ASTR 333
ASTR 433

Spring 2024
TR 11:30AM-12:45PM
Sears 552

Prof. Stacy McGaugh
stacy.mcgaugh [at] case.edu
Sears 558
368-1808

Office Hours
T 2:00-3:00PM
W 1:30-2:30PM
or by appointment

 ? Textbooks
There are no textbooks. There are many related texts. None are required

Galaxies in the Universe
Sparke & Gallagher

 Galactic Dynamics
Binney & Tremaine
B&T errata

Galactic Astronomy
Binney & Merrifield
B&M errata

Introduction to Cosmology
Ryden

Cosmological Physics
Peacock

Principles of Physical Cosmology
Peebles

Galaxy Formation & Evolution
Mo, van den Bosch & White
Mo et al. errata | rogue internet version

Introduction To Particle Dark Matter
S. Profumo
related arxiv paper

Modern Cosmological
Observations and Problems
G. Bothun

 The Dark Matter Problem
R.H. Sanders

Course Links

Course Schedule & Lectures

Course Description
Course Outline
Course Work and Grades
Learning Outcomes
PDF Syllabus (the preceding links) in PDF format. | HTML Syllabus (the preceding links) in html format.

Course Work Schedule

Due dateActivity
Feb. 8Homework 1
Feb. 29Homework 2
Mar. 7Midterm
Mar. 28Homework 3
Apr. 18Homework 4
May 2Final

Course News

Homework 4 is due Thursday, April 18.

In homework 3, everyone correctly noted that the moon is about the right mass to evade microlensing limits, and that there would be a lot of them, but not exactly wall-to-wall, what with space being somewhat big and all. They would also be whizzing around at over 100 km/s, and likely would not be corotating with the stellar disk, so would present a "head wind" of 200 km/s. At this relative speed, they carry a kinetic energy comparable to the gravitational binding energy of the Earth. With all these things whing through not just our solar system, but every planetary system in the Galaxy, it seems inevitable that there would be the occassional dramatic collision, as anticipated by alien observers watching for this effect.

Slides, notes, and recordings are available at Course Schedule & Lectures

Useful Links

Prof. Mihos's ASTR 323 - a useful reference for those who didn't take it (and those who did).
Aquarius Structure formation video
Review Literature
Some useful numbers
Astronomical magnitude systems
Brief history of dark matter searches
ADS (the NASA Astrophysical Data System), an excellent way to search the literature.
arXiv e-print archive (astro-ph). Most physics & astronomy papers appear here as preprints.
Level 5, an Extragalactic Kowledgebase at NED.

Useless Links

The Dark Matter Flowchart
Dark Matter in popular culture (what would culture be without appropriation?)
Monty Python's Galaxy Song (the quoted numbers are correct, as known at the time).