Syllabus
- Syllabus (PDF)
- Office hours: These will be in MAL 2058D on Mondays
(1430-1530) and Tuesdays (1400-1500).
PSets and solutions
| No.
| Topics
| Pset
| Due
| Solutions
|
| 0 |
Survey |
PSet 0 |
Wednesday, Aug 28 |
N/A |
1 |
Energy, Luminosity, and Flux |
PSet 1 |
Friday, Sep 6 |
Solutions
|
2 |
Radiation and Absorption |
PSet 2 |
Monday, Sep 16 |
Solutions |
3 |
Radiative Transfer |
PSet 3 |
Monday, Sep 23 |
Solutions |
4 |
Radiative Transfer and Transitions |
PSet 4 |
Friday, Oct 4 |
Solutions |
5 |
Interiors
| PSet 5 |
Friday, Oct 25 |
|
6 |
Stellar Photospheres |
PSet 6 |
Wednesday, Nov 13 |
|
7 |
Temperatures and Albedos |
PSet 7 |
Friday, Nov 22 |
|
Course Outline
| No.
| Date
| Topic
| Readings, Slides, and Notes
|
| 1 - W1L1
| 2024/08/26
| Introduction to A691.
|
|
| 2 - W1L2
| 2024/08/28
| Radiation & Blackbodies
|
|
| 3 - W1L3
| 2024/08/30
| Flux, Luminosity, & Worked Examples
| |
| 4 - W2L1
| 2024/09/04
| Opacity, extinction, cross-sections, and optical depth
|
|
| 5 - W2L2
| 2024/09/06
| Extinction Coefficients, continued
| (same as above)
|
| 6 - W3L1
| 2024/09/09
| Radiative Transfer Equation: absorption only
|
|
| 7 - W3L2
| 2024/09/11
| Radiative Transfer Equation: emission only
|
|
| 8 - W3L3
| 2024/09/13
| Radiative Transfer Equation: general form & Solutions
|
|
| 9 - W4L1
| 2024/09/16
| Applied Radiative Transfer
| Sample calculation of a toy, one-layer, stellar atmosphere
|
| 10 - W4L2
| 2024/09/18
| Radiative Transfer: conclusion and review
|
|
| 11 - W4L3
| 2024/09/20
| Talks!
|
|
| 12 - W5L1
| 2024/09/23
| Transition Rates (Einstein As and Bs)
|
- Rybicki, Sec. 1.6
- Jura "Radiation," Lecture 1 (2nd half)
| 13 - W5L2
| 2024/09/25
| Energy Levels and Atomic Transitions
|
| | 14 - W5L3
| 2024/09/27
| Rates, Line Profiles (and a Talk)
|
- Rybicki, Sec. 1.6
- Jura "Radiation," Lecture 1 (2nd half)
| 15 - W6L1
| 2024/09/30
| Molecular Transitions (and a Talk)
| Seager, Sec. 8.2.2
| | 16 - W6L2
| 2024/10/02
| Midterm Review
|
| | 17 - W6L3
| 2024/10/04
| Problem-solving practice
|
| | 18 - W7L1
| 2024/10/07
| Stellar Interiors and Structure
| Crossfield, Chapter 15
| | 18 - W7L2
| 2024/10/09
| Midterm 1 | Formula & Constants
|
| 19 - W7L3
| 2024/10/11
| Talks
|
| | 20 - W8L1
| 2024/10/14
| Stellar Interiors and Structure, continued
|
| | 21 - W8L2
| 2024/10/16
| Problem Solving Practice
|
| | 22 - W8L3
| 2024/10/18
| Talks
|
| | 24 - W9L2
| 2024/10/23
| Stellar Atmospheres: Plane-parallel atmosphere
| Jura Radiation, Lecture 14
| | 25 - W9L3
| 2022/10/17
| Talks;
Stellar Atmospheres: Eddington Approximation
| Jura Radiation, Lecture 14
| | 26 - W10L1
| 2024/10/28
| Stellar Atmospheres: Limb Darkening
|
| | 27 - W10L2
| 2024/10/30
| Limb Darkening and Transits
| Knutson et al. (2007): Limb Darkening from exoplanet transits
| | 28 - W10L3
| 2024/11/01
| Talks
| Limb Darkening: see e.g. Fig. 2 of this paper
| | 29 - W11L1
| 2024/11/04
| Stellar Chromospheres
| |
| 30 - W11L2
| 2024/11/06 | Temperatures and Energy Balance
|
|
| 31 - W11L3
| 2024/11/08
| Problem-solving session
|
| | 32 - W12L1
| 2024/11/11 | Albedos
|
|
| 33 - W12L2
| 2024/11/13
| Temperature Profiles
| Seager, Sec. 9.3
| | 34 - W12L3
| 2024/11/15
| Talks
|
| | 35- W13L1
| 2024/11/18
| Convection
|
| | 36 - W13L2
| 2024/11/20
| Adiabats
|
| | 37 - W13L3
| 2024/11/22
| Talks
|
| | 38 - W14L1
| 2024/11/25
| Transmission Spectroscopy
|
| | 39 - W14L2
| 2024/11/27
| No class - holiday
|
| | 40 - W14L3
| 2024/11/29
| No class - holiday
|
| | 41 - W15L1
| 2024/12/02
| A Simple Greenhouse Model
|
| | 42 - W15L2
| 2024/12/04
| Talks
|
| | 43 - W15L3
| 2024/12/06
| MARAC conference
|
| | 44 - W16L1
| 2024/12/09
| Basic Atmospheric Circulation
|
| | 45 - W16L2
| 2024/12/11
| Review
|
| |
| FINAL EXAM
| 2024/12/17, from 0730-1000
|
|
| | |
External Readings
Exams and Projects
Midterms:
There will be one in-class exam during the
semester, provisionally scheduled for Wednesday, October 9 (though stay tuned in case that date changes).
Final:
A comprehensive final exam will be taken on
Tuesday, 17 December from 0730-1000.
Talk review:
You will turn in a one-page, double-spaced summary, review,
and/or description of a professional astronomy talk. This could be a
department colloquium, a department Astro-Space seminar, or a talk
delivered through some other forum. This should not just be bullet points jotted down during the lecture, but rather should be a coherent narrative describing what was talked about and why it was important. Due on or before the last day of
class.
Journal Club:
You will give a 10-minute presentation ("slideshow") to the class
briefly summarizing an astronomy paper of your choice that was
posted on arXiv
during the semester.
Presentation Rubric:
The rubric that will be used for evaluating these presentations is online here.
Schedule:
| Date |
| Presenters |
Paper/topic |
| 2024/09/20
| |
| - Earth's Mesosphere During Possible Encounters With Massive Interstellar Clouds 2 and 7 Million Years Ago: paper and talk
- A VLA Study of Newly-Discovered Southern Latitude Non-Thermal Filaments in the Galactic Center: Polarimetric and Magnetic Field Properties: paper and talk
|
| 2024/09/27
| |
| - X-ray bright AGN in local dwarf galaxies: insights from eROSITA: paper and talk
-
|
| 2024/10/04
| |
|
|
| 2024/10/11
| | - Dayne Locke
- Madeleine Evenson
| - Cross Correlating the Unresolved Gamma-Ray Background with Cosmic Large-Scale Structure from DESI: Implications for Astrophysics and Dark Matter: paper
- Prospects for detecting cosmic filaments in Lyman-alpha emission across redshifts z=2−5: paper
-
|
| 2024/10/18
| | - Caden Dean
- Dhwani Vani
- Joseph Havens
|
|
| 2024/10/25
| |
|
|
| 2024/11/01
| | - Evan Barkus
- Christian Argueta
| - The Most Massive Early-type Galaxies Exhibit Tidal Features More Frequently in Lower-density Environments: paper and talk
- Comparing metallicity correlations in nearby non-AGN and AGN-host galaxies: paper and talk
|
| 2024/11/08
| |
|
|
| 2024/11/15
| | - Owen Zafuta
- Gabriel St. Pierre
| - Symmetric black-to-white hole solutions with a cosmological constant: paper
- Primordial Black Holes and Second-order Gravitational Waves in Axion-like Hybrid Inflation: paper and talk: PPT and PDF
|
| 2024/11/22
| |
| - The causal effect of cosmic filaments on dark matter halos: paper
-
|
| 2024/12/04
| | - Lucciana Caceres
- Christopher Jennings
|
|
BONUS: Fellowship Application
An additional 10% of course grade (i.e., a full
letter grade) is available to any student who writes a quality,
submittable application for a major scholarship or fellowship
(e.g. NSF GRFP, Goldwater, etc.). The application must be submitted
to Prof. Crossfield at least one week before the official
submission deadline (so he can give you feedback to help improve
it). Drafts for fellowships due after the last day of class must be
turned in one week before the last day of class. A large list of
such fellowships is available at
the KU Fellowships website.
