High Energy Astrophysics

Geoffrey Bicknell

 

Following are my lecture notes more or less in the order that I give them, together with exercises and relevant papers and images. These are all in the form of pdf files and can be read and printed using version 5 of Acrobat Reader. You should obtain the latest version of Acrobat Reader from the Adobe web-page

The date of posting is appended to each web entry below. This is so that you know when revised lectures have been posted.

Course information:

Outline of course and assessment requirements

Lecture notes:

  1. Overview of High Energy Astrophysics
  2. The Radiation Field
  3. Radiating Charges
  4. Synchrotron Radiation I
  5. Synchrotron Radiation II
  6. Compton Scattering I
  7. Compton Scattering II
  8. Emission and Absorption
  9. Radio Galaxies
  10. Relativistic Effects
  11. Accretion Disks I
  12. Accretion Disks II
  13. Friedmann Robertson Walker Space-Times

Assumed knowledge:

  1. A1_Tensors
  2. A2_EM_Theory

Problem Set:

1.     Problem set

2.     Solutions to questions 1-4

3.     Solutions to questions 5-8

4.     Solutions to questions 10-13

4.

Background notes:

  1. The magnitude system and surface brightness
  2. Fluid Dynamics
  3. Electromagnetic Theory

Pictures:

  1. GIF image of Cygnus A

 

Papers used in lectures & exercises:

  1. Perley et al. (Pictor A)
  2. Bicknell, Dopita & O'Dea
  3. Biretta et al.
  4. Killeen, Bicknell & Ekers
  5. Mantovani et al.
  6. Mundell et al.
  7. Unwin et al.
  8. Wilson et al. paper on Cygnus A
  9. Fig 1 for above paper
  10. Fig 2a for above paper
  11. Wilson et al. paper on Pictor A
  12. Figure 1 for above paper
  13. Figure 2 for above paper
  14. Figure 3 for above paper

Excel spreadsheets:

  1. Minimum energy for extragalactic objects
  2. IC 4296
  3. Pictor A