Courses

Contents

Courses#

Course 1: Stellar Astrophysics#

Alessandro Bressan (SISSA, Italy), 5 lectures#

Lecture 1) Stars and stellar populations.#

  • Magnitudes; Colors; Distances; Proper Motions;

  • Spectral classification; The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram; Star clusters;

  • Stellar ages and element abundances: archaeology of the Milky Way.

Lecture 2) The equations of stellar structure.#

  • Mass and momentum conservation. The Virial theorem.

  • Energy transport and energy conservation.

  • Numerical Methods: solution of the system of stellar structure equations.

Lecture 3) From the Pre Main Sequence to the Main Sequence.#

  • Cloud collapse, fragmentation and proto-star contraction.

  • Opacity of stellar matter.

  • Low temperature nuclear reactions.

  • Proton-Proton cycle and CNO cycle;

  • Mixing of elements.

  • Evolution in the HRD

Lecture 4) Post Main Sequence evolution of Low and Intermediate mass stars.#

  • Equation of state with electron degeneracy.

  • The Red Giant Branch. The Helium Flash. The Horizontal Branch.

  • Cepheids.

  • The Asymptotic Giant Branch.

  • White Dwarfs.

Lecture 5) Massive stars.#

  • The HRD of massive stars.

  • Stellar winds and stellar evolution with mass-loss.

  • Stellar Rotation.

  • Wolf-Rayet stars.

  • Advanced evolutionary phases, neutrino losses and pre-supernova nucleosynthesis.

  • Supernovae: electron-capture and core collapse SN; pair-instability SN; compact remnants.

  • Type Ia Supernovae

Course 2: Compact Objects#

Ignacio Francisco Ranea Sandoval (Universidad Naciona de La Plata - Argentina), 5 lectures#

Abstract:#

Compact objects are the end stage of the evolution of high-mass stars. Their extreme nature makes them excellent to test both general relativity and nuclear physics. The last few decades and particularly the last five have been a revolution for this area and we have been able to obtain increasing quality and amount of astronomical data. This information allows us to put stringent constraints on the nature of the sources and in this way understand more in detail the matter content and properties. This can be performed mainly due to the adveniment of multi-messenger astrophysics including gravitational waves. During these lectures we will learn about observational and theoretical properties of both neutron stars and black holes. We will put special attention into the behavior of matter inside neutron stars and particularly study the possibility of a hadron-quark phase transition taking place in the most internal part of such compact stars. Moreover, we will study the quasinormal modes of these objects as non-radial oscillations could lead to gravitational-wave emission from isolated compact objects. We will introduce the concept of universal relationships associated with these modes and their astrophysical applications.

Lecture 1) Neutron stars (1)#

  • Observational and some theoretical basics

  • Mass and radii determination techniques

  • GW170817 event and the start of multimessenger astronomy with gravitational waves

  • The importance of knowing mass and radius of neutron stars

Lecture 2) Neutron stars (2)#

  • Equilibrium configurations: the need of General Relativity (TOV equations)

  • The equation of state for dense matter (basics aspects and general theorems)

  • Dimensionless tidal deformability and mergers

Lecture 3) Neutron stars (3)#

  • The equation of state for dense matter (Standard Model, QCD phase diagram)

  • Hadronic matter phenomenological models

  • Quark matter phenomenological models

  • Hadron-quark phase transition? Hybrid stars

Lecture 4) Neutron stars (4)#

Lectures on Astrophysical Aspects of Compact objects#

  • Radial perturbations and stability (linearized perturbations of a TOV solution; mathematical framework; stability criteria; slow stable hybrid stars)

  • Non-radial oscillations of both NSs and HSs (mathematical framework)

  • Quasi-normal modes (different families; properties; relevance to gravitational wave astronomy)

  • Universal Relationships and Astroseismology

Lecture 5) Black holes#

  • Theoretical basics: what is a black hole? Spacetime diagrams and the idea of the event horizon

  • Different black hole solutions

  • Stranger things: naked singularities

  • Observational generalities

  • Gravitational collapse and black hole formation

  • Geodesics around a black hole: basic aspects of accretion disks

Course 3: Galaxies#

Itziar Aretxaga (INAOE, México), 5 lectures#

An overview of galaxies in the nearby and distant universe, their constituents, scaling laws and evolution through cosmic time.

Lecture 1) Introduction to the galaxy zoo#

  • Galaxy types and classification schemes

  • General properties and structure

  • Standard stellar population indicators

  • Dark matter in galaxies

Lecture 2) Scaling relations#

  • Tully-Fisher

  • Dn-sigma

  • Fundamental planes

  • Main sequence of star formation and Starbursts

Lecture 3) Active Galactic Nuclei#

  • Classification of AGN

  • Multifrequency detection of nuclear activity

  • Energetics

  • Unification

  • Basic concepts of the standard model of AGN

  • Demographics of QSOs and BHs

  • Feedback

Lecture 4) Galaxies through cosmic time#

  • Surveys

  • Star formation history

  • Gas depletion history

  • Simple models of galaxy formation and evolution

Lecture 5) LSS and Galaxy clusters#

  • Local group and nearby structures

  • Search for clusters

  • Galaxies in clusters

  • Cluster mass estimates

  • Cosmological probes of clusters

Bibliography:#

  • Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology (2015), Peter Schneider, Springer.

  • Mo, van den Bosch & White (2010). Galaxy Formation and Evolution, CUP.

  • Galaxies in the Universe, Sparke & Gallagger, (2007), Cambridge University Press

  • “An Introduction to Active Galactic Nuclei”, B.P.Peterson, 1997, CUP

  • “The Physics and Evolution of AGN”, H. Netzer, 2013, CUP

The papers can be found in ADS or arXiv lists

Course 4: Cosmology#

David Fonseca Mota (Univ. Oslo, Norway), 5 lectures#

This course explores key aspects of cosmology, including the development of cosmological models, the nature of the universe’s constituents, and its thermal history. It also examines observational evidence, theoretical foundations, and research frontiers in cosmology.

Lecture 1) The Observational Context#

  • Large-scale structure distribution in the universe

  • The Cosmological Principle

  • Hubble expansion and observational evidence

  • Dark matter and its observational signatures

  • Dark energy and its role in cosmic evolution

Lecture 2) The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB)#

  • Discovery and significance of the CMB

  • Physical properties: temperature, isotropy, and anisotropy

  • Origin during recombination and its relation to the early universe

  • Angular power spectrum and its cosmological implications

  • CMB as a probe of:

    Density fluctuations in the early universe

    Parameters of the standard cosmological model

    Evidence for inflation and the Lambda-CDM model

Lecture 3) The Theory of Gravitation and Inflationary Cosmology#

  • Fundamental assumptions of General Relativity and the Einstein field equations

  • The Robertson-Walker metric: measuring distances, luminosities, and angular sizes

  • The Friedmann models of classical cosmology

  • Key puzzles: expansion, flatness, and the horizon problem

  • The inflationary scenario: solving cosmological puzzles

  • Emergence of the fluctuation spectrum from the inflationary epoch

Lecture 4) Particle Physics and Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis#

  • The Standard Model of Particle Physics and its relevance to cosmology

  • Thermal history of the universe

  • Synthesis of light elements during Big-Bang nucleosynthesis

  • Observational measurements of primordial light element abundances

Lecture 5) Research Topics in Cosmology#

  • Galaxies and clusters of galaxies as tools to probe:

    Dark energy and its properties

    Dark matter distribution and behavior

    Gravity beyond General Relativity

Course 5: Radio Astronomy#

Helga Dénes (Yachay Tech, Ecuador), 5 practicals#

This course will cover the basics of how radio telescopes work, how we process radio data to obtain continuum images and spectral line data cubes, and which sources produce radio emission. In addition, the course will contain practical sessions on how to analyse radio continuum and spectral line data with python tools.

Lecture 1) Radio astronomy fundamentals#

  • Radiation fundamentals

  • Detectors

  • Radio telescopes

Lecture 2)⁠ ⁠Data processing - from raw observations to products#

  • Software packages for radio astronomy

  • Calibration of radio data

  • Imaging of radio data

Lecture 3)⁠ ⁠Radio sources#

  • Interstellar medium

  • Galaxies

  • Pulsars

  • Black holes

Lecture 4) ⁠Radio continuum analysis with python#

  • Plotting an image with radio sources

  • Identifying source in a radio image

  • Measuring the flux of a radio source

  • Calculating the spectral index for radio sources

Lecture 5)⁠ ⁠Spectral line analysis of 3D radio data with python#

  • Handling 3D data cubes

  • Making moment maps

  • Plotting HI spectra

  • Calculating HI mass

Bibliography:#

Course 6: Python for Astrophysics#

Part A: Wladimir Banda-Barragán (Yachay Tech), 3 practicals#

Lecture 1) Python essentials for computational astrophysics#

  • Python notebooks and kernels

  • Pandas, Astropy and pyRAF

  • 1D data analysis

  • Astronomical image processing

  • Multi-dimensional data analysis

Lecture 2) Simulation data formats and visualisation#

  • Interstellar medium simulations

  • 3D simulation data analysis

  • Loops and animations

  • Astrophysical gas simulations

  • 2D and 3D visualisation

Lecture 3) Shock finding algorithms and the py4shocks module#

  • Hydrodynamic shock theory

  • Velocity-jump methods for shock finding

  • py4shocks module to find and characterise shock waves

  • Research applications of shock finding

Bibliography:#

  • Landau, Rubin, Computational physics : problem solving with python, 2015

  • Kong, Qingkai; Siauw, Timmy; Bayen, Alexandre, Python Programming And Numerical Methods: A Guide For Engineers And Scientists, 2020

Part B: Fernando Buitrago (University of Valladolid), 2 practicals#

This part aims at getting familiar with most common software techniques used in UV-optical-NIR astronomy

Lecture 4) Displaying astronomical images#

  • Showing astronomical images in Jupyter Notebooks

  • Reading tabulated files and using their contents

  • Useful complementary software: TOPCAT, Aladin, ds9, gnuastro, Source-Extractor

  • Useful internet resources: HST, JWST, ESO web archives; esa.sky.int

Lecture 5) Determining photometrical properties#

  • Determining brightnesses

  • Creating masks

  • Applying our knowledge: inferring galaxy sizes

Bibliography:#

Course 7: Optical Observational Astronomy#

Karín Menéndez-Delmestre (Valongo Obs., Brazil), 6 lectures#

In this course we aim to familiarize students with basic concepts related to astronomical instrumentation, observational strategies and the processing of astronomical data. After a brief review of fundamental concepts including celestial coordinate systems, the impact of the Earth’s atmosphere on ground-based observations and the different sources of noise, we will combine lectures and hands-on activities to delve into the following topics: planning astronomical observations, remote observing (pending formal arrangements with ISYA), reduction of imaging data (with brief discussion on how to handle spectroscopic data), signal characterization and basic photometric analysis of astronomical data. These topics will be addressed primarily in the context of optical observations.

Lecture 1) Basic Concepts in Observational Astronomy#

  • Telescopes

  • Coordinate systems

  • Image quality (point spread function)

  • Atmosphere transmission

  • Airmass

  • Seeing

Lecture 2) Signal and Sources of Noise#

  • Detectors

  • Poisson statistics

  • Shot noise

  • Sky

  • Read noise

  • Dark current

Lecture 3) Observing Strategies & Planning your observing night (Hands-on)#

Lecture 4) Basics of Data Reduction#

  • Bias, Flats, Darks

  • What, Why, When, How long and How many

Lecture 5) Data Reduction (Hands-on)#

  • Simple arithmetics!

  • Bringing in the computer tools

  • Using basic IRAF routines or Python

Lecture 6: Basic Aperture Photometry (Hands-on)#

Course 8: Virtual Observatory and the use of online databases#

Thiago S. Goncalves (Valongo Obs., Brazil), 5 lectures#

This is a hands-on class on the use of publicly available data to perform astronomical research. The course will handle data at different stages from different repositories, ranging from telescope science archives to value added catalogues, finishing with the use of theoretical data from simulations. Each lecture will comprise an individual science goal to be accomplished.

Lecture 1) Introduction to data acquisition and processing#

  • Basics of astronomical observations

  • Fundamentals of data reduction: bias, flats, sky subtraction, wavelength calibration

  • From data to physics: the production of value added catalogues

  • Navigating the universe: basic search tools and data exploration

  • Universe in a box: simulated data

Lecture 2) Imaging data — ESO Science Portal#

  • Navigating the ESO Science Portal

  • Raw data vs Processed data

  • Data access and manipulation

  • Example: Photometry

Lecture 3) Spectroscopic data — SDSS MaNGA Survey#

  • Navigating the spectroscopic dataset

  • Example: Measuring spectroscopic indices

Lecture 4) Value added catalogues — MaNGA Pipe3D#

  • Using physical measurements for science — pros and cons

  • Example: Galaxy evolution as seen by MaNGA

Lecture 5) Simulations and theoretical data — IllustrisTNG and Flathub#

  • How do simulations work?

  • Fundamentals of radiative transfer codes and the production of synthetic observational data

  • Types of theoretical data and comparison with the real universe

Bibliography:#

Astronomy Methods: A Physical Approach to Astronomical Observations (2003), Hale Bradt, Cambridge University Press.

Course 9: Interstellar Medium#

Laurence Sabin (UNAM, México), 5 lectures#

Lecture 1) Components of the ISM (Observations)#

  • Physical conditions (density, temperature, and pressure) - Hot gas

  • Warm gas (ionized and neutral)

  • Cold gas (atomic and molecular)

  • Dust

  • Magnetic fields and cosmic rays

Lecture 2) Interstellar Dust#

  • Composition (silicates, graphite, PAHs)

  • Physical properties (sizes, heating, cooling, and charge)

  • Formation and destruction

Lecture 3) Heating and Cooling Processes#

  • Molecular gas

  • Neutral gas (HI)

  • Photodissociation regions - Photoionized regions

  • Hot ionized regions

Lecture 4) Observational Diagnostics#

  • Emission and absorption lines

  • Radio observations of molecular lines

  • 21 cm HI line

  • Optical and UV absorption lines in neutral gas

  • Photoionized regions:

    • Recombination lines and collisional excitation lines

    • Free-free continuum in radio

    • Density and temperature diagnostics (optical and radio)

  • Hot gas:

    • UV

    • X-rays

  • Dust:

    • Extinction

    • Emission

  • Masers

  • Chemical composition

  • Kinematics

  • Photoionized regions (HII regions and planetary nebulae)

    • Strömgren sphere

    • Ionization structure

    • Energy balance

Lecture 5) Dynamics#

  • Shock waves

  • Jets and outflows - Disks

Requirements : Projector for classes Basic Bibliography :#

  • George B. Rybicki & Alan P. Lightman. Radiative processes in Astrophysics. John Wiley & Sons, 1985

  • J. E. Dyson & D. A. The Physics of the Interstellar Medium. Williams John Wiley & Sons, 1997.

  • Lyman Spitzer, Jr. Physical Processes in the Interstellar Medium. JohnWiley & Sons, 1998.

  • Donald E. Osterbrock & Gary J. Ferland. Astrophysics of Gaseous Nebulae and Active Galactic Nuclei. University Science Books, 2005.

  • Frank Shu, The Physics of Astrophysics, Vols. 1 y 2. University Science Books, 1991.

  • Bruce T.Draine. Physics of the Interstellar and Intergalactic Medium. Princeton Series in Astrophysics, 2010.

  • Michael A. Dopitay, Ralph S. Sutherland. Astrophysics of the Diffuse Universe. Astronomy and Astrophysics Library, 2003.

  • J. Lequeux. Interstellar Medium. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2005.

Course 10: Machine Learning for Astronomy#

Juan Rafael Martínez Galarza (AstroAI, CfA, Harvard & Smithsonian)#

This course will provide the students with a starting toolkit for the use of machine learning in astronomy, with an emphasis on state-of-the-art approaches of self-supervised learning, sequential analysis , and statistical inference. The goal is twofold: provide a general overview of traditional tools in machine learning in astronomy (e.g. convolutional neural networks for supervised image classification), while at the same time introducing the students to the latest developments in the field (e.g. self-supervised learning, transformers, simulation based inference). The course will include practical exercises in the form of Jupyter notebooks.

Lecture 1) Introduction to Machine Learning#

  • Types of machine learning: supervised, unsupervised, self supervised.

  • Introduction to neural networks: fully connected neural networks.

  • Convolutional neural networks.

  • Supervised learning for classification and regression

  • Lab: Classification of galaxy images with CNNs.

Lecture 2) Evaluation Metrics in Machine Learning#

  • Validation, cross-validation.

  • Metrics: accuracy, precision, recall

  • The ROC curve.

  • Data pre-processing: imbalanced datasets, missing data

  • Fine-tuning hyperparameters

  • Lab: Evaluating the galaxy image classifier.

Lecture 3) Unsupervised machine learning#

  • Clustering methods.

  • Dimensionality reduction.

  • Principal component analysis.

  • The t-SNE and UMAP methods.

  • The autoencoders as non-linear PCA

  • Lab: Clustering galaxy morphology/anomaly detection

Lecture 4) Machine learning for time-domain astrophysics#

  • Introduction to time domain astronomy

  • Recurrent neural networks.

  • Transformers.

  • Self-supervised learning

  • Lab: Light curve forecasting

Lecture 5) Statistical Inference#

  • Bayesian analysis of data.

  • Variational inference.

  • MCMC versus variational inference.

  • Approximate Bayesian Computation

  • Normalizing flows.

  • Lab: Simulation Based Inference

Bibliography#

  • Machine Learning techniques for Physics and Astronomy, Princeton University Press, Acquaviva, ISBN: 9780691203928

  • Statistics, Data Mining & Machine Learning in Astronomy, Princeton University Press, Ivezić, Connolly, VanderPlas, & Gray, ISBN: 9780691198309

  • Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow, O’Reilly Media, Géron, ISBN: 978109812

Course 11: Cultural astronomy#

Lua Salomón & Armando Anzellini (USA)#

Lecture 1) Looking towards the Sky: Plural Realities, Ontologies and Ways of Knowing#

  • Ontologies

  • Solar dancers

  • Should Asteroids Be Considered Heritage?

Josefina Vásquez (Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador)#

Lecture 2) Skyscapes and Astroculture: Bridging Natural and Social Science Museographies#

  • Skyscapes and Astroculture

  • Natural and Social Science Museographies

Nicolás Vásquez (Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Ecuador)#

Student projects#

Topic 1: Cosmology (Clara Rojas, Yachay Tech)#

2 groups will work on:

  • Project 1: Study of the scalar power spectrum for the Hilltop inflationary model using the uniform approximation method

  • Project 2: Inflationary cosmology models

Topic 2: Radio astronomy (Helga Dénes, Yachay Tech)#

2 groups will work on:

  • Project 3: Gaussian decomposition of spectral line data cubes

  • Project 4: Analysing galaxy kinematics with radio data

Topic 3: Interstellar and circumgalactic medium (Wladimir Banda-Barragán, Yachay Tech)#

2 groups will work on:

  • Project 5: Characterising shock waves in ISM collisions

Topic 4: Compact Objects and Stellar Models (David Andrade, Yachay Tech)#

2 groups will work on:

  • Project 6: Interior solutions by gravitational decoupling

  • Project 7: Interior solutions of compact stars

Topic 5: Observational Extragalactic Astronomy (Fernando Buitrago, University of Valladolid)#

2 groups will work on:

  • Project 8: Determining the surface brightness profiles of high redshift galaxies in the UV-optical-NIR

  • Project 9: Determining the structural parameters of high redshift galaxies in the UV-optical-NIR

Topic 6: TBD (José Manuel Ramírez, Yachay Tech)#

  • Project 10: TBD

Topic 7: TBD (Benjamín de Zayas, Yachay Tech)#

  • Project 11: TBD

  • Project 12: ?

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