Course outline

PHYS 633 Seminar in Astrophysics 2, Winter term 2026¶

Time and place¶

Winter term 2026. Class will be held on Mondays and Wednesdays from 1-2.30pm in the Piano room on the 2nd floor of Rutherford.

First organizational meeting: Wednesday 7th January, 1pm, in the Piano room

List of topics¶

The topic for the course, “Astrophysical Dynamics”, has deliberately been chosen to be broad so that it overlaps with many different research areas. We will decide on a list of topics at the first meeting, depending on what people are most interested in, but some possible topics are:

• The two-body problem

• The restricted three-body problem: tadpole and horseshoe orbits, trojans

• Resonant interactions between planets

• Planetary migration

• Kozai mechanism

• Tides: orbital evolution, tidal heating

• Chaos and the evolution of systems over large times

• How to integrate accurately. Symplectic integration

• Dynamics of star clusters. Violent relaxation, core collapse

• Orbits in Galactic disks

• Dynamical friction and applications such as orbital decay of globular clusters

• Relativistic corrections in pulsar binaries

• The dynamics of black hole mergers

• Tidal disruption events around supermassive black holes; supermassive black hole growth

• Formation and evolution of dark matter halos

• Evolution of interacting binary stars

Format¶

The course will be divided into two parts. In the first part (approximately 8 weeks), we will discuss a different topic each week. Class time will be devoted to discussion of the reading assignment and numerical exercises that illustrate the topic. We will divide into pairs and, starting from Week 3, each pair of students will take charge of one topic. You will be responsible, with the help of the course instructor, for assigning reading for the week, including reading questions, running the discussion in class, and coming up with a numerical exercise.

The second part of the course (approximately 4 weeks) will be devoted to individual projects. Class time will be used for updates and feedback on the project, with a final presentation in the last week of classes (Weeks 11/12).

Useful books and other resources¶

• Solar System Dynamics by Murray and Dermott (McGill library ebook)

• Dynamics and Astrophysics of Galaxies by Jo Bovy (online book)

• REBOUND code

  • Example notebooks

  • YouTube tutorials

  • Units

  • REBOUNDx for adding additional forces, e.g. effects of tides

• galpy code

• Dynamics and Evolution of Galactic Nuclei by David Merritt

Assessment¶

Your grade will be based on (1) weekly submissions (1/3), (2) the materials prepared for your topic week (1/3), and (3) the project (1/3).

Weekly submissions: You should devote 2-3 hours outside class each week for the reading. The reading questions are meant to guide your reading, highlighting the important points / equations / physics ideas etc. Answers to the reading questions need to be submitted to your github before the Monday class starts, and after the Wednesday class you should submit your answers to the numerical exercises in your github.

Topic week: For your topic week, you and your partner will be responsible for choosing the reading, devising a set of reading questions (with solutions), writing a numerical exercise (with solutions) and running the class discussions. You should consult with AC about your plans for the week on the previous Monday at the latest. The reading should be given out on the previous Wednesday at the latest to give plenty of time to read it before the Monday class.

Project: Your project should be a computational project on some aspect of astrophysical dynamics. The topic may or may not be related to your research area. You should consult with AC about your choice of topic before the end of Week 8 (so before Friday Mar 13).

Course coordinator¶

Prof. Andrew Cumming, andrew.cumming@mcgill.ca, Rutherford 310.

McGill policy statements¶

McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures (approved by Senate on 29 January 2003) (See McGill’s guide to academic honesty](https://www.mcgill.ca/students/srr/honest) for more information).

In accord with McGill University’s Charter of Students’ Rights, students in this course have the right to submit in English or in French written work that is to be graded. This does not apply to courses in which acquiring proficiency in a language is one of the objectives.

In the event of extraordinary circumstances beyond the University’s control, the content and/or evaluation scheme in this course is subject to change.

Additional policies governing academic issues which affect students can be found in the McGill Charter of Students’ Rights.