Instructor: Prof.
Geoff Marcy
Office: Building D Hearst Field Annex
E-mail: gmarcy{at}berkeley.edu
Class time: 12:30-2:00, Tue and Thu, Evans Room 3
Class Overview: This
course is about the Physics of Stars, including their formation,
structure, and their changes as they age. The course will include
physics that govern the energy generation, the energy transport, and
the eventual energy release from stars as light. The course will
describe how the quantum physics of atoms and molecules govern the
emission, absorption, and scattering of photons, ultimately producing
the spectral energy distribution of light that emerges from a star.
The course also covers, stellar oscillations and asteroseismology,
accretions disks supernovae, neutron stars, and black holes. The
course also covers the structure of brown dwarfs and planets. There
will be at least two projects involving students writing computer code
to simulate complex astrophysics.
Lecture topics will follow the text by
LeBlanc: Chapters 1-6.
Prerequisites:
Physics 7C
Grading:
The Astronomy Department's Policy on Academic Misconduct is here.
Homework
is due in class at 12:30 each Thursday, starting Sept. 5
Write your name
and section number on each homework and please staple your sheets
together.
The homework questions can be
discussed with your classmates but must be written up
individually.
Late homework will not be
accepted. Your lowest
homework grade will, however, be dropped in determining your final grade.
Exam Dates (midterms are held in class):
Course Topics:
Note: Not all of the material in each of
the assigned chapters can or will be covered in lecture.
You are, however, responsible for the
material in the chapters.
It may be useful for the homework problems.