本书是一部版权引进的天文学英文原版教材。本书是作者过去15年在特拉华大学定期教授的恒星天体物理学课程笔记的补充，书中大量使用了被称为埃格尔顿( Eggleton)代码的基于恒星结构和演化的计算得出的数据。

本书作者为詹姆斯·麦克唐纳（JamesMacDonald），他于1979年在剑桥大学获得天文学博士学位，之后成为萨塞克斯大学、伊利诺伊大学和亚利桑那州立大学的博士后，于1985年加入特拉华大学，现在是物理学和天文学教授，他的研究方向是恒星的结构和演化，最近的工作集中在低质量主序星和褐矮星上，并在同行评审期刊上发表了80多篇论文。

Preface
Acknowledgements
Author biography
1 Observational background
1.1 Distances
1.2 Stellar brightness and luminosity
1.3 Colors
1.4 Spectroscopy
1.5 Color-magnitude diagrams
1.6 Stellar masses
1.7 The mass-luminosity relation for main sequence stars
1.8 The mass-radius relation for main sequence stars
Bibliography
2 The equations of stellar structure: mass conservation
and hydrostatic equilibrium
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The mass conservation equation
2.3 The hydrostatic equilibriu m equation for a spherical star
2.4 The dynamical time scale
2.5 The central temperature of the Sun
2.6 The central temperatures of main sequence stars
2.7 Radiation pressure
3 Energy considerations, the source of the Sun's energy,
and energy transport
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The virial theorem
3.3 The virial theorem for stars in hydrostatic equilibrium
3.4 The conservation of energy equation for a star in hydrostatic equilibrium
3.5 Stars in thermal equilibrium
3.6 Energy transport
3.7 The equation of radiative transfer
3.8 Optical depth and effective temperature
3.9 Validity of the diffusion approximation
Bibliography
4 Convective energy transport
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The Schwarzschild criterion for convective instability
4.3 Including convective energy transport in stellar models
Bibliography
5 The equations of stellar evolution and how to solve them
5.1 Introduction
5.2 The equations of stellar structure
5.3 The physical significance of the Eddington luminosity
5.4 Equations for composition changes
5.5 Solving the equations of stellar evolution
5.6 The Newton-Raphson method
5.7 Sets of non-linear equations
Bibliography
6 Physics of gas and radiation
6.1 Introduction
6.2 The ideal gas equation of state
6.3 The radiation equation of state
6.4 The equation of state for a mixture of ideal gas and radiation
6.5 The Eddington standard model of stellar structure
Bibliography
7 Ionization and recombination
7.1 Introduction
7.2 The Boltzmann excitation equation
7.3 The Saha ionization equation
7.4 A difficulty and its resolution
7.5 Ionization of hydrogen
7.6 The effect of ionization on the adiabatic gradient
7.7 The effect of ionization on the specific heat
7.8 Pressure ionization
7.9 Free energy approach to ionization
7.10 A crude model for inclusion of pressure ionization in a
thermodynamically consistent way
Bibliography
8 The degenerate electron gas
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Complete electron degeneracy
8.3 Limiting forms
8.4 The contribution from nuclei at zero temperature
8.5 Transition from non-degeneracy to degeneracy
8.6 Effects of degeneracy on the adiabatic gradient and the first
adiabatic exponent “ ua “
9 Polytropes and the Chandrasekhar mass
9.1 Introduction
9.2 The Lane-Emden equation
9.3 Application to white dwarf stars
Bibliography
10 Opacity
10.1 Introduction
10.2 The Rosseland mean opacity
10.3 Opacity mechanisms
10.4 Electron scattering opacity
10.5 Free-free opacity
10.6 Bound-free opacity
10.7 Bound-bound opacity
10.8 The Rosseland mean opacity for solar composition material
Bibliography
11 Nuclear reactions
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Occurrence of thermonuclear reactions
11.3 Cross sections and nuclear reaction rates
11.4 The cross section
11.5 Evaluation of the reaction rate
11.6 Major nuclear burning stages in stars: H burning
11.7 Energy generation in the pp-chains and the CNO-cycles
11.8 Major nuclear burning stages in stars: He burning
11.9 Advanced nuclear burning phases
Bibliography
12 Neutrino energy loss processes
12.1 Pair annihilation neutrino process (e++e- →v + )
12.2 Plasma neutrino process (/plamon→v +i)
12.3 Photo-neutrino process (y + e→e +v +D)
12.4 Bremsstrahlung neutrino process
Bibiography
13 Homology relations
13.1 Introduc