Introduction to Stellar Structure (Astronomy and Planetary Sciences)

This book provides a comprehensive overview of stellar structure, evolution and basic stellar properties. It includes integrated problems within the chapters, with worked solutions. 

In the first part of this book, the author presents the basic properties of the stellar interior and describes them thoroughly, along with deriving the main stellar structure equations of temperature, density, pressure and luminosity, among others. The process and application of solving these equations is explained, as well as linking these results with actual observations. The second part of the text describes what happens to a star over time and how to determine this by solving the same equations at different points during a star’s lifetime. The fate of various stars is quite different depending on their masses and this is described in the final parts of the book. This text can be used for an upper level undergraduate course or an introductory graduate course on stellar physics.

Dr. Walter J. Maciel received his Bachelors in Physics from Federal University of Minas Gerais (1970), his MSc in Astronomy from the Aeronautics Technology Institute (1973) and a PhD in Astronomy from the University of São Paulo (1977). Dr. Maciel is a full professor of astronomy at the University of São Paulo and has been at the university for over 35 years. He is the author of three books published by EdUSP, the biggest Brazilian university press. He received the Jabuti prize in 2000 for the Portuguese edition of this book; his other two books, Astrophysics of the Interstellar Medium and Hydrodynamics and Stellar Winds: An Introduction, were among the finalists in 2003 and 2006, respectively. Both of these books have been published in English with Springer.