Advanced Stellar Evolution, Spring 2011, Third Quarter

Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard

See the end.

This page gives access to Ugesedler from this course, as gzipped postscipt and pdf files.

Additional relevant material will appear as links later.

Lectures:

Monday, 10.15 - 12, room 1520-516.
Wednesday, 10.15 - 12, room 1520-516.

First time: 24 January

Note: Since I am away, the first lectures (24 and 26 January) will be given by Hans Fynbo and Nikolaj Zinner.

These lectures will deal with nuclear processes in stellar interiors, Kippenhahn & Weigert Chapter 18.

Textbooks:

Kippenhahn & Weigert: Stellar Structure and evolution
Christensen-Dalsgaard: Lecture Notes on Stellar Structure and Evolution, 6th Edition

Ugesedler

Ugeseddel No. 1 and 2: Gzipped postscript file. PDF file.
Power-point presentation for Hans Fynbo's lecture
Power-point presentation for Nikolaj Zinner's lecture
Ugeseddel No. 3: Gzipped postscript file. PDF file.
Power-point presentation on convection and composition changes
Ugeseddel No. 4: Gzipped postscript file. PDF file.
Note on equation of state
Ugeseddel No. 5: Gzipped postscript file. PDF file.
Note on solar neutrinos
Power-point presentation on solar properties
Power-point presentation on main-sequence evolution
Ugeseddel No. 6: Gzipped postscript file. PDF file.
Power-point presentation on post-main-sequence evolution
Ugeseddel No. 7: Gzipped postscript file. PDF file.
Updated power-point presentation on post-main-sequence evolution
Power-point presentation on supernova explosions
Power-point presentation on white dwarfs
As mentioned in the Ugeseddel Iben (1985; Ql. J. Roy. astron. Soc., 26, 1) has given a more detailed (and likely more up-to-date) description of the processes associated with the thermal pulses. See in particular Figure 13 (also as PDF file) and Figure 14 (also as PDF file) of the paper.

Evaluation of the course

As mentioned previously, the course will be evaluated based on reports on topics related to the course. A list of possible topics, with relevant references, are available here as a gzipped postscript file and a PDF file.

Note that the following links are useful to search for, and download, the papers that you need for the project:

The ADS (Astrophysics Data System) Server maintained by the Smithsonian Institution and NASA. This gives links to a huge number of astrophysical papers, either in current journals or (for slightly older papers) scanned.
astro-ph: a comprehensive and much used astrophysical preprint server.
The IFA library, with access to IFA's electronic journals. Note also the campus list of e-journals, which is much more extensive but less convenient.

Some comments on convection

The weaknesses of the mixing-length treatment of convection, discussed in the lectures, are obvious. Although more sophisticated formulations have been proposed, the best way to gain insight into stellar convection is undoubtedly to carry out numerical simulations that are as realistic as possible. Perhaps the best simulations of this nature have been made by Åke Nordlund, Copenhagen and Bob Stein, Michigan. Nordlund has made avaiable material from several recent talks on the internet; these sites can be recommended as a starting point for learning about the more realistic behaviour of convection. In addition, Nordlund's pages contain links to some of his papers. See:

Talk in Lund, 2001.
Talk at Meudon, 1999.
Talk in Granada, 1998.
Talk in Kyoto, 1997.
A good recent review on convection is:
Nordlund, Stein & Asplund (2009): Solar surface convection, Living Reviews in Solar Physics, 5, 2.
Other papers by Nordlund and his collaborators.

Handouts

Consistent approximate equations of state : Gzipped postscript file. PDF file.
Section 5.2 of Solar structure and evolution by Christensen-Dalsgaard, in preparation for publication in Living Reviews in Solar Physics. This gives an up-to-date discussion of the studies of solar neutrinos. PDF file.

Complexity of stellar modelling

This diagram illustrates the complex interactions between the different aspects of reasonably realistic stellar modelling (see Mathis & Zahn (2005; A&A 440, 653); Zahn (2008; Proc. IAU Symp. 252, p. 47)). We are still far from a complete understanding of stellar structure and evolution.

Last updated by Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard on Wednesday, 9 March, 2011 at 13:09