An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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A unit of → frequency, equal to 10⁶ Hz.

→ giga-; → hertz.

The SI unit of frequency, defined as a frequency of 1 cycle per second.

After Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857-1894), the German physicist, who made several important contributions to the study of electromagnetism.

A laboratory experiment carried out by Heinrich Hertz in 1888 to generate and detect → electromagnetic waves for the first time. It involved a high voltage power source, consisting of two → capacitors, each provided with a conducting rod. The rods were separated by a small → spark gap and connected to an → induction coil. When the electrodes were raised to a sufficiently high → potential difference, a spark passed across the gap, and an oscillating discharge took place. A group of waves with a wavelength of a few meters were emitted at each discharge. A wire loop provided with a detecting spark gap, held away from the oscillating sparks, produced sparks upon arrival of the oscillating electric and magnetic fields.

→ hertz (Hz); → experiment.

→ frequency to wavelength conversion.

→ hertz; → meter; → conversion.

An electrical system used for the production of → electromagnetic waves. It consists of two equal → capacitors connected to two electrodes with a → spark gap between the electrodes. The system is connected to an → induction coil. When the induction coil is activated, electromagnetic waves are generated across the spark gap. See also → Hertz experiment.

→ hertz (Hz); → oscillator.

A region of the → Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, between the → main sequence and the → giant branch, occupied by very few stars. It corresponds to a very short period in stellar evolution.

Named after the Danish astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung (1873-1967), who first noticed this phenomenon; → gap

A display of stellar properties using a plot of → effective temperature (or instead → color or → spectral type) along the abscissa versus → luminosity (or → absolute magnitude). The temperature is plotted in the inverse direction, with high temperatures on the left and low temperatures on the right. On the diagram the majority of stars are concentrated in a diagonal strip running from upper left to lower right, i.e. from high temperature-high luminosity → massive stars to low temperature-low luminosity → low-mass stars. This feature is known as the → main sequence. This is the locus of stars burning hydrogen in their cores (→ proton-proton chain). The lower edge of this strip, known as the → zero age main sequence (ZAMS), designates the positions where stars of different mass first begin to burn hydrogen in their cores. Well below the main sequence there is a group of stars that, despite being very hot, are so small that their luminosity is very small as a consequence. These are the class of → white dwarfs. These objects represent old and very evolved stars that have shed their outer layers to reveal a very small but extremely hot inner core. They are no longer generating energy but are merely emitting light as they cool (→ white dwarf cooling track). Stars with high luminosities but relatively low temperatures occupy a wide region above the main sequence. The majority of them have used up all the hydrogen in their cores and have expanded and cooled as a result of internal readjustment. Called → red giants, they are still burning helium in their cores (→ helium burning, → carbon burning). There are also stars with very high luminosities, resulting from their enormous outputs of energy, because they are burning their fuel at a prodigious rate. These are the → supergiants. They can be hot or cool, hence blue or red in color. Same as → H-R diagram.
See also:
→ asymptotic giant branch, → blue horizontal branch star, → extreme horizontal branch star, → field horizontal branch star, → Hayashi track, → horizontal branch, → post-asymptotic giant branch star, → red giant branch, → supra-horizontal branch star, → zero age horizontal branch star, → Humphreys-Davidson limit.

Named after the Danish Ejnar Hertzsprung (1873-1967) and the American Henry Norris Russell (1877-1957). However, the first H-R diagram was published not by Hertzpurung neither Russell, but by a PhD student of Karl Schwarzschild at Göttingen. The student was Hans Rosenberg (1879-1940), who in 1910 published the diagram for stars in the → Pleiades (Astronomische Nachrichten, Vol. 186 (4445), p. 71, 1910). Although Hertzpurung had a very preliminary diagram in 1908, his first proper diagram was published in 1911. Likewise, Russell published his version only in 1915 with the better and more numerous data then available (Nielsen, A.V., 1969, Centaurus 9, 219; Valls-Gabaud, D., 2002, Observed HR diagrams and stellar evolution, ASP Conf. Proceedings, Vol. 274. Edited by Thibault Lejeune and João Fernandes); → diagram.

A unit of → frequency, equal to 10³ Hz.

→ kilo-; → hertz.

A spacial → Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HRD) which is independent of distance and extinction measurements. The sHRD is derived from the classical HRD by replacing the luminosity (L) to the quantity ℒ = T ⁴_eff/g which is the inverse of the flux-weighted gravity introduced by Kudritzki et al. (2003). The value of ℒ can be calculated from stellar atmosphere analyses without prior knowledge of the distance or the extinction. In contrast to the classical T_eff-log g diagram (→ Kiel diagram), the sHRD sorts stars according to their proximity to the → Eddington limit, because ℒ is proportional to the Eddington factor Γ = L/L_Edd according to the relation ℒ = (1/4πσG)(L/M) = (c/(σκ)Γ, where σ is the → Stefan-Boltzmann constant, κ is the electron → scattering  → opacity in the stellar envelope, and the other symbols have their usual meanings (Langer, N., Kudritzki, R. P., 2014, A&A 564, A52, arXive:1403.2212, Castro et al., 2014, A&A 570, L13.

→ spectroscopic; → H-R diagram.