Schatzman worked on white dwarfs during the 1940s. He realized that the atmospheres of white dwarfs should be gravitationally stratified, with hydrogen on top and heavier elements below,[4][5], §5–6 and explained pressure ionization in white dwarf atmospheres.[3] He was one of the proponents of the wave heating theory of the solar corona.[6][7]
Schatzman wrote the astrophysics textbook Astrophysique Générale and contributed greatly to the popularity of astrophysics in France. He received the Holweck award in 1985 and the Gold Medal of the CNRS in 1983. He became a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1985.[3][2]
Selected works
Origine et évolution des mondes, Paris: A. Michel, 1957. Translated into Spanish by Raquel Rabiela de Gortari and Arcadio Poveda as Origen y evolución del universo, México: UNAM, 1960; translated into English by Bernard and Annabel Pagel as The origin and evolution of the universe, New York: Basic Books, 1965.
White Dwarfs, Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1958.
(with Jean Claude Pecker) Astrophysique Générale, Paris: Masson, 1959.
(with Françoise Praderie) Les Etoiles, Paris: Paris Interéditions et ed. du CNRS, 1990, ISBN 2-7296-0299-2. Translated into English by A. R. King as The Stars, Berlin: Springer, 1993, ISBN 3-540-54196-9.
References
^ p. 104, L'Outil Théorie, Évry Schatzman and Isabelle Souriau, Paris: Eshel, 1992. ISBN 290670444X.