Syllabus for |
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| ERR125 - Radio astrophysics |
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| Owner: RAMAS |
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3,5 Credits (ECTS 5,25) |
| Grading: TH - Five, Four, Three, Not passed |
| Level: A |
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Department: 75 - EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCES
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Teaching language: English
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Credit distribution |
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Examination dates |
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Sp1 |
Sp2 |
Sp3 |
Sp4 |
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No Sp |
| 0196 |
Examination |
3,5 c |
Grading: TH |
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3,5 c
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19 Dec 2006 am V, |
12 Apr 2007 am V, |
31 Aug 2007 am V |
In programs
TTFYA ENGINEERING PHYSICS, Year 4 (elective)
RAMAS MSc PROGRAMME IN ADVANCED TECHNIQUES IN RADIO ASTRONOMY AND SPACE SCIENCE, Year 1 (compulsory)
TELTA ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING, Year 4 (elective)
Examiner:
Professor
John Black
Eligibility:
For single subject courses within Chalmers programmes the same eligibility requirements apply, as to the programme(s) that the course is part of.
Aim
Radio Astrophysics, the study and interpretation of the radio emission
from cosmic objects, has provided a minor revolution in astronomy in the
last 40 years. Not only the detection of the remnant radiation from the
primordial 'big-bang' but the exciting and important fields of interstellar
molecules, cosmic masers, pulsars, gravitational lenses and active galactic
nuclei all lie in the realm of radio astronomy. This course will
describe current knowledge of all of these fascinating phenomena as well as
the observational methods used to determine their properties.
Content
* Overview of radio astronomy techniques: Radio telescopes, receivers, etc.
* Fundamental quantities: Brightness, flux den-sity, brightness temperature, antenna tempera-ture. Emission and absorption of radiation, optical depth. The equation of radiative transfer.
* Emission mechanisms: Thermal or free-free emission - HII regions. Non thermal or synchrotron radiation - supernovae, quasars. Line radiation - interstellar hydrogen and the molecules.
* The Galaxy: Discrete radio sources in the Galaxy - HII regions, supernova remnants, radio stars. Continuum background radiation. Polarisation measurements and the Galactic magnetic field. Line radiation from neutral hydrogen and Galactic dynamics.
* High temporal resolution: The pulsars, their association with SNRs; millisecond pulsars; binary pulsars; spin-up; pulsars and neutron stars; pulsars and planets.
* High frequency resolution: Molecular line observations in astronomy. Millimetre wave astronomy. Interstellar molecules and their associations - stellar birth and death. Interstellar masers. Molecules in external galaxies. Luminous IR galaxies and the galaxy-quasar connection. Interstellar molecules and the evolution of life in space.
* High spatial resolution: Radio interferometers - MERLIN and the Very Large Array, Very Long Baseline Interferometry. The concept of spatial frequency - imaging with interferometer arrays. Observational properties of radio galaxies and quasars - superluminal motion. The unified theory of radio sources - radio galaxies and quasars.
* Cosmological importance: The 3K background radiation and its isotropy - the COBE satellite, ground based measurements, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. Gravitational lensing. Quasar evolution and the red shift. The Tulley-Fisher relation and the Hubble constant.
Organisation
Lectures and problem solving sessions.
A laboratory assignment at Onsala Space
Observatory
Literature
Lecture notes and Rohlfs and Wilson, K.: Tools of Radio Astronomy 3rd ed., Springer Verlag
Examination
Written exam