| No. | Topics | Pset | Due | Solutions |
| 0 | Radiative Transfer | PSet 1 | Thursday, Sep 24 |
| No. | Date | Topic | Readings, Slides, and Notes | In-Class Problems | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 - W1L1 | 2026/08/25 | Introduction to A691; Intensity & Flux | 01 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2 - W1L2 | 2026/08/27 | Radiation, Luminosity & Blackbodies | 02 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 3 | Opacity, extinction, cross-sections, and optical depth | 03 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 4 | Radiative Transfer Equation: absorption only | 04 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 5 | 2026/09/08 | Emission coefficient, source function. | 05 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 6 | Radiative Transfer Equation: general form & Solutions |
| 06
| 7
| 2026/09/15
| Radiative Transfer Equation: applications
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| 07
| 8
| 2026/09/17
| Energy, transitions, nomenclature: “bound-bound” reactions
|
| 08 | 9
| 2026/09/22
| Line broadening; Einstein As and Bs; atomic transitions
|
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There will be one in-class exam during the semester, provisionally scheduled for Monday, October 20 (though stay tuned in case that date changes).
A comprehensive final exam will be taken on Friday, 18 December from 0730-1000.
You will turn in a one-page, double-spaced summary, review, and/or description of a professional astronomy talk that you saw in-person this semester. 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.
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.
The rubric that will be used for evaluating these presentations is online here.
| Date | Presenters | Paper/topic | |
| 2026/11/03 | Varun Kore | ||
| 2026/11/12 | Joey Discavage | ||
| 2026/11/27 |
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| 2026/12/01 |
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| 2026/12/03 |
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| 2026/12/08 |
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| 2026/12/10 |
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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.
