/taipss

Course materials for theoretical astrophysics I: physics of sun and stars

Primary LanguageJupyter Notebook

Theoretical Astrophysics I: Physics of Sun and stars

New: Recording of our Lecture 10 is here: https://youtu.be/kaVqsGRmX7c

New: Recording of our Handson 9 is here: https://youtu.be/F2PTz5kvC_o

Lecturers: Petri Käpylä, Ivan Milic (Institute for Solar Physics - KIS, Freiburg)

University of Freiburg, Summer Semester 2024

This course will cover the physical concepts of stellar structure - going from the core where the energy is generated, to the outermost layers (atmospheres) where that same energy is being radiated away and ultimately captured by our telescopes. We will also study the Sun, as a special case of star that can be observed with a very high spatial and temporal resolution and thus help us understand how stars in general function.

Format: 2 hours of lectures + 2 hours of exercises

ETCS points: 5

Lectures: Tue 14-16 Seminar Room II/III

Exercises: Fr 16-18 Seminar Room II/III or via Zoom (when needed or when we are working on computational topics)

Recommended literature:

Dina Prialnik, An Introduction to the Theory of Stellar Structure and Evolution, 2009, Cambridge University Press

Michael Stix, The Sun: an Introduction, 2002, Springer

Topic List / Curriculum:

16/04 - Lecture 01: Introduction to stellar physics and history of solar and stellar studies

19/04 - Handson 01: Python and data visualization

23/04 - Lecture 02: Concepts of stellar luminosity and color. Main equations of stellar structure and evolution. Timescales of stellar processes.

26/04 - Handson 02: Calculational exercises on the equations of stellar structure.

28/05 - Lecture 06: Radiation transport

18/06 - Lecture 09: Stellar Atmospheres

21/06 - Handson 09: Numerical calculation of stellar spectra, recording here https://youtu.be/F2PTz5kvC_o

25/06 - Lecture 10: The Sun (online) https://youtu.be/kaVqsGRmX7c

29/06 - Handson 10: No exercise

02/07 - Lecture 11: Helioseismology

05/07 - Handson 11: Various Problems

Git Repo Organization:

/slides folder has the lecture (and, when needed, exercise) .pdfs

/handson folder has the jupyter notebooks, python scripts and other needed software (also very small data files)

datafiles will be hosted elsewhere as needed