ASTRONOMICAL SPECTROSCOPY This page intentionally left blank Imperial College Press Advanced Physics Texts – Vol. 2 ASTRONOMICAL SPECTROSCOPY An Introduction to the Atomic and Molecular Physics of Astronomical Spectra by JONATHAN TENNYSON University College Londomn, UK PressImperial College Published by Imperial College Press 57 Shelton Street Covent Garden London WC2H 9HE Distributed by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. 5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224 USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601 UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ASTRONOMICAL SPECTROSCOPY An Introduction to the Atomic and Molecular Physics of Astronomical Spectra Copyright © 2005 by Imperial College Press All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher. For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy is not required from the publisher. ISBN 1-86094-513-9 ISBN 1-86094-529-5 (pbk) Typeset by Stallion Press Email:
[email protected] Printed in Singapore. PREFACE This book follows closely a lecture course I gave entitled ‘Astronomical Spectroscopy’ to third-year undergraduate students at University College London between 1998 and 2003. The students who attended had done a prior introductory course on Quantum Mechanics which covered the hydrogen atom but no further atomic physics or spectroscopy. A similar level of prior knowledge is assumed in the current work. There are many people whose help have been essential for the completion of this book. First I must thank Bill Somerville who inaugurated the course Astronomical Spectroscopy and taught it for two years before me. He selflessly shared his lecture notes and other materials with me. I would like to thank Ceinwen Sanderson for turning my hand-scrawled lecture notes into LATEX, and my colleagues Tony Lynas-Gray, Bill Somerville, Peter Storey and Jeremy Yates for their extensive comments on the draft of the book. I owe a debt of gratitude to my graduate students Bob Barber and Natasha Doss who checked all the problems and found many errors. I thank all of them for the corrections; any errors that remain are all mine. I must also thank the students who attended my Astronomical Spectroscopy course. It was great fun to teach, not least because the latest developments in astrophysics often fed straight into the lectures. Particular thanks are due to the class of 2003 who made a number of helpful comments and suggestions on the contents of the book. A book on spectroscopy thrives on good illustrations and I have shamelessly plundered the literature and other sources for spectra to illustrate this on