SYLLABUS for ASTC25, Winter 2025. __________________________________________________________________________ Title: Astrophysics of Planetary Systems Lecturer: Prof. Pawel Artymowicz URL for *everything*: course materials, assignments and prel. results table is: http://planets.utsc.utoronto.ca/~pawel/ASTC25 [Notice: Quercus does not have continuously updated information. We use it mainly for announcements and assignment submission/marking.] __________________________________________________________________________ Lectures (L): in SW 311 on Thursday 13-15 Tutorials (T): in IC 120 on Thursday 16-17 _________________________________________________________________________ Assignments are due at 13:00 (beginning of lecture). Submit via Quercus. Calendar of Lectures (L), Tutorials (T), Assignment due dates (A): 9 Jan L1-L2 L3 16 Jan L4-L5 T1 23 Jan L6-L7 T2 30 Jan L8-L9 T3 A1 6 Feb L10-12 T4 13 Feb L13-14 T5 A2 20 Feb -- -- -- (reading week) 27 Feb L15-16 T6 midterm (16:00-17:00) 6 Mar L17-18 T7 13 Mar L19-20 T8 A3 20 Mar L21-22 T9 [last drop date w/o penalty is 24th] 27 Mar L23-24 T10 3 Apr -- -- A4 (TBA) final exam in person, 3hrs ________________________________________________________________________ Syllabus is subject to some change, depending mostly on how fast we cover certain material, subjects will not change. Please download this syllabus weekly. In parenthesis: chapt. of the Lissauer-dePater textbook to read ahead of the lecture. 1-2. Introduction and history * Organization of the course * The subject & key questions * History of the idea of many worlds * Newton & his frenemies: Principia Mathem. Phil. Nat. 3-4. Gravitational mechanics of planetary systems * Gravitational 2-body interaction, other forces * Where do Kepler's laws come from? * The 2-body problem: reduction to 1-body problem * Reduction to 2 dimensions via angular momentum conservation 5. Elements of celestial mechanics I * Derivation of Kepler's 1st law using Laplace vector * Elliptic motion: E, L, vs. a, e * Tides in the solar system 6-7. Elements of celestial mechanics II * Disruption of satellites: the Roche limit * Precession of orbits and spin axes * Theory of perturbations vs. numerical computations * Restricted 3-body problem and the Hill problem 8. Orbits beyond the elliptic ones * Stability of motion * Lagrange points * Orbital resonances and chaos * The future of the solar system 9-10. Formation of disks and stars (ch. 15) * Giant molecular clouds * Jeans instability of protostellar cloud cores * Opacity-limited fragmentation * Simulations & the ubiquity of protostellar disks, brown dwarfs 11-12. Origins: Accretion disks (ch. 15) * Analogue disks: AGN/quasar disks, and their accretion * Accretion disk geometry * Disks as evolving, shearing flows 13. Formation of planets: the main scenarios (ch. 15) * Accumulation versus fragmentation: scenarios for the giants * Gravitational stability of protoplanetary disks * From dust to planetesimals 14. Formation of planets: standard scenario (ch. 15) * From planetesimals to planetary cores: gravitational focusing * Gravitational scattering of planetesimals into Oort cloud * Isolation mass: a cause of giant impact epoch * Late heavy bombardment * Core-instability and gas accretion onto giant planets 15. Solar System: Minor bodies * Clearing stage and Oort cloud formation * Planetoids/dwarf planets: Eris and others * Kuiper belt * Water in planetary systems * Comets - icy dirtballs or dirty iceballs? * Halley, Hyakutake, Hale-Bopp, Holmes2 * Where do Earth's oceans come from? * IDPs - Interplanetary Dust Particles * Asteroids, their belt & Kirkwood gaps * Meteorites 16. Dust and planetesimals in extrasolar systems * Interplanetary dust: Zodiacal light disk and Brownlee particles * Vega-type systems, replenished dusty disks of planetary systems * Beta Pictoris disk: evidence of planetesimals and planets 17. Planetary rings vs. extrasolar dust disks * Saturn's rings * Satellites launch waves at resonances, open gaps * Rings as laboratory for disk-planet interaction * Dust physics, processing, removal 18. Dust avalanches and irradiation instability in dusty disks * Dust avalanches * IRI. Role of optical thickness in instability * Numerical simulations 19-20. Dynamics of protoplanets in disks: Migration * Disk-planet interaction & diversity of exoplanets * 3 different types of planet migration in disks * Flow of gas around super-Earth * Numerical simulations 21-23. Exoplanet discovery * Methods: timing, radial vel., transits, microlensing, imaging * Overview of results and examples of exoplanets * Chemical correlations 24. Astrobiology and SETI * Life on Earth: local or non-local origins? * Life elswhere: Mars, Europa, moons of exoplanets? * Habitable zones * Drake's equation, SETI and the Fermi paradox ________________________________________________________________________________