Specialisation: Astrophysics

In the astrophysics specialisation the students will be introduced to ideas at the cutting-edge of research in astrophysics and cosmology. Lectures will be presented by academics from the Institute for Computational Cosmology and the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy (http://astro.dur.ac.uk/Cosmology/).

Term 1

In Term 1 (Michaelmas Term), the students will take the following lecture courses:

Stellar Structure & Evolution, Stellar Populations
Stellar dynamics
Galaxy clusters
AGNs and SMBHs
The Milky Way
Cosmology
The interstellar and intergalactic medium

in total 64 lecture hours.

Term 2

In Term 2 (Epiphany Term) the students will take the following lecture courses:

Galaxy Formation
Large-scale structure
Cosmological Simulations
Gravitational lensing

Preparation/Reading list

To prepare for this specialisation area, we recommend to read “An Introduction to modern cosmology” by Andrew Liddle.