{"id":72,"date":"2021-10-12T17:46:02","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T14:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/users.utu.fi\/jurpou\/?page_id=72"},"modified":"2026-09-30T15:19:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T12:19:57","slug":"teaching","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/users.utu.fi\/jurpou\/teaching\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching"},"content":{"rendered":"

High-energy astrophysics, Fall 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Teachers<\/h4>\n

Lecturers: Juri Poutanen<\/a> (room 251 in Quantum), Alexandra Veledina, Sergey Tsygankov<\/p>\n

Teaching assistant: Anastasiia Bocharova<\/a> (room 252)<\/p>\n

Learning outcomes<\/h4>\n

At the end of the course, students should be able to: describe the physics of compact stars and derive the mass-radius relationship for compact stars assuming degenerate electron or neutron pressure; outline the main methods of measuring masses, radii and spins of compact stars; show the Galactic distribution of different classes of compact stars; discuss the period-period derivative relation for pulsars and place there different classes of pulsars; describe different methods of the magnetic field determination of compact stars;\u00a0develop self-study skills; solve problems on topics in the syllabus; read, understand and be able to answer questions on scientific refereed articles in the field of high-energy astrophysics.<\/p>\n

Contents<\/h4>\n

Neutron stars, formation and structure. Degenerate neutron gas, equation of state, mass-radius relation. Mass determination in binary systems. Radio pulsars, X-ray pulsars, accreting millisecond pulsars. X-ray sources in the Milky Way. Low- and high-mass X-ray binaries. Stellar-mass black holes. Intermediate-mass black holes. Supermassive black holes in the Milky Way and in other galaxies. Physics of accretion, spherical accretion, accretion disks. Observations of accreting neutron stars and black holes, spectral and temporal properties. Clusters of galaxies. Relativistic jets in AGN and gamma-ray bursts.<\/p>\n

The course consist of about 18 lectures, 8 home exercises, 2 computer exercises (bonus), and presentations by the students.<\/p>\n

Home exercises: Compulsory homework sets will be assigned and due every week. You are urged not to start these the night before they are due. For late exercises only one half of the points will be given. The solutions can be returned to the assistant before<\/strong> the exercise session or by email.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Grading is based on exercises (20%), presentation (10%), \u00a0exam (70%).<\/p>\n

Requirements: Minimum 50% of exercises, presentation and the final exam.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Literature<\/h4>\n

Charles P.A., Seward F.D.: Exploring the X-ray Universe, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995
Frank J., King A., Raine D.: Accretion power in Astrophysics, 3rd ed., Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Schedule\u00a0<\/h4>\n
\n

Lectures on Tuesday 12-14 (room XVI)
Wednesday 14-16 (109)
Exercises on Friday 12-14 (109)
The lecture rooms and the timing of the exercises change in October\/December<\/p>\n

zoom: https:\/\/utu.zoom.us\/j\/61833385313<\/p>\n

Lectures<\/h4>\n

September 22: Lecture 1, Introduction [pdf<\/a>]<\/p>\n

September 23: Lecture 2, Formation of neutron stars [pdf<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Exercise set 1, deadline September 30 [pdf<\/a>]<\/p>\n

September 25 (Friday): Lecture 3, Radio pulsars [pdf<\/a>]<\/p>\n

September 29: Lecture 4, X-ray binaries [pdf<\/a>]<\/p>\n

September 30: exercise session 1\u00a0<\/p>\n

Exercise set 2, deadline October 9 \u00a0[pdf<\/a>]<\/p>\n

October 2: PhD defense of Anna Bobrikova, at 12:00 in Agora XXII lecture hall \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

October 6: Lecture 5, Accreting millisecond pulsars [pdf]\u00a0<\/p>\n

October 7: Lecture 6, X-ray bursts [pdf]<\/p>\n

October 9: exercise session 2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Exercise set 3, deadline October 16 [pdf]<\/p>\n

October 13: Lecture 7, X-ray pulsars [pdf]<\/p>\n

October 14: Lecture 8, X-ray polarimetry of X-ray pulsars [pdf]<\/p>\n

October 16: exercise session 3\u00a0<\/p>\n

Exercise set 4, deadline October 30 [pdf]<\/p>\n

October 27: Lecture 9, Spherical accretion [pdf]\u00a0<\/p>\n

October 28: Lecture 10, Accretion disks [pdf]\u00a0<\/p>\n

October 30: exercise session 4\u00a0<\/p>\n

November 3: Lecture 11, Accretion disks (cont.) [pdf]\u00a0<\/p>\n

November 4: Lecture 12, Spectral properties of accreting black holes and neutron stars [pdf]\u00a0<\/p>\n

November 6: exercise session 5\u00a0<\/p>\n

November 10: Lecture 13, Timing properties of accreting black holes and neutron stars [pdf]\u00a0<\/p>\n

November 11: Lecture 14, Timing properties \u00a0(cont.) [pdf] \u00a0<\/p>\n

November 13: exercise session 6\u00a0<\/p>\n

November 17: Lecture 15, Reflection as a tool to study compact objects [pdf]\u00a0<\/p>\n

November 18: Lecture 16, Active galactic nuclei [pdf]<\/p>\n

November 20: exercise session 7\u00a0<\/p>\n

November 24: Lecture 17, Active galactic nuclei (cont.) [pdf]<\/p>\n

November 25: Lecture 18, Jets from black holes [pdf]\u00a0<\/p>\n

November 27: exercise session 8 \u00a0<\/p>\n

December 1: presentations 1\u00a0<\/p>\n

December 15: presentations 2\u00a0<\/p>\n

December 16: presentations 3\u00a0<\/p>\n

Exam 1: December 18<\/strong><\/p>\n

Exam 2: January ?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Optional additional exercise<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n

each gives 2 points for the course “Topical projects in research” (FFYS7039).<\/p>\n

Standard accretion disc model [pdf<\/a>]\u00a0<\/p>\n

Monte-Carlo simulations of Thomson scattering [pdf<\/a>]<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

High-energy astrophysics, Fall 2026 Teachers Lecturers: Juri Poutanen (room 251 in Quantum), Alexandra Veledina, Sergey Tsygankov Teaching assistant: Anastasiia Bocharova (room 252) Learning outcomes At the end of the course, students should be able to: describe the physics of compact stars and derive the mass-radius relationship for compact stars assuming degenerate electron or neutron pressure; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1500,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-72","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/users.utu.fi\/jurpou\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/users.utu.fi\/jurpou\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/users.utu.fi\/jurpou\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/users.utu.fi\/jurpou\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1500"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/users.utu.fi\/jurpou\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":185,"href":"https:\/\/users.utu.fi\/jurpou\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2673,"href":"https:\/\/users.utu.fi\/jurpou\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/72\/revisions\/2673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/users.utu.fi\/jurpou\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}