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PHY 521 Fall 2025

PHY 521: Stars

Equation of State

Solid or Gas?
Maxwell-Boltzmann Distribution and Ideal Gas
Degenerate Electrons
EOS regimes
Electrons and Positrons

Convection

Convective temperature gradient
Simulating convection

Nuclear Properties

Mass Excess Visualized
Binding Energy per Nucleon

Reaction Rates

PP Chains
p-p chain vs. CNO
Helium Burning
Ratio of C/O from He burning
Explosive Nucleosynthesis

Integrating Stiff Networks

Integrating Stiff ODEs
Application: Nuclear Reaction Networks
- Integration Example

Stellar Models

Lane-Emden polytrope equation
Solving Lane-Emden via Shooting
Eddington Standard Model
Stellar Evolution in the ρ-T Plane

The Sun

Solar Convection Zone

Close Binary Evolution

Equipotentials

Explosions!

hot-CNO and breakout
X-ray Burst Timing
One-zone X-ray Burst Model
Simple supernova lightcurve
Nuclear statistical equilibrium
Neutron star structure

Homework solutions

Homework 1 solutions
Homework 2 solutions
Homework 3 solutions
Homework 4 solutions

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By Michael Zingale

© 2025; CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0