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As our nearest star, the Sun offers a unique opportunity to study stellar physics in action. Following the success of his previous books, Galaxies and The Stars, Roger Tayler presents the first full picture of how studies of the Sun and the solar system help us understand stars in general and other planetary systems. Using mathematics appropriate for advanced undergraduate students in physics, The Sun as a Star provides a broad and wide-ranging introduction to The Sun as a Star. Succinct derivations of key results – such as the properties of spectral lines, the theory of stellar oscillations, plasma physics, magnetohydrodynamics and dynamo theory – are provided in a number of handy appendices, ensuring that The Sun as a Star is completely self contained. Altogether, this is an invaluable textbook for students studying the Sun, stars, the solar-terrestrial environment and the formation of planetary systems.
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1. Introduction
2. Observations of the Sun and other stars
3. The quiet Sun and stellar evolution
4. Magnetic fields and fluid motions
5. The active Sun
6. Activity in other stars
7. Solar-terrestrial relations
8. The origin of the solar system
9. Concluding remarks
Appendix 1. Thermodynamic equilibrium
Appendix 2. The Zeeman effect
Appendix 3. Atomic energy levels and spectral lines: forbidden transitions
Appendix 4. Theory of solar oscillations
Appendix 5. Motion of a charged particle in uniform electric and magnetic fields
Appendix 6. Magnetohydrodynamic waves
Appendix 7. Dynamo maintenance of magnetic fields
Appendix 8. Plasma properties
Appendix 9. Motion of a charged particle in a spatially varying magnetic field
Suggestions for further reading
Index
"'The wealth of data on the Sun makes for rich pickings, and Roger Tayler has not stinted on The Sun as a Star [...] The book is accurately pitched at the second and third-year university student, concentrating on those aspects of solar physics that help us to understand stars in general [...] The Sun as a Star clearly originates from a university lecture course. But Tayler has steered well away from the prosaic: what remains is a good, sharp, textbook."
– David Hughes, New Scientist
