LECTURES AND READING ASSIGMENTS
HW Assignments will be posted on sakai and are due before 5:00PM on Friday of the week indicated (unless otherwise noted)
Reading Assignments are from the required course textbook by Rosswog and Bruggen (R&B) or the optional texts by Longair and Courvoisier (S means section, C means full chapter)
You may find this text useful too: "An introduction to modern astrophysics" by Carroll & Ostlie (C&O), which is also available on-line.
| Week of | Topics | Reading Assignment |
| Aug 30 |
(L01) Overview of HEA science; (L02) Special relativity review |
Courv. S:1.1-1.2, Long. C:1 R&B C:1 |
| Sep 6 |
(L03) Units, collisions, ionization losses (No class on Tues) |
R&B S:2.1; Long. S:2.1-2.4 |
| Sep 13 |
(L04) Ionization Losses/Radiation basics (L05) Photon interactions with matter |
R&B S:3.1-3.4; Long. S:4.1-4.3.2, 4.4, 4.7 |
| Sep 20 |
(L06) High Energy Detectors; (L07) Telescopes |
Courv. S:1.3-1.5; R&B Appendix A Long. S:6.4-6.5,7.3-7.5 |
| Sep 27 |
(L08) Thermal equilibrium; (L09) Thermal Emission/Bremsstrahlung |
R&B S:2.5 R&B S:3.8.1; Courv. C:3; Long. C:3 |
| Oct 5 |
(L10) Basic cosmology/Clusters of galaxies (L11) Cluster surveys/Scaling laws | C&O C:29; Courv. S:3.5 |
| Oct 12 |
(L12) Cluster mass function/mergers
Supernova classification (L13) Supernovae mechanisms |
Courv. S:3.5 R&B S:2.5,4.1-4.3 |
| Oct 19 |
(L14) Shocks and Supernova Remnants First midterm exam (Thursday) | R&B S:2.7,2.9 |
| Oct 26 |
(L15) Supernova Remnant Spectra (L16) Blackbody Radiation |
R&B S:4.4.1, Courv. S:3.4 R&B S:3.5 |
| Nov 2 |
(L17) Compact Objects (Dead stars) (L18) Neutron Stars and Black Holes |
C&O C:15; R&B S:5.5-5.6 R&B 5.7-5.8; Courv. S:13.1.2,12.3 |
| Nov 9 |
(L19) Black Holes/Binary systems (L20) Motion around Black Holes |
R&B S:6.1-6.3; Courv. C:16 R&B pp.193-194,220-222; Courv. S.12.4-12.5 |
| Nov 16 |
Accretion Synchrotron radiation |
R&B S:8.3.3-8.3.5, pp.227-230; Courv. C:10,11 R&B 3.8.2; Courv. C:5 |
| Nov 23 |
Second midterm exam (No class on Thursday) Happy Thanksgiving! | ... |
| Nov 30 |
Particle Acceleration Pulsars and wind nebulae |
R&B S:2.8 R&B S:5.1-5.4 |
| Dec 7 |
Compton processes Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect in clusters | R&B S:3.8.3; Courv. C:6,7 |
Please send any comments to Jack Hughes, jph //at\\ physics.rutgers.edu.
Revised Nov 13, 2020