Oxford Physics Major Option C1: Astrophysics

Advanced Stellar Astrophysics

(Dr Ph. Podsiadlowski)

• Background material for basic stellar structure and evolution:

Summary: The Structure and Evolution of Stars

• Stellar explosions (including supernovae and gamma-ray bursts):

Chapter: Supernovae and Gamma-Ray Bursts

• The evolution of binary systems (basic binary physics and mass transfer, including X-ray binaries, etc.):

Chapter: The Evolution of Binary Systems

• Gravitational-wave astronomy (updated yearly):

The Formation of Massive Black-Hole and Neutron-Star Binaries: Understanding the aLIGO detections (2018; Movies: The Merger of Two Black Holes, Gravitational Wave Structure)

• Review talk on star formation (going well beyond the course material):

Star Formation (Talk by Ralf Klessen, Heidelberg 04/2012)

Outline of lectures

The following links contain slides from previous versions of the course, many of which are still being used and may be useful for background reading.

• Lectures 1/2: (pdf files: B/W, colour)

Evolution of massive stars; supernovae: explosion mechanisms, classification, supernova lightcurves, supernova kicks, Type Ia supernovae and their use as cosmological candles, supernova progenitors.  (Supplementary Material (SNe Ia, SN 1987A, superluminous SNe, etc.)

• Lectures 2/3: (pdf files: B/W, colour)

Compact objects: neutron stars, black holes, radio pulsars, pulsar spindown,  the origin of millisecond pulsars, the Black-Widow pulsar

• Lectures 4: (pdf files: B/W, colour)

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and hypernovae (HNe): history and basic properties, the cosmological origin, the fireball model and relativistic beaming, the GRB/HN connection, progenitor models, unsolved problems. Supplementary Material (Gravitational Waves)

• Lectures 5/6: (pdf files: B/W, colour)

X-ray binaries: low-/high-mass X-ray binaries: formation of X-ray binaries, magnetic and non-magnetic accretion, accretion discs, the formation of double neutron-star binaries, ultraluminous sources

• Lecture 7 (not covered since 2012/13): (pdf files: B/W, colour)

The origin of the elements: primordial nucleosynthesis, stellar and explosive nucleosynthesis, the s- and r-process, light elements

• Lecture 8/9: (pdf files: B/W, colour)

Star formation: observations, cloud collapse, the Jeans mass, protostar accretion, the angular-momentum and magnetic field problems, dynamical star formation, the first stars

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