PHYSICS 728, RADIO ASTRONOMY

PHYSICS 728, RADIO ASTRONOMY
COURSE OUTLINE (Spring 2019)

Text for the course

(do not purchase--we have copies available)
Synthesis Imaging in Radio Astronomy II
Edited by G. B. Taylor, C. L. Carilli, and R. A. Perley

Time: Wed 11:30-2:20 pm
Room: Tiernan 101
Prof. Dale E. Gary
Office: Tiernan 101
Office Hours: TR 11 am, 3 pm
Phone: (973) 642-7878
e-mail: dgary@njit.edu
Course Web Page: http://web.njit.edu/~dgary/728
Webex: https://njit.webex.com/meet/gary
Webex number: 644 296 834

Readings: The reading assignments are listed below. Complete the readings before the corresponding lectures if possible. Lecture Notes will be placed on the web before the corresponding lecture, although in some cases it may be only hours before the lecture.
Homework: There will be several homework assignments, generally due one week from the time it is assigned, unless otherwise specified.
Presentations: There will be no exams in the course, but the final grade will be based largely on an oral and written presentation given at the end of the semester. You should get approval of the topic before committing to a particular topic. Some of you may elect to work on a hardware project, which we will discuss during the first few weeks.
Grades: The grades will be based on attendance (5%), homework assignments (35%) the oral presentation (20%), and written report (40%).
Other Resources: There are many other resources we will make use of during the semester, including the latest lectures from the Synthesis Imaging Summer School, the Essential Radio Astronomy course, and excerpts from various other sources. We will use tools like CASA (Common Astronomy Software Applications) and Miriad for creating, calibrating, and analyzing radio data, and Python for general purpose programming and as a scripting interface to these tools. Note that Python has many extension packages, which you can install yourself, or alternatively you can download the Anaconda Python pre-packaged distribution for scientific computing.

Lecture Number and Title	Reading Assignment	Homework Assignment
Lecture 1 ( W 01/23). Introduction to Radio Astronomy	Lecture Notes	Problem Set #1 (due 30 Jan)
Lecture 2 (W 01/30). Radio Emission Mechanisms	Lecture Notes	Problem Set #2 (due 06 Feb)
Lecture 3 (W 02/06). Radiative Transfer (Appleton Code)	Lecture Notes	Problem Set #3 (due 13 Feb)
Lecture 4 (W 02/13). Primary Antenna Elements Get: (pyidl)	Synthesis Imaging: Chapter 3	Problem Set #4 (due 20 Feb)
Lecture 5 (W 02/20). Front End Receiving Systems	Lecture Notes	Problem Set #5 (due 27 Feb)
Lecture 6 (W 02/27). Fourier Synthesis Imaging	Synthesis Imaging: Chapters 2 and 7	Problem Set #6 (due 06 Mar)
Lecture 7 (W 03/06). The Receiving System for Interferometry Lecture 8 More On Correlation	Synthesis Imaging: Chapter 8 and Chapter 4
Lecture 9 (W 03/13). Calibration	Synthesis Imaging: Chapters 5 & 10	Problem Set #7 (due 03 Apr) uvpts Choice of Presentation Topic Due Partial List of Presentation Topics
Lecture 10 (W 03/27). Solar Radio Emission	Solar & Space Weather: Chapters 4, 6 & 14
Lecture X (W 04/03). Special Lecture on Terrestrial Radio Research (Nathaniel Frissell)	TBD	SuperDARN Problems (due 10 Apr)
Lecture 11 (W 04/10). Solar Radio Emission (cont'd)	Solar & Space Weather: Chapters 8, 9 & 10	Problem Set #10 (due 17 Apr)
Lecture 12 (W 04/17). Astronomical Radio Emission	Lecture Notes	Problem Set #11 (due 24 Apr)
Lecture 13 (W 04/24). Project Presentations	4-5 presentations (30 min each)
Lecture 14 (W 05/01). Project Presentations (cont'd)	4-5 presentations (30 min each)
Lecture 15 (W 05/08). Project Presentations (cont'd)	2 presentations (30 min each)