Physics 718: High Energy Astrophysics

Spring 2019, David Kaplan, John Friendman

Lectures: Monday/Wednesday 12:30pm-1:45pm, KIRC 1180 Attendance and participation at lectures is required.

Lecturers:

Prof. David Kaplan
- Office: KIRC 4075
- Office hours: by appointment
- Email: kaplan@uwm.edu
- Phone: 414-229-4971
Prof. John Friedman
- Office: KIRC 4189
- Office hours: Tues/Thur 11am-12pm or by appointment
- Email: friedman@uwm.edu
- Phone: 414-229-4476

Course Description: This is a graduate-level class in high energy astrophysics, concentrating on compact objects (white dwarfs, black holes, and neutron stars).

Course Website: http://www.gravity.uwm.edu/~kaplan/phys718/
Lecture notes, reading assignments, and problem sets will be posted there.

Course Textbook:
Black Holes, White Dwarfs, and Neutron Stars, by Shapiro and Teukolsky (Wiley, 1983)
978-0471873174
$68

We will also use a set of class notes and The Physics of Stars, by A. C. Phillips. Additional books that might be useful:

Accretion Power in Astrophysics, by Frank, King, & Raine
High Energy Astrophysics, by Malcolm S. Longair
An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Carroll & Ostlie
Rotating Relativistic Stars by Friedman & Stergioulas
Gravitation (Misner, Thorne & Wheeler), General Relativity (Wald), A First Course in General Relativity (Schutz), or Gravitation & Cosmology (Weinberg)

Resources:
Much material will be related to the modern astrophysical literature. You will need to read papers, and the usual place to start is ADS:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html
or their newer interface:
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu//#
You can search by author, title, keyword, object, etc.
After you find a paper you can click on the links to read it. Note that some papers are published in journals that you cannot read from home. Most modern papers, though, are also listed at:
https://arxiv.org
where you can read them for free. [Note that most papers will use cgs units. Be careful!]

Evaluation:

Problem sets (roughly biweekly): 70%; lowest grade will be dropped. You are encouraged to discuss the problem sets with each other but are not allowed to copy each other.
Final Project: 30%. The final project will entail a 1-page project proposal that is due on March 11 that must include expected sources, an in-class oral presentation (20 minutes), and a final written report.

Handouts:

Problem Sets:

Problem Set 1 (due 8 Feb)
1. data file
Problem Set 2 (due 25 Feb)
Problem Set 3 (due 11 Mar)