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Subject offerings of new and developing areas of knowledge in physics intended to augment the existing curriculum. See Class Schedule or departmental course information for topics and prerequisites. Course Information: May be repeated in the same or separate terms if topics vary.

This course will cover the advanced topic of neutron stars, focusing on the their interior composition and astrophysical observables. Emphasis will be put on (i) calculations of the equation of state of nuclear matter at high densities and low temperatures, and (ii) the modeling of the gravitational field and gravitational waves emitted by neutron stars in a binary. The topics discussed will include a subset of the following: Tolman-Oppenheimer-Snyder equation, mass-radius curves, Hartle-Thorne approximation, moment of inertia, quadrupole moment and tidal deformability, universal relations and gravitational waves, basics of thermodynamics, white dwarfs/crust, empiricalmass formula, N-body interactions, liquid gas phase transition/van der Waals, chiral effective field theory, chiralmean field model, NJL, (non)linear sigma model, MIT bag model, conserved charges, symmetry energy expansion. This class is advanced because it will assume the student is well-versed in clas