计划攻读物理学或天体物理学专业或副修的第一年级学生，如果有必要的数学知识，通常在他们的第一学期修读PHYC 160、160L和MATH 162，而在第二学期修读PHYC 161、161L和MATH 163。这些先决条件有一定的灵活性。物理或天体物理学专业的学生每学期都需要学术指导。大学系中感兴趣的领域或特定专业的学生应尽快与部门顾问会面，以确保他们获得当前的课程和招生政策以及有关如何满足要求的具体建议入场。不允许学生获得PHYC 151和160以及PHYC 152和161的学分。理学学士学位是为打算继续在
Students in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of New Mexico find themselves immersed in a stimulating atmosphere arising from their exposure to the teaching and research activities of 29 regular faculty members, another several dozen research, adjunct and part-time faculty members, a dozen postdoctoral research associates, and from their interactions with well over 100 undergraduate majors and over 120 graduate students. The atmosphere is enriched by activities of the Center for Quantum Information and Control, the Consortium of the Americas for Interdisciplinary Science, the New Mexico Center for Particle Physics, and the Institute for Astrophysics, which are housed in the department, by the Center for High Technology Materials, in which physicists and engineers are at work on understanding and developing optoelectronic materials and devices with novel properties, by the New Mexico Center for the Spatiotemporal Modeling of Cell Signaling, a collaborative effort that includes physicists, engineers, mathematicians, and biologists to study complex cell signaling networks, and by the collaborative projects the faculty and students in the department carry out with neighboring laboratories such as Sandia National Laboratories, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, with local industries, and with institutes, universities and other centers of learning in the USA and elsewhere. Outstanding scientists from all over the world visit the department for periods of a few weeks to as long as a year, while seminars and colloquia feature international experts in their fields each week.<br><br>The research atmosphere is equally active, with work being pursued in astrophysics and astronomy, optics and photonics, condensed matter physics, quantum information, atomic and subatomic physics, biomedical physics, general relativity and statistical physics. A program that focuses on the theoretical and observational study of the structure, properties, and behavior of stars, star systems and clusters, stellar life cycles, and related phenomena. Includes instruction in cosmology, plasma kinetics, stellar physics, convolution and non-equilibrium radiation transfer theory, non-Euclidean geometries, mathematical modeling, galactic structure theory, and relativistic astronomy.