Exams & Review Paper

Syllabus and schedule

Syllabus (PDF)
Course Textbook (PDF) (by Choudhuri)

PSets and solutions

No.	Topics	Pset	Due	Solutions
Zero	Start-of-course survey	Pset	Jan 19
One	Cover Letter / Personal Statement	Pset	Jan 24
02	Forces, Introductory Concepts, and Estimates	Pset	Jan 31	Solutions
03	Parallax, angular scales, stars.	Pset	Feb 7	Solutions
04	Binaries, stars, and planets.	Pset	Feb 19	Solutions
05	Nuclear reactions and Stellar Evolution	Pset	Feb 26	Solutions
06	Stellar structure and interiors	Pset	March 29	Solutions
07	Radiation	Pset	April 5	Solutions
08	Galaxies	Pset	April 22	Solutions
cv-1	Draft CV/resume		Feb 21
paper-1	Three potential paper topics.		Feb 16
paper-2	Full outline of paper.		Mar 22
paper-3	Subtantially complete paper draft.		Apr 12
paper-4	Final, revised paper.	Paper rubric.	May 1
**	Extra Credit: Sky Show/Planetarium Show Form (more info here)	Form	Last week of class.

Course Outline

No.	Date	Topic and/or Reading Selections	Lecture Notes
1 - W1L1	2024/01/17	Introduction to astronomy. Orders of magnitude; magnitudes. Types of objects and observations. Reading: Choudhuri, Ch. 1	Lecture Notes (PDF), lecture slides.
2 - W1L2	2024/01/19	Intro to astrophysics. Common quantities, forces, and particles. Reading: Choudhuri, Ch. 1	Ibid
3 - W2L1	2024/01/22	(cancelled -- snow day)
4 - W2L2	2024/01/22	Common quantities and concepts.	Ibid.
5 - W2L3	2024/01/24	Parallax, distance and size scales. Choudhuri, Ch. 1	Lecture Notes (PDF)
6 - W3L1	2024/01/29	Spectroscopy and Photometry.
7 - W3L2	2024/01/31	Basic properties of stars. Mass, temperature, luminosity. Energy. Choudhuri, Sec. 3.5.	Lecture Notes (PDF)
8 - W3L3	2024/02/02	Classification, spectral types. Gray book, Chp. 1-2 -- see below.	Lecture Notes (PDF)
9 - W4L1	2024/02/05	CVs and Resumes (guest talk)
10 - W4L2	2024/02/07	Binary star systems. Two-body Keplerian problem. Kepler's Laws.	Lecture Notes 1, Lecture Notes 2
11 - W4L3	2024/02/09	Binaries and Exoplanets.
12 - W5L1	2024/02/12	Observational stellar evolution. "Road Map" and the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.
13 - W5L2	2024/02/14	Observational stellar evolution: the end states of stars.
14 - W5L3	2024/02/16	Introduction to nuclear reactions	Reading: Lecture Notes (PDF) Choudhuri, Sec. 4.1 Wikipedia (through and including "Energy Conservation"). More detail than you want on nuclear physics (from MIT)
16 - W6L2	2024/02/19	Main nuclear reactions in stars	Reading: Lecture Notes (PDF) Choudhuri, Sec. 4.3 Proton-proton chain reaction CNO cycle reaction Old-timey but informative website on fusion concepts
17 - W6L3	2024/02/23	Stellar evolution: Timescales, overview & final stages	Reading: Lecture Notes (PDF) Lecture Notes (PDF) (a more technical supplement; optional). Lecture Notes (PDF) Choudhuri, Secs. 4.5, 4.6, 4.7 Useful notes on stellar death.
18 - W7L1	2024/02/26	Compact objects: White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars, and Black Holes	Reading: Lecture Notes (PDF) Choudhuri, Chapter 5
19 - W7L2	2024/02/28	Exam review.
20 - W7L3	2024/03/01	Midterm 1
21 - W8L1	2024/03/04	Stellar structure: ideal gas law, mass conservation	Lecture Notes 1, Lecture Notes 2
22 - W8L2	2024/03/07	Stellar structure: and hydrostatic equilibrium, walkthrough, application, and practice.
W8L3	2024/03/09	(class cancelled due to illness)
W9L1	2024/03/18	(applying for jobs)
23 - W9L2	2024/03/20	Radiation: luminosity, flux, flux density.	Lecture Notes (PDF), and Lecture Slides (PDF)
24 - W9L3	2022/02/21	More Radiation: surface brightness.	Lecture Notes (PDF)
25 - W10L1	2022/02/23	Radiation Practice Choudhuri, Secs. 2.1-2.2	Lecture Notes (PDF)
26 - W10L2	2024/03/27	The Interstellar Medium	Reading: Lecture Notes (PDF) (Secs. 29.4 and 29.5 are pretty math-heavy; optional!)
28 - W10L3	2024/03/29	Our Galaxy, the Milky Way	Chapter 22 of Freedman et al. Choudhuri, Secs. 6.1, 6.2, 6.4, 6.5, 6.6.4, 6.6.6, Fig. 6.15
29 - W11L1	2024/04/01	Other Galaxies: Classification, distance, and size	Chapter 23 of Freedman et al. Choudhuri, Secs. 9.1, 9.2 A few slides from lecture
29 - W11L2	2024/04/03	Rotation Curves of Galaxies	Chapter 23 of Bennett et al. Chapter 22 of Freedman et al. Choudhuri, Sec. 9.2
30 - W11L3	2024/04/05	Exam review.
	2024/04/08	No class -- solar eclipse!
31 - W12L2	2024/04/10	Midterm #2
32 - W12L3	2024/04/12	Galactic Center, Sagittarius A*, Supermassive Black Holes	Chapter 19 of Bennett et al., on our Galactic Center Chapter 21 of Bennett et al., on supermassive black holes Choudhuri, Sec. 9.4 Lecture slides
33 - W13L1	2024/04/15	Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN)	Chapter 24 of Freedman et al., on AGN Choudhuri, Sec. 9.4 Lecture slides
34 - W13L2	2024/04/17	Galaxy Clusters	Chapter 1 of Sparkes and Gallagher Choudhuri, Secs. 9.5 Lecture slides
35 - W13L3	2024/04/19	Large-Scale Structure	Chapter 1 of Sparkes and Gallagher Choudhuri, Secs. 9.6 Lecture slides
36 - W14L1	2024/04/22	The Expanding Universe and the Big Bang	Chapter 22 of Bennett et al. Choudhuri, Sec. 9.3, Sec. 11.1 Lecture slides
37 - W14L2	2024/04/24	A Brief History of Time	Freedman Chp 26
38 - W14L3	2024/04/26	Cosmology	Chapter 23 of Bennett et al. (concluded) Choudhuri, Chapter 11 (but skip the mathy bits) Chapter 25 of Freedman et al.
39 - W15L1	2024/04/29	Planetarium Show @ Slawson G174H!
40 - W15L2	2024/05/01	Review. All assignments due.

External Readings

Order-of-magnitude approximations (courtesy of Ned Wright).
Astronomy Picture of the Day(APOD) -- a venerable and always-fascinating daily astronomy vignette.
Freedman et al., Intro to Astronomy, Chapter 1.
Freedman et al., Intro to astronomical magnitudes, Chapter 17.
Bennett et al., Intro to Astronomy, Chapter 1.
"History of Stellar Spectral Classification," Gray & Corbally, Chapter 1.
"An Overview of Normal Stars," Gray & Corbally, Chapter 2.
Goldstein et al., on the Two-Body Problem
UCLA Galactic Center Group: Orbital Animations
Binary systems:
- Caroll & Ostlie on Binary Systems
- Holberg et al. 2007, The Discovery of the Companion of Sirius
- Shahbaz et al. 1994, The mass of the black hole in V404 Cygni
Overview of Recent Exoplanet Progress
Rybicki et al., on Intro to Radiation, first half of chapter 1.

Exams & Review Paper

Midterms:

There will be two in-class exams during the semester, provisionally scheduled for late February and early April.

Final:

A comprehensive final exam will be taken on Monday, May 6 at 0730.

Review Paper

Work on the review paper will comprise 10% of the total course grade. Just as when writing any professional document, there will be a series of checkpoints to ensure that the author (you!) stays on track. The grade weight of these checkpoints follows a geometric progression, as detailed below. All submissions should be typed, printed, and double-spaced.

Paper checkpoints:

Topic. Submit three topics that most interest you that are relevant to the course. Submit them to the instructor no later than start-of-class Friday, February 16. (1% of grade.)
Outline. Submit a one-page outline for your paper by start-of-class on Friday, March 22. (2% of grade).
Draft. Submit a substantially complete draft by Wednesday, April 3. (4% of grade).
Final paper. Submit the completed and revised paper on the last day of class, May 4. (8% of grade).

The rubric used for grading the final paper is online here.