Inside the stars / Hugh Van Horn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Van Horn, H. M. (Hugh Moody), 1938- author.

Contributor:

Institute of Physics (Great Britain), publisher.

Series:

IOP (Series). Release 23.

AAS-IOP astronomy. 2023 collection.

[IOP release $release]

AAS-IOP astronomy. [2023 collection], 2514-3433

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Stars--Structure.

Stars.

Stars--Evolution.

Astrophysics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (various pagings) : illustrations (some color).

Place of Publication:

Bristol [England] (Temple Circus, Temple Way, Bristol BS1 6HG, UK) : IOP Publishing, [2023]

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader, EPUB reader, or Kindle reader.

Biography/History:

Hugh Van Horn received a Ph.D. from Cornell University and was a faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Rochester for almost three decades; he is now a professor emeritus of that University. He also served as the Director of the Division of Astronomical Sciences at the National Science Foundation. Van Horn is now an emeritus member of the American Astronomical Society and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. During his academic career, he published more than 100 technical papers in astrophysics and physics, and he has edited or written several books in these subjects.

Summary:

This broad interest text describes how our current understanding of the interiors of the stars came about, beginning in 1870. It starts by discussing the development of our knowledge of the inside of the Sun, and continues on to compare the Sun's and other stars' properties and then discusses how stars form, evolve, and die. The book describes the properties of a variety of stars with special characteristics, and it ends with a discussion of the first stars that formed after the Big Bang. Aiming to show how interesting scientific investigations can encourage young men and women to pursue STEM careers, this book also underscores the role women have played in the development of our understanding.

Contents:

part I. Understanding the inside of the Sun. 1. A glimpse of the solar interior

2. The sun as a star

3. The role of radiation inside stars

4. The nature of star stuff

5. Discovering the source of solar energy

6. Properties of the matter inside stars

6.1. The equation of state

6.2. Opacity calculations

6.3. Thermonuclear reaction rates

part II. A closer look at the solar interior

7. How our understanding of the present sun developed

8. Ghost particles from the center of the sun

9. The sounds of sunlight

9.1. Distribution of sound speed in the sun

9.2. The depth of the solar convection zone

9.3. The density distribution in the sun

9.4. Distribution of angular velocity in the sun and the solar dynamo

part III. From the sun to the stars

10. Properties of main sequence stars

10.1. The lower main sequence

10.2. The upper main sequence

10.3. H-burning lifetimes

11. Where do stars come from?

12. Failed stars : brown dwarfs

part IV. Why and how stars evolve and die

13. What happens when a low-mass star exhausts its nuclear fuel?

13.1. From H core burning to H shell burning

13.2. Up the red giant branch

13.3. Ignition of He burning in low-mass stars

13.4. He core burning : the horizontal branch

13.5. Stellar mass loss

13.6. Comparing theory with observations

13.7. Beyond the horizontal branch

14. How an intermediate-mass star becomes a white dwarf

14.1. From the ZAMS to the AGB

14.2. The thermally pulsing AGB

14.3. Mass loss, neutrino emission, and the central stars of planetary nebulae

15. White dwarfs : fading embers of burnt-out stars

15.1. The spectra of white-dwarf stars

15.2. Determining the physical properties of white dwarfs

15.3. Pulsating white dwarfs and asteroseismology

15.4. Magnetic white dwarfs

15.5. The white dwarf luminosity function, core crystallization, and cosmochronology

16. The evolution of high-mass stars and supernovae

16.1. Collapse of the iron core

16.2. Supernova 1987A

16.3. Other types of supernovae

16.4. How does a Type I supernova explode?

17. Astrophysical alchemy : origins of the chemical elements

17.1. Big bang nucleosynthesis

17.2. The synthesis of the elements in stars

18. Neutron stars

18.1. Inside a neutron star

18.2. Superfluid neutrons and superconducting protons

18.3. Neutron star binaries

19. Stellar-mass black holes and gravitational waves

part V. Stars with special characteristics

20. Pulsating stars

20.1. Varieties of stellar oscillation modes

20.2. The menagerie of pulsating stars

21. Cataclysmic variables

21.1. Classical novae

21.2. Dwarf novae

21.3. Magnetic CVs

21.4. AM CVn stars

22. The first stars

22.1. Formation of the first stars

22.2. Unique properties of the first stars

22.3. Evolution of the first stars

22.4. Deaths of the first stars

22.5. Supermassive Pop III stars : seeds of the SMBHs in the centers of galaxies

22.6. The first stars in the early universe

Appendix A. Forms of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram

Appendix B. Some physical properties of the sun

Appendix C. Zero-age main sequence stars

Appendix D. Electron degeneracy

Appendix E. Properties of some brown dwarf stars

Appendix F. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)

Appendix G. Zero-age main sequence models for the first stars.

Notes:

"Version: 20230801"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references.

Title from PDF title page (viewed on September 5, 2023).

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9780750357944

9780750357937

OCLC:

1396227924

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.