Instructor

PRE-EXAM OFFICE HOURS
Mon April 13, 15:00-16:00
Tue April 14, 14:30-15:30
Wed April 15, 15:00-16:00
Thu April 16, 14:30-16:30
Fri April 17, NOON-14:30, FINAL EXAM, LIFE room 2214

COURSE INFORMATION

AIM: A course in point-mass gravitational dynamics in the context of the Solar System, stellar, galactic, and extragalactic environments.

LEVEL: First year graduate (see prereqs below)
or 4th year honours with the permission of the instructor.

TEXTBOOKS:
- Solar System Dynamics (Burns and Gladman, chapters provided free of charge)
Required:
- Galactic Dynamics. Binney and Tremaine (Princeton University Press). MUST BE 2ND EDITON

Other potentially-useful references (not required):
- Galactic Astronomy. Binney and Merrifield (Princeton University Press)
- Solar System Dynamics. Dermott and Murray.

PREREQUISITES:
- Undergraduate classical mechanics at honours physics level. You should have seen Hamilton's equations of motion.
- Differential equations at honours physics level (PDEs).
- Elementary knowledge of a scientific programming language. Some numerical exploration will be required.

HOURS PER WEEK: One 1.33 hr meetings per week, ENDING EARLY APRIL 2026.

3 CREDITS : Coursework will consist of assigned readings, discussion, assignments as well as midterm and final examimations.

Evaluation:
Midterm: 20%
Final: 30%
Homework: 35%
In class problems: 15%

Course Topics

Unit: CELESTIAL MECHANICS
- Overview of solar system structure
- The 2-body problem
- The restricted 3-body problem
- Numerical techniques
- The N-body problem and dynamical chaos
- Resonances, perturbation equations
- The stability of the solar system
- Extrasolar Planets
  
  * The level of the above topics is as covered in the commonly available:
  Orbital Motion, 3rd Edition.  A.E. Roy  
  Fundmentals of Celestial Mechanics, J.M.A. Danby
  Solar System Dynamics, C.D. Murray and S.F. Dermott

  * The remaining topics are on the scope of the coverage of that topic in:
  Galactic Dynamics, 2nd edition.  J. Binney and S. Tremaine
     Most of the material is in Chapters 1-3, 7 and 8

Unit: GALACTIC/STELLAR DYNAMICS
- The structure of the galaxy
- Galactic kinematics
- Evidence for dark matter
- Distribution functions
- Dynamics of star clusters
  - relaxation, collapse, evaporation, binaries, multiple populations
- Virial Theorm
- Dynamical friction

Reading Log

Date	Readings 	  	HW due  
Sep  5	No class 		none due. HW1 distributed in email+Canvas. 
Sep 12  Chpt. 1			HW1 due, HW2 distributed
Sep 19  Chpt. 2(skip 2.5,2.11)	HW2 due, HW3 problem distributed
Sep 26  Secs 2.5, 2.11		HW3 due, HW4 problem distributed
Oct  3  Chpt. 3			HW4 due, HW5 distributed
Oct 10  none			HW5 due, HW6 problem distributed
Oct 17  Ch 4 (skip 4.4,.5,.8)	HW6 due, HW7 problem distributed
...
Oct 26 - Dec 10 : See assignments in Canvas for reading.
...
Now BINNEY AND TREMAINE 2nd EDITION
Jan 15 Chpt 2 to end of p. 66   HW13 : Chpt 2, Prob 2.1 due
Jan 22 p.66-(end 2.3). Skim 2.4; don't get bogged down in details. HW14: 2.15.
Jan 29 2.4 carefully. skim 2.6.1 to Mestel disk, 2.6.1 (a)+b carefully. 2.7. No homework!
Feb  5 Chpt 3 to end of pg 155.  HW 15: Problems 2.7, 3.4, 3.8
Feb 12 Sections 3.1.1 and 3.2    HW16: Problem 3.15 and 3.18 due Feb 12
Feb 19 No class; mid-term break  ----
Feb 26 3.3 to end of 3.3.2	 No HW due
Mar  5 3.3.3 to end of p. 191    HW17 due.
Mar 12 1.2, Chpt 7 to end 7.1    Class is remote zoom office hour 11:15-12
Mar 19 Chpt 4 to end of 4.1	 HW18 due.
Mar 26 4.2, 4.3 to end of 4.3.1  HW19 : BT (2nd Ed) problem 4.4 
Apr  2 4.3.3. Spitzer review.    HW20 on Canvas.
Apr  9 BG TO DO
----
Apr 17 12:00-2:30    FINAL EXAM.  Location LIFE 2214