Course finder
Semester 2
Astrophysics: Galaxies and Cosmology (PHYS10112)
Course Website
www.learn.ed.ac.uk
Subject
Physics and Astronomy
College
SCE
Credits
20
Normal Year Taken
4
Delivery Session Year
2023/2024
Pre-requisites
Course Summary
This course begins from a premise of no prior knowledge or experience of Astrophysics, but a solid background in both Physics and Mathematics. Students are introduced first to the nature of galaxies through examination of our own Milky Way. The course then considers other galaxies in the nearby Universe, before extended to cosmological distances and considering the evolution of galaxies across cosmic time. The latter part of the course introduces the principles of cosmology and the nature and evolution of the Universe as a whole. The course is a core course for all Astrophysics students in Semester 2 of Senior Honours, and is designed to be accessible to students in all other degree programmes within the School of Physics & Astronomy. The course is self-contained, but is also intended to link naturally with the Astrophysics: Stars and Planets course which runs in Semester 1. Taken together, these two courses should provide students with a solid, balanced, physics-based understanding of the structure of our Universe, and our place within space and time.
Course Description
- Interstellar extinction- Stroemgren spheres- Thermal balance in the Interstellar medium- The Milky Way galaxy- Normal galaxies: morphology, gas/stellar content and dynamics - Active galaxies: the AGN zoo, supermassive black holes as the central power source, the unified model- The distance scale: the cosmic distance ladder, distance measures within the Milky Way, extra-galactic distance measures, Hubble's Law- The galaxy distribution: number counts and luminosity functions, the local group, large-scale structure, galaxy clusters- Galaxy evolution: basics of galaxy evolution models, selection and properties of high-redshift galaxy populations, evolution of cosmic star-formation rate and stellar-mass density.- The assumptions underpinning the Big Bang cosmological model- The Robertson-Walker spacetime and light propagation within it- The dynamics and expansion histories of cosmological models dominated by different perfect fluids- The thermal history of the Universe- The inhomogeneous Universe: the growth of structure and the derivation of cosmological constraints from it- The "problems" of the Big Bang model.
Assessment Information
Written Exam 100%, Coursework 0%, Practical Exam 0%
Additional Assessment Information
100% Exam
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