Course Objectives:
The aim of this course is to introduce you, the students, to seminal papers
and more recent developments in the astronomical and astrophysical research
of the conditions within the pre-solar nebula and governing the early solar
system. We will do so through presentations followed by discussion with
active participation by all students, and determine what are the active
areas of research in this broad topic. Textbooks, by their nature, are out
of date at the time of their publication. In this course we aim to bridge
the gap between passive acquisition of knowledge and active PhD research by
reading and discussing papers from the professional literature. The
emphasis will lie on the development and uncertainties of current scientific
theory and method.
Oral reports on the papers selected will be presented in class at the rate
of one ~45 minute presentation per week (assuming the number of
students is 13 or less). Oral reports by senior graduate students, postdocs
and/or talks by visiting scientists would be on a voluntary and
as-time-permits basis only. Each report should consist of a general
introduction covering the scope of the paper and where it fits within the
larger field of research of which the paper is part, followed by a more
detailed summary of the original research presented in the paper and a
discussion of its impact. Each presentation is followed by time for
questions and answers, and discussion by the students, using questions
e-mailed to Dr. Jansen in advance of each class as a guide.
At the end of each class, you will be asked to evaluate the student speaker.
Please fill out the evaluation form, and return it to the instructor at the
end of the class. Like in the refereeing process in publishing scientific
papers, you may remain anonymous. But please be polite in your comments,
because you too one day will be judged by your peers!
Dates for the presentations(s) by each student will be assigned within the
first week of the first class — first come, first serve (see the
Seminar Schedule below). The choice of paper(s) to discuss will be up to
the student, but certain restrictions and requirements will apply
(see also Tips.., below). We'll be
happy to discuss that choice.
Requirements and Course Grades:
70% of the final grade
will be based on the presentation, where the emphasis lies more on content
and clarity than on how fancy the presentation looks. Each student is
responsible for providing Dr. Jansen no later than
one week before their scheduled presentation the
full bibliographic reference to one or more
papers of their choice (i.e., the last possible moment will be in class the
week before). He will place a link on the course web-page to an
electronic version of the paper(s) (PDF/Postscript), so all students can
download and read it/them, and formulate questions.
Non-timely submission of a reference will result in a
reduction of your grade. Also, after class, each student
must send Dr. Jansen their electronic
presentation exported as a PDF file with all
fonts included (if the PDF file size is larger than ~3 Mb when
exporting from PowerPoint or similar presentation software, then first remove
any background images and try again). He will create a link to it into the
following table (see Seminar Schedule below), so it can be viewed and
consulted later. (Note, that you may have to install appropriate software to
be able to read PDF files and/or export your presentation to a PDF file).
30% of the final grade
will be based on the participation by each student in the discussion of each
paper, as demonstrated by the posing of non-trivial questions and reasoning
demonstrating the use of the scientific method. Each student, except the
student giving the presentation, must prepare and e-mail Dr. Jansen
at least two non-trivial questions regarding
the paper(s) no later than 5:00 PM of the
Thursday before each class (except if that class is a Special Seminar
by a visiting scientist).
Note that failure to submit questions for at least 50% of the presentations
means that even if you give a perfect presentation, your final grade
can be no better than a C+. Also note that, whereas a
question can be trivial, confused or poorly posed, the only stupid question
is a question not asked.
A full bibliographic reference includes
at the very least (1) the name of the lead author, (2) publication year, (3)
name or abbreviation of the journal, (4) volume number, and (5) page number.
Do not send me just a web-link to a PDF
file or just a PDF file. It is OK to send me a link in addition to
the full bibliographic reference, but in that case please specify the
relevant ADS abstract page (for example:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1962ApJ...136..748E ).
Presentations:
For the computer-based presentations (i.e., HTML, PDF, Power Point, etc..),
an old laptop computer running Redhat 9 Linux (with
Mozilla 1.4.2 browser, Acrobat Reader 5.0 [PDF], and
OpenOffice 1.1 [PPT]) will be available in the classroom, but students
are encouraged to and will likely prefer to bring and use their own Windows,
Linux or Macintosh laptop. If you use a Macintosh, remember to bring a
DVI-to-VGA adaptor to connect to the LCD projector. Note, that the projector
provides a 1024×768 pixel standard field of view, and has a
60 Hz refresh rate, so you need to adjust your display settings if
you have a wide-screen laptop. Practice doing so in advance of your
presentation.
If you prepare a PowerPoint presentation and do not plan to use your
own laptop, send your presentation no later than
Thursday afternoon preceding class to Dr. Jansen by e-mail as
an attachment, so he can verify that it displays properly: proprietary fonts
from Microsoft, Adobe, and other commercial founderies (e.g., math and greek
symbols, fancy fonts) often don't display or are substituted by unreadable
characters on Open Source machines!
Tips for finding a suitable paper:
For a 45 min presentation, single 4 or 5-page Letters are not
suitable (but three related ones might well be). Typically, papers
should be the equivalent of 15–20 pages in a main journal (multi-page
tables or atlasses of figures, and the list of references don't count toward
this number. Also, manuscripts in pre-print format should be at least
3× as many pages.
Papers that had/have a large impact will be cited by many other authors.
Papers with few or no citations, or mostly self-citations by the authors,
may not be suitable for discussion. Papers are required to (1)
have been published in a peer reviewed journal or been accepted for
publication in a peer reviewed journal and (2) have at least 1
non-trivial citation by researchers other than the authors of that
paper. Discussion of a paper that recently appeared on 'astro-ph' may be OK
if the above conditions are met, and the "Comments" give a specific
volume/issue of the peer-reviewed journal where such paper is scheduled to
appear.
Although not a complete depository of all scientific literature in astronomy
and astrophysics, none the less, astronomy as a science is blessed in having
a very large, full-text digital library: the NASA Astrophysics Data System
(ADS) (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html).
For example, a search for a paper that I discussed a while back returned:
A full text, printable version of this paper may be obtained by clicking
on the "F" link (or by clicking on the full
reference link or "A" link, and following the
links on the abstract page that it opens). Often,
there is also a "G" that points to GIF-format
scans of each page of the paper or an "E" that
points to an HTML version (both may come handy to extract/retrieve a digital
version of a figure, table or equation to insert in your presentation).
To check the number of citations, one can click the link marked
"C".
Full resolution Postscript versions of figures can often be found on the
LANL (arXiv.org) preprint server:
(http://xxx.lanl.gov/find/astro-ph) by searching for the lead
author(s) and selecting [..., other] as the
download format and then Source (this will allow you to download a
tar-ball, which includes the originally submitted figures). Note, that the
preprint can be of an earlier year than the actual year of publication and
may not even correspond to the published version!
The following is the schedule of presentations:
Fall 2009 Seminar Schedule
Date |
Person |
Paper |
Title + link to presentation |
8/28
| Rolf Jansen & Steven Desch
|
| Introduction to the Class; sign-up for presentations
|
9/04
| Rolf Jansen
|
PS/PDF,
PS/PDF
|
Accretion in the Early Kuiper Belt: Coagulation, Velocity Evolution
& Fragmentation,
Kenyon, S.J., & Luu, J.X.: 1998, AJ 115, 2136 and
1999, AJ 118, 1101
|
9/11
| Steve Desch
|
PS/PDF
|
A correlation between the heavy element content of
transiting extrasolar planets and the metallicity of their parent
stars, Guillot, T., et al. 2006, A&A 453, L21
|
9/18
| Justin Spengel
|
PS/PDF
|
Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) Activity of Low Mass M Stars
as An Important Factor for The Habitability of Terrestrial Exoplanets
- II., Lammer, H., et al. 2007, Astrobiology 7, 185
|
9/21
| Themis Athanasiadou (ASU)
|
| SESE Astronomy Seminar
(PSF-226 12:00–1:00PM)
Penetration of Supernova Radioactivites in the Solar System
|
9/25
|
|
| no class
|
10/02
| Mark Richardson
|
PS/PDF,
PS/PDF
|
Measurements of Spin-Orbit Alignment in an Extrasolar Planetary
System, Winn, J.N., et al. 2005, ApJ 631, 1215;
(and Barnes, J.W. 2009, astro-ph/0909.1752 for recent updates)
|
10/07
| Chris Groppi (ASU)
|
| SESE Colloquium
(PSF-173 4:10–5:00PM)
Exploring the Life Cycle of the Interstellar Medium with Terahertz
Spectroscopy
|
10/09
| Teresa Ashcraft
|
PS/PDF
|
High-resolution simulations of the final assembly of Earth-like
planets I. Terrestrial accretion and dynamics, Raymond, S.N.,
Quinn, T., & Lunine, J.I. 2006, Icarus 183, 265
|
10/16
|
|
| no class
|
10/21
| Meenakshi Wadhwa (ASU)
|
| SESE Colloquium
(PSF-173 4:10–5:00PM)
The Age of the Solar System: How well do we know it and why do we
care?
|
10/23
|
|
| class canceled due to graduate student "Townhall"
|
10/28
| Riccardo Giacconi
|
| Distinguished Lecturer Series:
(PSF-173 7:30–9:00PM)
A new revolution in astronomy 400 years after Galileo
|
10/29
| Riccardo Giacconi
|
| Physics Colloquium
(PSF-101 3:15–4:15PM)
X-ray astronomy 2009
|
10/30
| Simon Porter
|
PS/PDF,
PS/PDF
|
Formation of the Terrestrial Planets,
Hansen, B.M.S. 2009, ApJ 703, 1131 and
Davies, J.H. 2008, E&PSL 268, 376
|
11/06
| Mike Pagano
|
PS/PDF,
PS/PDF,
PS/PDF
|
Probability Distribution of Habitable Terrestrial Planets,
Raymond et al. 2007, ApJ 669, 606 and
Guo et al. 2009, Ap&SS (in press); (see Selsis et al. 2007, A&A
476, 1373 for additional context)
|
11/13
| Steve Desch
|
PS/PDF
|
Cryovolcanism on Charon and other Kuiper Belt Objects,
(related papers: Gomes et al. 2005, Nature 435, 466; Desch et al. 2009,
Icarus 202, 694)
|
11/20
| Justin Spengel
|
PS/PDF,
PS/PDF
|
The Cradle of Our Solar System: Star Formation in
H II Region Environments,
Hester et al. 2004, Science 304, 1116 and
Hester & Desch 2005, ASPC 341, 107
|
11/27
|
|
| Thanksgiving holiday — no class
|
11/30
| Leisa Townsley (Penn State)
|
| SESE Astronomy Seminar
(PSF-226 12:00–1:00PM)
Not Your Grandmother's H II Regions
|
12/02
| Deidre Hunter (Lowell)
|
| SESE Colloquium
(PSF-173 4:10–5:00PM)
Dust, Gas, and Star Formation in Dwarf Galaxies
|
12/04
| Matt Mechtley
|
PS/PDF,
PS/PDF
|
The Delivery of Water to Terrestrial Planets: Earth and Mars,
Morbidelli, A., et al. 2000, M&PS 35, 1309 and
Lunine, J.I., et al. 2003, Icarus 165, 1
|
12/11
| Brad Whitmore (STScI)
|
| SESE Astronomy Seminar
(PSF-226 12:00–1:00PM)
What We
Have Learned from the Antennae Galaxies?
|
Click on the links below for the Astrophysics Seminar schedules and student
presentations of previous semesters:
- Spring 2009 (Jansen) —
The Legacy of the last Great Observatory: The Spitzer Space
Telescope
- Fall 2008
(Windhorst) — The Ultraviolet Universe: Hot is "Cool", for
Young and Old
- Spring 2008 (Jansen) —
The Coma Cluster of Galaxies
- Fall 2007 (Jansen) —
News from the Frontier: z = 5 and Beyond
- Spring 2007 (Jansen) —
Nearby Galaxies: How well do we know our Cosmic Backyard?
- Fall 2006
(Windhorst) — Black Hole Growth & Galaxy Assembly: From
First Light & Reionization to the Present
- Spring 2006 (Jansen) —
Planet Formation and Our Milky Way Galaxy
- Fall 2005 (Jansen) —
Star Formation and Chemical Enrichment: From the First Stars to
Present-day Galaxies
Last update: Dec 8 2009 [RAJ]
|