PHYS-4007/5007 Course Project Web Home Page

Your Computer Class Project will involve modifying and using an IDL computer code dealing with the modeling of polytropes. This web site has been set up to assist you in this project. It contains IDL procedure files, instructions describing what needs to be done for this project, and sample LaTeX files to assist you in writing your manuscript for this project. For this project, you will be generating a set of models of gas spheres following a polytropic equation of state: P(ρ), where P is total pressure and ρ is mass density. Polytropes are often used as a first stage in generating stellar interior models.

The Computer Project Instructions (which can be downloaded below) contains a short description of polytropes, information on what you need to figure out in your coding, and an outline on how you should format your manuscript and how you should analyze your models. Those of you taking this course for honors or graduate credit will be expected to carry out additional analysis as will be described in the Instructions.

A full description of the project is given in the polytrope files. The ".tex" file contains the LaTeX file of the write-up for this project, which has been compiled into the output ".pdf" (PDF) file. A sample LaTeX file (template.tex) can be downloaded and used as a template for your project's manuscript. This LaTeX file requires either the temptex.eps figure file (if compiling in Unix) or the temptex.bmp image file (if compiling with PCTeX in Microsoft Windows) to be downloaded too. The template.pdf file contain the compiled versions of this LaTeX file. Download the following files to a subdirectory where you wish to carry out this project (i.e. the so-called working directory). Double click on each of the files listed.

This web page contains the links of the various IDL procedure files that students in PHYS-4007/5007 will need to help them carry out their course project. The files here are in standard ASCII (text) format so that when you click on the link, the code will appear in your web browser. Once the code appears on the web browser, highlight all the lines of code, then copy and paste them into an ASCII editor (either Notepad, Emacs, or the IDL GUI editor. Once pasted, save this file as indicated by the PROCEDURE name (e.g., polytrope.pro).