Salaris / Cassisi Evolution of Stars and Stellar Populations

1. Auflage 2005
ISBN: 978-0-470-09222-4
Verlag: John Wiley & Sons
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 386 Seiten, E-Book

Evolution of Stars and Stellar Populations is a comprehensivepresentation of the theory of stellar evolution and its applicationto the study of stellar populations in galaxies. Taking a uniqueapproach to the subject, this self-contained text introduces firstthe theory of stellar evolution in a clear and accessible manner,with particular emphasis placed on explaining the evolution withtime of observable stellar properties, such as luminosities andsurface chemical abundances. This is followed by a detailedpresentation and discussion of a broad range of related techniques,that are widely applied by researchers in the field to investigatethe formation and evolution of galaxies.
This book will be invaluable for undergraduates and graduatestudents in astronomy and astrophysics, and will also be ofinterest to researchers working in the field of Galactic,extragalactic astronomy and cosmology.
* comprehensive presentation of stellar evolution theory
* introduces the concept of stellar population and describes"stellar population synthesis" methods to study ages and starformation histories of star clusters and galaxies.
* presents stellar evolution as a tool for investigating theevolution of galaxies and of the universe in general.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Salaris, Maurizio

Cassisi, Santi

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface.
1. Stars and the Universe.
1.1Setting the stage.
1.2 Cosmic Kinematics.
1.3 Cosmic Dynamics.
1.4 Particles - and nucleosynthesis.
1.5 CMB fluctuations and structure formation.
1.6 Cosmological Parameters.
1.7 The inflationary Paradigm.
1.8 The role of Stellar Evolution.
2. Equation of State of the Stellar Matter.
2.1 Physical conditions of the stellar matter.
3. Equations of Stellar Structure.
3.1 Basic assumptions[.
3.2 Method of solution of the stellar structure equations.
3.3 Non-standard physical process.
4. Star Formation and Evolution.
4.1 Overall picture of stellar evolution.
4.2 Star formation.
4.3 Evolution along the Hayashi track.
5. The Hydrogen Burning Phase.
5.1 Overview.
5.2 The nuclear reactions.
5.3 The central H-burning phase in low main sequencestars.
5.4 The central H-burning phase in upper main sequencestars.
5.5 The dependence of MS tracks on chemical compositionand convection efficiency.
5.6 Very low-mass stars.
5.7 The mass - Luminosity relations.
5.8 The Schonberg-Chandrasekhar limit.
5.9 Post-main sequence evolution.
5.10 Dependence of the main RGB features of physical andchemical parameters.
5.11 Evolutionary properties of very metal-poor stars.
6. The Helium Burning Phase.
6.1 Introduction.
6.2 The nuclear reactions.
6.3 The zero age horizontal branch.
6.4 The core He-burning phase in low mass stars.
6.5 The central He-burning phase in more massive stars.
6.6 Pulsational properties of core He-burning stars.
7. The Advanced Evolutionary Phase.
7.1 Introduction.
7.2 The asymptotic giant branch.
7.3 The Chandrasekhar limit and the evolution of stars withlarge CO cores.
7.4 carbon-oxygen white dwarfs.
7.5 The advanced evolutionary stages of massive stars.
7.6 Type la supernovae.
7.7 Neutron stars.
7.8 Black holes.
8. From Theory to Observations.
8.1 Spectroscopic notation of the stellar chemicalcomposition.
8.2 From stellar models to observed spectra and magnitudes.
8.3 The effect of interstellar extinction.
8.4 K-correction for high red-shift objects.
8.5 Some general comments about colour-magnitude-diagrams.
9. Simple Stellar Populations.
9.1 Theoretical isochrones.
9.2 Old simple stellar populations.
9.3 Young simple stellar populations.
10. Unresolved Stellar Populations.
10.1 Definition and problems.
10.2 Determination of the star formation history.
10.3 Distance indicators.
11. Unresolved Stellar Populations.
11.1 Simple stellar populations.
11.2 Composite stellar populations.
11.3 Distance to unresolved stellar populations.
Appendix I: Constants.
Appendix II: Selected Web Sites.
References.
Index.