Table of Contents

Preface.

1. Stars and the Universe.

1.1Setting the stage.

1.2 Cosmic Kinematics.

1.3 Cosmic Dynamics.

1.4 Particles - and nucleosynthesis.

1.5 CMB fluctuations and structure formation.

1.6 Cosmological Parameters.

1.7 The inflationary Paradigm.

1.8 The role of Stellar Evolution.

2. Equation of State of the Stellar Matter.

2.1 Physical conditions of the stellar matter.

3. Equations of Stellar Structure.

3.1 Basic assumptions[.

3.2 Method of solution of the stellar structure equations.

3.3 Non-standard physical process.

4. Star Formation and Evolution.

4.1 Overall picture of stellar evolution.

4.2 Star formation.

4.3 Evolution along the Hayashi track.

5. The Hydrogen Burning Phase.

5.1 Overview.

5.2 The nuclear reactions.

5.3 The central H-burning phase in low main sequence stars.

5.4 The central H-burning phase in upper main sequence stars.

5.5 The dependence of MS tracks on chemical composition and  convection efficiency.

5.6 Very low-mass stars.

5.7 The mass - Luminosity relations.

5.8 The Schonberg-Chandrasekhar limit.

5.9 Post-main sequence evolution.

5.10 Dependence of the main RGB features of physical and chemical parameters.

5.11 Evolutionary properties of very metal-poor stars.

6. The Helium Burning Phase.

6.1 Introduction.

6.2 The nuclear reactions.

6.3 The zero age horizontal branch.

6.4 The core He-burning phase in low mass stars.

6.5 The central He-burning phase in more massive stars.

6.6 Pulsational properties of core He-burning stars.

7. The Advanced Evolutionary Phase.

7.1 Introduction.

7.2 The asymptotic giant branch.

7.3 The Chandrasekhar limit and the evolution of stars with large CO cores.

7.4 carbon-oxygen white dwarfs.

7.5 The advanced evolutionary stages of massive stars.

7.6 Type la supernovae.

7.7 Neutron stars.

7.8 Black holes.

8. From Theory to Observations.

8.1 Spectroscopic notation of the stellar chemical composition.

8.2 From stellar models to observed spectra and magnitudes.

8.3 The effect of interstellar extinction.

8.4 K-correction for high red-shift objects.

8.5 Some general comments about colour-magnitude-diagrams.

9. Simple Stellar Populations.

9.1 Theoretical isochrones.

9.2 Old simple stellar populations.

9.3 Young simple stellar populations.

10. Unresolved Stellar Populations.

10.1 Definition and problems.

10.2 Determination of the star formation history.

10.3  Distance indicators.

11. Unresolved Stellar Populations.

11.1 Simple stellar populations.

11.2 Composite stellar populations.

11.3 Distance to unresolved stellar populations.

Appendix I: Constants.

Appendix II: Selected Web Sites.

References.

Index.

About the Author

Maurizio Salaris studied physics at the University of Rome 'La Sapienza', and then worked at the Collurania-Teramo-Observatory, Italy, the Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain, the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany, and the Astrophysics Research Institute of the Liverpool John Moores University, UK, where he currently holds the post of Professor of Stellar Astrophysics. He has published about 150 papers in peer-reviewed journals and books, plus a monograph, co-authored by Santi Cassisi. Professor Salaris's scientific work focuses on theoretical stellar evolution, stellar population synthesis models, and the interpretation of photometric and spectroscopic observations of Galactic and extragalactic stellar populations.

Santi Cassisi received his degree in physics from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 1991. He then spent a year at the Astronomical Observatory of Meudon-Paris, France, followed by a PhD-fellowship at the University of L'Aquila, Italy, from 1995 to 1997. In 1998, he accepted a post as staff researcher at the Collurania-Teramo-Observatory, a research unit of INAF. He currently holds a position as associate professor at the same institution. Professor Cassisi's research focuses on theoretical stellar evolution and its application to the study of both galactic and extra-galactic stellar populations. He has authored about 210 scientific papers, 115 of them in peer-reviewed journals, and a monograph.

Reviews

"...books in this field will be increasingly useful." (Physical Sciences Educational Reviews, December 2006) "…will serve generations of students to come as an authoritative reference which details how stars and stellar populations come to develop (and then evolve) over long blocks of time." (The Electric Review, March/April 2006) "Well and clearly written and well referenced and illustrated … a valuable and welcome contribution." (Observatory, August 2006) “…considerable achievement of collecting many fascinating and useful graphs and figures in one place.”  (Physical Sciences Educational Reviews, December 2006)