That trees should have been cut down to provide paper for this book was an ecological afIront. From a book review. - Anthony Blond (in the Spectator, 1983) The first modern text on our subject, Structure and Evolution of the Stars, was published over thirty years ago. In it, Martin Schwarzschild described numerical experiments that successfully reproduced most of the observed properties of the majority of stars seen in the sky. He also set the standard for a lucid description of the physics of stellar interiors. Ten years later, in 1968, John P. Cox's tw~volume monograph Principles of Stellar Structure appeared, as did the more specialized text Principles of Stellar Evolution and Nuc1eosynthesis by Donald D. Clayton-and what a difference ten years had made. The field had matured into the basic form that it remains today. The past twenty-plus years have seen this branch of astrophysics flourish and develop into a fundamental pillar of modern astrophysics that addresses an enormous variety of phenomena. In view of this it might seem foolish to offer another text of finite length and expect it to cover any more than a fraction of what should be discussed to make it a thorough and self-contained reference. Well, it doesn't. Our specific aim is to introduce only the fundamentals of stellar astrophysics. You will find little reference here to black holes, millisecond pulsars, and other "sexy" objects.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
From the reviews
"Besides being well-written, it presents some fresh perspectives ... Well designed to be a textbook in a senior-level course both for students interested in astronomy and space, planetary and Earth sciences, and for students seeking to consolidate their understanding by using it in a broad set of applications. It can also provide a readable introduction to the subject for scientists working in related areas... The book comes with a PC diskette containing two FORTRAN programs (on stellar evolution). This is now my favorite book to use in a senior-level course."
PHYSICS TODAY
Reihe
Sprache
Verlagsort
Verlagsgruppe
Illustrationen
Dateigröße
ISBN-13
978-1-4684-0214-8 (9781468402148)
DOI
10.1007/978-1-4684-0214-8
Schweitzer Klassifikation
1 Preliminaries.- 1.1 Hydrostatic Equilibrium.- 1.2 An Energy Principle.- 1.3 The Virial Theorem and Its Applications.- 1.4 The Constant-Density Model.- 1.5 Energy Generation and Transport.- 1.6 Stellar Dimensional Analysis.- 1.7 Evolutionary Lifetimes on the Main Sequence.- 1.8 Exercises.- 1.9 References and Suggested Readings.- 2 An Overview of Stellar Evolution.- 2.1 Pre-Main Sequence Evolution.- 2.2 Single Stars On and Near the Main Sequence.- 2.3 Evolution of Single Stars Off the Main Sequence.- 2.4 Late Stages of Evolution.- 2.5 Evolution in Close Binary Systems.- 2.6 Special Kinds of Stars.- 2.7 Concluding Remarks.- 2.8 Exercises.- 2.9 References and Suggested Readings.- 3 Equations of State.- 3.1 Distribution Functions.- 3.2 Blackbody Radiation.- 3.3 Ideal Monatomic Gas.- 3.4 The Saha Equation.- 3.5 Fermi-Dirac Equations of State.- 3.6 "Almost Perfect" Equations of State.- 3.7 Adiabatic Exponents and Other Derivatives.- 3.8 Exercises.- 3.9 References and Suggested Readings.- 4 Radiative and Conductive Heat Transfer.- 4.1 Radiative Transfer.- 4.2 The Diffusion Equation.- 4.3 A Brief Diversion into "?'s".- 4.4 Radiative Opacity Sources.- 4.5 Heat Transfer by Conduction.- 4.6 Tabulated Opacities.- 4.7 References and Suggested Readings.- 5 Heat Transfer by Convection.- 5.1 The Mixing Length Theory.- 5.2 Variations on the MLT.- 5.3 References and Suggested Readings.- 6 Stellar Energy Sources.- 6.1 Gravitational Energy Sources.- 6.2 Thermonuclear Energy Sources.- 6.3 The Proton-Proton Chains.- 6.4 The Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen Cycles.- 6.5 Helium-Burning Reactions.- 6.6 Carbon, Neon, and Oxygen Burning.- 6.7 Silicon "Burning".- 6.8 Neutrino Emission Mechanisms.- 6.9 Exercises.- 6.10 References and Suggested Readings.- 7 Stellar Modeling.- 7.1 TheEquations of Stellar Structure.- 7.2 Polytropic Equations of State and Polytropes.- 7.3 The Approach to Real Models.- 7.4 References and Suggested Readings.- 8 Structure and Evolution of the Sun.- 8.1 The Sun as the Prototype Star.- 8.2 From the ZAMS to the Present.- 8.3 The Solar Neutrino "Problem".- 8.4 The Role of Rotation in Evolution.- 8.5 References and Suggested Readings.- 9 Structure and Evolution of White Dwarfs.- 9.1 Observed Properties of White Dwarfs.- 9.2 White Dwarf Evolution.- 9.3 The Magnetic White Dwarfs.- 9.4 References and Suggested Readings.- 10 Asteroseismology.- 10.1 Adiabatic Radial Pulsations.- 10.2 Nonadiabatic Radial Motions.- 10.3 An Introduction to Nonradial Oscillations.- 10.4 Helioseismology.- 10.5 Asteroseismology of White Dwarfs.- 10.6 References and Suggested Readings.- A Glossary.- B Physical and Astronomical Constants.- C Sample Computer Codes.- C.1 The ZAMS Model Builder.- C.2 Adiabatic Pulsation Code.
