Astronomy and Astrophysics Honours Courses 2009/2010
[Astronomy and Astrophysics Group: Maths] [Mt Stromlo Observatory] [Physics]

Important: read Submission Guidelines from the College of Physical Sciences

Start and Thesis Submission Dates:

Beginning of year Honours: 2nd February 2009 - 30th October 2009

Mid year Honours: 6th July 2009 - 7th May 2010

Please note that some of the 1st semester honours courses may run into the semester break

HONOURS COURSE WORK RULES:

50% of the honours assessment in Astronomy & Astrophysics is for a research project. Students are required to do 24 points of coursework for the other 50% of their honours assessment. Up to 24 points (in 6 point quanta) are to be selected from the following table. ASTR3002, ASTR3007 and EMSC3022 may be taken if not already taken as a third year subject. Some courses (e.g. Diffuse Matter in the Universe, High Energy Astrophysics, Astrophysical gas Dynamics) may be given in alternate years. A student who misses these courses in 4th year may take them as a graduate course in the following year. Additional 6 cp units may be selected from suitable units in Physics or Maths subject to approval by the Astronomy & Astrophysics Honours Convenor. Possible examples include: A unit from the Honours Physics program. One of the Computational Modelling units in the Bachelor of Computational Science Honours Program. One of the units in the Mathematics Honours program For the Honours degree, students have to take 5 courses in total. This can be either all five courses offered by RSAA (see below) or equivalent honours courses from Geology, Physics or Math.

A minimum of three courses offered by RSAA have to be taken.

Course work counts 50% towards the final honours mark. The Honours thesis has a 50% weight.

High Energy Astrophysics - 6CP

Taught by Prof Geoff Bicknell

Will be offered 1st Semester 2010. For more details, contact Geoff Bicknell


Stellar Evolution, Pulsation and Nucleosynthesis - 3CP

Lecturers: Dr Stefan Keller, Dr Amanda Karakas and Prof Peter Wood


Will be offered 1st Semester 2010 as part of ASTR3007

Times and Venue: TBD, for venue details click ASTR3007 website

Assessment: TBD

Syllabus: Observational properties, luminosity, temperature, radius, mass, color-magnitude diagram, Physics of stars, Star formation and stellar evolution, Stellar energy sources - thermonuclear reactions, Production of elements in the big bangProduction of elements by charged particle reactions - to the iron peak, Production of heavy elements by neutron addition - the r- and s-processes, the various types of pulsating starsThe adiabatic pulsation equation and the pulsation periods of stars, Determination of astronomical properties (distance, mass) using pulsating stars.

Web site
This general information and the assignments will be available at:
http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~wood/Lectures.html

Galaxies in the Universe - 3CP

Taught by Dr Helmut Jerjen

Will be offered in 1st Semester 2010 as part of ASTR3007

Times and Venue: TBD, for venue details click ASTR3007 website

Assessment: 3 assignments

Syllabus: The nature of the Milky Way, galaxy classification. Galactic centre, stellar structure, gas, interstellar medium. Photometric and physical properties, principle of star formation history. Surface brightness profiles and fundamental scaling relations. Dark matter. Tully-Fisher relation and other distance indicators. Galactic dynamics: gravitating systems of stars and dark matter particles. Potential theory and stellar orbits. Galaxy environments: Local Group, clusters and large-scale structure, growth of clusters, galaxy luminosity function. Galaxy interactions: super massive black holes, active galaxies, tidal dwarfs. High redshift universe: galaxy formation and evolution, active galactic nuclei and QSOs.

Text books: Galactic Astronomy (Binney & Merrifield) Galaxy Dynamics (Binney & Tremaine), Galaxies in the Universe (Sparke & Gallager)

For details, contact Helmut Jerjen

Cosmology - 3CP

Taught by Prof Brian Schmidt

Will be offered 2nd Semester 2009 as part of ASTR3002

Times and Venue: TBD, for venue details click ASTR3002 website

Assessment: assignments

Syllabus: The expanding universe and cosmological models.

For details, contact Brian Schmidt

Stellar Astrophysics and Dynamics - 3CP

Taught by Dr Lilia Ferrario

Will be offered in 2nd Semester 2010 as part of ASTR3002

Observational Techniques - 3CP

Taught by Dr Peter McGregor

1st semester 2009

Time: TBD

Venue: Duffield lecture Theater or Woolley seminar room.

Assessment: TBD

Time Table and Syllabus: TBD

Planetary Geology (EMSC3022) - 6CP

Taught by Prof Trevor Ireland from the Department of Earth and Marine Sciences

Starting date: 2nd semester 2009

For all details (starting date, venue, assessment etc.) see the webpage of EMSC3022 or contact Trevor Ireland

Utility Courses

These short (2-8 lectures) courses are NOT part of the Honours program but shall help honours students with Unix, LaTeX, BibTex, Literature Review, Writing, etc.. They are regularly offered by the Graduate Information Literacy Program at ANU. Please see their webpages for more information.

Last updated: August 2009.
Maintainer: Helmut Jerjen (RSAA Honours Convener)