ASTR 406. Astronomical Techniques (3). Emphasis will be on acquisition of direct imaging and/or spectroscopic data and its subsequent reduction. Principles of optics applied to astronomical telescopes and instrumentation. Modern detector technology. Computational techniques will also be explored through projects emphasizing modeling of data, dynamical simulations of star clusters emphasizing modeling of data, dynamical simulations of star clusters and galaxies, or astronomical database mining.
ASTR 411. Stellar Physics (3). Radiative transfer, atomic and molecular opacities, and the observable properties of stars. Stellar interiors, nuclear processes, and energy generation. The evolution of stars of varying mass and production of the elements within supernovae explosions.
ASTR 423. The Local Universe (3). The Milky Way Galaxy. Galaxy populations. Quantitative structure and dynamics of galaxies. The interstellar media of galaxies. Dark matter and stellar populations. The Local Group and Virgo cluster.
ASTR 428. Cosmology and the Structure of the Universe (3). Distances to galaxies. The content of the distant universe. Large scale structure and galaxy clusters. Physical cosmology. Structure and galaxy formation and evolution. Testing cosmological models.
ASTR 433. Dark Matter (3). Evidence for dark matter in the universe. Gravitational dynamics, gravitational lensing, rotation curves, Oort limit, stellar dynamics. Galaxy clusters, growth of structure, the microwave background. Baryonic and non-baryonic dark matter candidates. Alternate gravity models.
ASTR 497. Special Topics in Astronomy (1-3). Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
ASTR 601. Research (credit as arranged).
ASTR 701. Dissertation (Ph.D.) (credit as arranged).
ASTR 702. Dissertation (Ph.D.) (credit as arranged).