Stellar Structure and Stellar Evolution (Astronomy 411)
Mike Guidry
Fall, 2023
guidry@utk.edu (Office: South College 308)
http://eagle.phys.utk.edu/guidry/astro411/
Class Meeting Times
12:55-2:10 pm, Tuesday and Thursday, 306 Nielsen Physics.
Grade
Homework 30% (graded for completeness, not correctness, but solutions will be provided). 100% for homework turned in on time and complete. I reserve the option of assigning partial credit for late or incomplete assignments. Here is the homework assignment schedule. Note that this assignment schedule could be adjusted some as the semester proceeds, so you should always consult the online schedule before doing homework problems.
Midterm Test 35%
Final Test 35%
Optional Extra Credit
Up to 5 points added to final average for a presentation relevant to the subject matter of the class in a recognized seminar at UT, ORNL, or another relevant institution. Topic can be journal-club or research in nature. You must notify me of your intentions beforehand, so that I can approve the topic and schedule to attend.
Textbook:
Stars and Stellar Processes, Mike Guidry (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Chapters in lecture display format. These are the slides that I will use in lecture. They are a condensed version of the book content.
Lecture Attendance:
Most of the material for this course is available in the book and online. Therefore, some will be tempted to skip class. PLEASE DO NOT. We cannot have a very meaningful discussion in class if many people are missing, and class discussion is a major part of the learning experience. So I expect you to attend lectures and participate in discussion. I will use carrots and sticks to enforce this policy. A carrot is that I am asking nicely for you to attend class. A stick is that if we do not have full participation in class I will implement policies that will lower the grade (potentially significantly) of those who are skipping class by modifying the grading procedure given above to include a participation component. (For example, arriving at a participation component of the grade by taking attendance like in kindergarten, pop quizzes, gauging participation in class discussion, ....)
Turning in Assignments:
We will handle all assignments (problems and tests) electronically. Since a large number of assignments must be processed, you are asked to adhere to this set of rules concerning turning in your homework and test assignments.
Student Conferences
I don't have set office hours but you may request an appointment at any time. Depending on circumstances student conferences may be held in my office, or conducted over ZOOM.
Supplemental:
Potentially useful Maple worksheets and tutorials (binary files, so transfer to your machine and open with Maple). The tutorials were written by others, not by me. The standalone Maple worksheets are mostly mine. Some may be not completely debugged and tested, so they have worked as tested but they are offered as-is with no warranties. UT has site licenses for Maple, MatLab, and Mathematica (see https://webapps.utk.edu/oit/softwaredistribution/). All are useful for problems of the sort encountered in this course and I encourage you to learn to use them if you haven't already. The free online resource WolframAlpha is also potentially useful for problems in this course. The free graphics package gnuplot is highly recommended for general scientific computing and graphics.
Also available are Supplemental tables and compilations that may be useful, particularly for working some problems.
Students with Disabilities
Any student who feels they may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact Student Disability Services in Dunford Hall, at 865-974-6087, or by video relay at, 865-622-6566, to coordinate reasonable academic accommodations.