Modern Astronomy (honours)

Moderne sterrenkunde (honours)

Course manual 2024/2025

Course content

This course elaborates on the physical implications and the theoretical background of a number of interesting and topical issues ('hot topics') in astronomy. Examples of topics include the search for Earth-like planets and life, apparently faster than light travel, supermassive stars, gravitational lenses, the nature of dark matter, the expanding universe.

The topics covered will vary based on the teacher and recent developments in the field, such as new fundamental breakthroughs that lend themselves to discussion.  Each week will have 1 lecture and 1 tutorial session of 2 contact hours each.  Active participation and discussion, particularly in the tutorials, will be part of the assessment. 

In 2025 the focus will be on the gravitational wave astrophysics, in particular how we have come to prove the existence of a binary black hole and neutron star mergers, and to understand their origin as well as how to characterise them.   We will discuss the types of observations and models needed to retrieve black hole and neutron star parameters, as well as the experimental efforts to detect gravitational waves. In the context of binary neutron star mergers and multi-messenger astronomy, we will focus on combining gravitational wave information with light from across the electromagnetic spectrum and from telescopes on the ground as well as in space.   We will track the historical development of our understanding of gravity and black holes and neutron stars, to cutting edge research where we can not only study strongly curved dynamical spacetimes, but also use these systems for cosmology and for nuclear astrophysics. 

Study materials

Syllabus

• Powerpoint lecture notes

Other

• Various articles, videos and websites for reference

Objectives

• Discuss some of the most fundamental problems in modern astronomy.
• Describe methods that can contribute to answering these topics.
• Understand how to gather and interpret information about current research on these topics.
• Perform order-of-magnitude estimates to build intuition about physical problems.

Teaching methods

• Hoorcollege
• Werkcollege

Lectures, tutorials and discussions

Learning activities

Attendance

Programme's requirements concerning attendance (TER-B):

• Each student is expected to participate actively in each component of the programme that he/she signed up for. A student that does not attend the first two seminars of a course, will be administratively removed from the seminar group. A request for reregistration for the seminars can be applied to the programme coordinator.
• If a student cannot attend an obligatory component of a programme's component due to circumstances beyond his control, he must report in writing to the relevant teacher as soon as possible. The teacher, if necessary after consulting the study adviser, may decide to issue the student a replacing assignment.
• It is not allowed to miss obligatory commponents of the programme if there is no case of circumstances beyond one's control.
• In case of participating qualitatively or quantitatively insufficiently, the examiner can expel a student from further participation in the programme's component or a part of that component. Conditions for sufficient participation are set down in advance in the course manual.
• In addition to the above mentioned rules, in the first semester of the first year a student should be present in at least 80% of the seminars. Moreover, participation to midterm tests and obligatory homework is required. If the student does not comply with these obligations, the student is expelled from the resit of this course. Students in the double Bachelor's degree programme Mathematics and Physics are exempted from this requirement. In case of personal circumstances, as described in OER-A Article A-6.4, a different study plan will be made in consultation with the study advisor.

Additional requirements for this course:

• Absence needs to be communicated to the course teaching assistant

Assessment

Fraud and plagiarism

The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl

Course structure

Additional information

Dit vak is uitsluitend bedoeld voor honoursstudenten of studenten met een bijzondere belangstelling voor het onderwerp. Houdt er rekening mee dat het tempo van het vak hoog ligt.

Contact information

Coordinator

• dr. S.M. Nissanke

Teaching Assistant: Ms. Selah Melfor