ASTRONOMY 5630

EXTRAGALACTIC ASTRONOMY

Fall 2018

TIME AND LOCATION: Tuesday, Thursday, 2:00-3:15pm, Astronomy 265

INSTRUCTOR: Mark Whittle

OFFICE HOURS: Room 216, Astronomy Building, M, 11:00-12:00 (please email first); Telephone 924-4900 ; email: dmw8f@virginia.edu

WEB PAGE: http://people.virginia.edu/~dmw8f/astr5630/
(The UVa Collab web page points to this; but use it for, e.g., anonymous feedback if you wish)

TEXTBOOKS:

The following primary text covers much of the material, though in a sequence rather different from the one we'll take (I designed my course before the text was published). In practice, my web notes (found at the above address) form the primary material, and I expect you to have looked over them before each class.

Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology: An Introduction (2nd edition) by Peter Schneider (Springer) (PS)

I have put a number of other books on reserve which you may also find useful.

Galactic Astronomy by Binney and Merrifield (B&M)
Galactic Dynamics by Binney and Tremaine (2nd edition) (B&T II)
An Introduction to Active Galactic Nuclei by Peterson
Galaxies in the Universe by Sparke and Gallagher
Galaxies and Galactic Structure by Elmergreen

Note, you can find Errata for B&M and S&G

COURSE CONTENT : The pair of classes, 5630 & 5640, aim to survey extragalactic astronomy and cosmology at a level suitable for graduate and senior undergraduate astronomy students.

Topics emphasized in 5630 include: morphological, photometric and dynamical properties of normal galaxies; Star formation; galaxy interactions, groups and clusters; galaxy nuclei and AGN.

Topics emphasized in 5640 include: Cosmology and the high-redshift universe.

While ASTR 5630 is a core course and is taught every two years, ASTR 5640 is an elective and will be taught every four years.

A more specific list of the 20 topics we shall cover is given in the Course Outline Page.

PREREQUISITES : Some astronomy, physics and math background will be assumed, comparable to ASTR 1220/2120, MATH 1320/2310/3255 and PHYS 1710/1720/2620/3210. However, since one aim of this course is to touch on many topics, we will not have time to develop any topic in great mathematical or physical depth. Consequently, I am hoping that the course will be relatively accessible (for example, keen 3rd or 4th year undergraduates should be able to do fine).

Some homework problems require modest familiarity with a programming language (e.g. Fortran, C, IDL, Python). Mathematica, while useful for a number of things, isn't really suited to some of the problems.

REQUIREMENTS : There are two requirements for completing this course.

There will be a number of homework assignments throughout the semester, with appropriately specified deadlines. The home-works together will comprise 70% of the final grade.
A final exam comprises 30% of the final grade.

HONOR CODE: As with all courses at UVa, all your graded work is subject to the Honor Code. Of course, I expect you will be discussing the homework material together, but when it comes to writing up your answers, this is expected to be exclusively your own work.