Lectures Notes, Recommended Reading and Problems (2024):

• Order of Magnitude Gravitational Dynamics lecture_ord_mag.pdf

Reading: Read the book by Goldreich, Mahajan et al. on Understanding the World with Dimensional Analysis ...

Assignment due Monday Sept 9, due at midnight. Please upload your work into blackboard: Problem set 1




• Hyperbolic orbits, Impulse approximation, Dynamical Friction and Gravitational Heating lecture_hyp_orb.pdf

Reading: Read on Dynamical Friction in Binney and Tremaine's book, Galactic dynamics (sections 7.4, 8.1, 8.2) or the end of Chap 3 in Valtonen and Kartunnen's book, The three body problem

Assignment due Monday Sept 23, at midnight. Please upload your work into blackboard: Problem set 2




• Some Celestial Mechanics lecture_CM.pdf

Reading: Chap 2,6 of Solar System Dynamics (by Murray and Dermott), or Chap 3 of The Three Body Problem (by Valtonen and Kartunnen)

Assignment due Oct 9, at midnight. Please upload your work into blackboard: Problem set 3 ,
Problem set 3 numerical problem (html), Problem set 3 jupyter notebook




• Spiral density waves lecture_Spiral.pdf

Reading: Section 3.2, Chap 6 of Galactic Dynamics (by Binney and Tremaine) and Chap 7 of the Astrophysics of Planet Formation by Phil Armitage

Assignment due Monday Oct 28, at midnight. Please upload your work into blackboard: Problem set 4
Problem set 4 numerical problem (html), Problem set 4 jupyter notebook




• Collsionless systems, the Collisionless Boltzmann equation, Virial and Jeans equations Lecture_ColBol.pdf

Reading: Chapter 4,5 in Binney and Tremaine on collionless systems.

Assignment due Monday Nov 11, at midnight. Please upload your work into blackboard: Problem set 5
Problem set 5 numerical problem (html), Problem set 5 jupyter notebook



• Hamiltonian Dynamics. Canonical transformations. Resonances. Area preserving maps.
  Lecture Notes: ham1.pdf , ham2.pdf , ham3.pdf
  


• Tidal Evolution. Notes on tides Tidal_Notes pdf , keynote
  Reading: Murray and Dermott Chapters 4,5
  
  Assignment due Thursday Dec 12, at midnight. Please upload your work into blackboard: Problem set 6
  Problem set 6 numerical problems (html), Problem set 6 jupyter notebook