Oxford Physics Major Option C1: Astrophysics

Advanced Stellar Astrophysics

(Dr Ph. Podsiadlowski)

• Summary: The Structure and Evolution of Stars

• Chapter: Supernovae and Gamma-Ray Bursts (to appear soon)

• Chapter: The Evolution of Binary Systems

• Outline of lectures

•  Problem Set 4 (2007)
  

•  Problem Set 5 (MT 2005, updated)
  

• 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
  



• 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
  



• 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 X-ray sources
  



• Lecture 7: (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
  


Homepage