Book: Elements of Astrophysics
A comprehensive set of lecture notes by Nick Kaiser
Elements of Astrophysics
Lectures on Astrophysics
Lecture 1: Introduction 1
Contents:
- Electromagnetic Radiation
- Telescopes and Detectors
- Description of Radiation
Lecture 2: Introduction 2
Contents:
- Radiation Emission
- Radiation and absorption by atoms and molecules
- Steller atmospheres and spectra
- Saha’s equation for equilibrium ionisation and excitation for a plasma
Lecture 3: Stars and Steller Evolution
Contents:
- Hydrostatic Equilibrium
- The Main Sequence
- Stellar evolution
- White dwarfs
Lecture 4: The Interstellar Medium
Contents:
- The ISM: what is it? where is it found? what is its physical state?
- The ‘two-phase medium’ model
- Mapping the MW with neutral hydrogen 21cm emission
- Pulsar dispersion and Faraday rotation
- Kolmogorov theory of turbulence
- Scintillation
- Statistics of random fields
Lecture 5: The Milky Way and the Local Group
Contents:
- Star Clusters and Stellar Populations
- Weighing the Disk
- Dark matter from the rotaion curve of the Milky Way
- Mass of Milky Way from the Local Group “timing argument”
- Peeble’s dynamical analysis of the Local Group using the principle of least action
- What is the dark matter?
Lecture 6: Galaxies
Contents:
- Type of Galaxies
- Newtonian Gravity
- Galactic Dynamics
- Galactic Evolution