2014+Lecture+plan+Poutanen

= School of modern astrophysics =

Juri Poutanen (Tuorla Observatory, Finland)

 * Lecture 1. General description.**

Review of most important radiative processes in high-energy astrophysics. Kinetic equations for electrons and photons. Radiative transfer equation. Emission and absorption coefficients. Simple solutions. 


 * Lecture 2. Cyclo-synchrotron radiation.**

Larmor formula. Cyclotron radiation. Radiated power. Emission of relativistic particles. Cooling time. Spectrum of radiation from monoenergetic and from a power-law distribution of electrons. Synchrotron absorption. Thermalization by synchrotron self-absorption. 


 * Lectures 3. Compton scattering.**

Thomson scattering. Inverse Compton scattering. Radiative power. Spectrum of emission. Non-relativistic Compton scattering, Kompaneets equation. Comptonization. Applications to accreting black holes and neutron stars. Klein-Nishina effect. Electron cooling rate. Synchrotron self-Compton mechanism. Applications to active galaxies and gamma-ray bursts. 


 * Lecture 4. Pair production.**

Photon-photon pair production cross-section. Pair cascades. Photon breeding. GeV breaks in blazars. 


 * [[file:poutanen_exercises.pdf|Problems to solve]]**