Paper Review Seminar
Each student chooses one paper from the list of seminal radio-sky papers (in about 2 weeks) and presents it at the end of the course.
About the course
This course starts from science-ready radio data and asks what the emission mechanism, physical conditions and distance imply, and which further measurement would discriminate between competing explanations. Telescopes, receivers, calibration and imaging are covered in other courses.
Builds on: Introduction to Astronomy and Astrophysics, Radiative Processes, Astronomical Techniques, Computational Astrophysics I and GR I.
Syllabus
| Lecture | Topic |
|---|---|
| 1 | The radio sky: why radio, and a history of radio astronomy Slides (PDF) |
| 2 | GMRT and SKA, radio observables and brightness temperature Slides (PDF) |
| 3 | Source classification and radiative transfer Slides (PDF) |
| 4 | Free-free and synchrotron emission Slides (PDF) |
| 5 | Spectral signatures and free-free diagnostics Slides (PDF) |
| 6 | Synchrotron polarization, Faraday rotation and dispersion Slides (PDF) |
| 7 | Radio galaxies, magnetic fields and synchrotron ageing Slides (PDF) |
| 8 | Synchrotron self-absorption and equipartition Slides (PDF) |
| 9 | |
| 10 | |
| 11 | |
| 12 | |
| 13 | |
| 14 | |
| 15 | |
| 16 | |
| 17 | |
| 18 | |
| 19 | |
| 20 | |
| 21 |
Lecture PDFs and the question bank(s) will be posted here during the course.
Evaluation
| Component | Marks | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Mid-semester exam | 20 | Closed book, closed notes, after Lecture 9 |
| End-semester exam | 40 | Closed book, closed notes, cumulative |
| Seminar on a seminal paper | 25 | 25 min talk + 5 min questions |
| Class participation | 15 | Questions asked; concept-test answers |
There are no graded assignments. Exam problems are drawn from a released question bank.