1 Astronomy 383C Stellar Atmospheres Fall 2006 Unique Number 50560 Meetings MWF 11 00 AM 11 50 AM in RLM 15 216B Instructor Chris Sneden RLM 15 310A normally enter 15 312 Office Phone 471 1349 Home Phone 343 0004 e mail chris verdi as utexas edu office hours MWF 2 00 PM 3 00 PM Text None Recommended D F Gray The Observation and Analysis of Stellar Photospheres either the 2nd or new 3rd edition Suggested G W Collins The Fundamentals of Stellar Astrophysics Suggested W K Rose Advanced Stellar Astrophysics Suggested C R Cowley The Theory of Stellar Spectra Grading out of class assignments 60 of grade Hour tests 2 of them 40 Subject Matter Goals and Miscellaneous Comments Astronomy 383C is a graduate level course on stellar atmospheres The official course description is broad Observational properties of stellar atmospheres theoretical calculations of stellar atmospheres and stellar spectra The prerequisites for AST 383C are graduate standing and consent of instructor I will assume that you have either had or are currently enrolled in AST 380E Radiative Processes and Radiative Transfer so that we can plunge into the stellar atmospheres material without too much delay I realize that the timing of this course would be better after having had AST 380E but the same could be said of most grad courses that our department offers so that s life My bias in this course I regard AST 383C as one link between the basic often elegant physics that you have ingested and the real often messy world of stellar astronomical Astro 383C Sneden 50560 2 research The assignments will not tax your mathematical abilities I am not an astrophysicist as the term is usually meant that is I am not a theorist I am an observational astronomer and proud of it Thus the stellar atmospheres work in this course will have a strong observational bias to it This can be seen in the suggested books which do not include as a prominent example the very theoretical Stellar Atmospheres 2nd Edition by Mihalas It can also be understood by some of the assignments to be worked on investigations of photometric systems derivation of the chemical compositions of stars the computations of model stellar atmospheres etc I will be pacing this course as interests dictate as the semester progresses and the topics to be covered are therefore not assigned time lines in the list below Course Topics Sketch subject to revision 1 Reminders of Basic Quantities of Radiation intensity flux blackbodies 2 Overview of Large Scale Observational Properties of Stars luminosity effective temperature color indices classification spectroscopy the Hertzsprung Russell diagram stellar masses 3 Radiative transfer as applied to stellar atmospheres 4 Basic principles of model atmosphere construction 5 Photospheric spectral line formation 6 Chemical composition analysis my personal favorite 7 Stellar winds mass loss