2025 (Current Year) Faculty Courses School of Science Undergraduate major in Physics
Physics of the Universe
- Academic unit or major
- Undergraduate major in Physics
- Instructor(s)
- Yoichi Yatsu
- Class Format
- Lecture
- Media-enhanced courses
- -
- Day of week/Period
(Classrooms) - Class
- -
- Course Code
- PHY.F352
- Number of credits
- 200
- Course offered
- 2025
- Offered quarter
- 4Q
- Syllabus updated
- Apr 2, 2025
- Language
- Japanese
Syllabus
Course overview and goals
This course introduces basic knowledges about astronomy and astrophysics, and gives introductory reviews on physical bases required to understand phenomena in the Universe. With this course, students get to know that even the cosmic events of extraordinary scales can be understood from fundamental physics laws. Furthermore, this course aims to nourish practical capabilities to solve real-world physics problems through exercises to obtain order-of-magnitude estimations of physical quantities in astrophysical phenomena by applying physics laws.
Course description and aims
【Goals】 To learn the basic concepts and knowledges required to understand the current views on the Universe and unresolved problems. To understand astrophysical phenomena based on physical principles.
【Thema】 The Universe is the most intellectually fascinating object to the human kind. Researches on the Universe started from the sun and the moon, then extended to the planets and stars, and then beyond the Milky Way out to its horizon. Get familiar with the Universe from the view point of physics.
Keywords
Radiation processes, electromagnetic waves, stellar structure, stellar evolution, neutron stars, black holes, galaxies, Hubble's law, Big Bang, cosmic background radiation, gravitational wave, telescopes, detector
Competencies
- Specialist skills
- Intercultural skills
- Communication skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Practical and/or problem-solving skills
Class flow
Lectures will be given using slides. Bring smart phones or PCs to the class room to take quizzes on T2SCHOLA.
Course schedule/Objectives
| Course schedule | Objectives | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Problems in modern astrophysics | Understand the how physical laws are related to astrophysical phenomena |
| Class 2 | How to measure distances in the Universe | Present methods and principles for measurements of distances to celestial bodies |
| Class 3 | Radiation and blackbody | Give the spectrum and radiation energy of a star assuming it is a blackbody. |
| Class 4 | Internal Structure of Stars | Present the fundamental equations that determine the structure of a star. |
| Class 5 | The life and death of stars | Describe evolution of stars from their main sequence periods to their endpoints |
| Class 6 | Supernova and supernova remnant | Derive approximately the Sedov solution of supernova remnants. |
| Class 7 | Particle acceleration | Describe particle acceleration mechanism |
| Class 8 | X-ray binaries | Derive the formulae that give estimation of the age and the surface magnetic field of a pulsar from its rotation period and its time derivative. |
| Class 9 | Black holes | Give the Eddington luminosity and the corresponding accretion rate of a standard neutron star in an X-ray binary |
| Class 10 | uniform and isotropic universe | Explain the principle of super luminal motion of relativistic jets |
| Class 11 | Gamma-ray burst | Show that the compactness problem of gamma-ray bursts can be explained by relativistic motions. |
| Class 12 | Gravitational wave events | Explain from what kind of celestial phenomena gravitational waves are emitted. |
| Class 13 | The beginning and dark matter | Explain the cosmic re-ionization and why its observations are made in infrared rather than optical band. |
| Class 14 | Observation | Choose a Celestial Phenomenon of Interest and Examine its Observation Methods. |
Study advice (preparation and review)
To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.
Textbook(s)
No textbook is specified. The course materials are uploaded at OCW.
Reference books, course materials, etc.
Dan Maoz "Astrophysics in a nutshell" Princeton University Press
Evaluation methods and criteria
Scores are based on the final exam.
Related courses
- LAS.P101 ： Fundamentals of Mechanics 1
- LAS.P102 ： Fundamentals of Mechanics 2
- PHY.E205 ： Electromagnetism
- PHY.Q207 ： Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
- PHY.S301 ： Statistical Mechanics
Prerequisites
No prerequisites are specified, but basic knowledge of mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics are desirable.