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A comprehensive and up-to-date review of Cygnus A and what it can teach us about other active galaxies - for graduate students and researchers.
Gravitational lensing is by now sufficiently well understood that it can be used as a tool of investigation in other astrophysical areas. Applications include the determination of the Hubble constant, probing the dark matter context of galaxies and the mapping of the universe to the identification of otherwise invisible large-scale structures. Each chapter of the book covers in a self-contained manner a subfield of gravitational lensing, with the double aim of describing in a simple way the basics of the theory and of reviewing the most recent developments as well as applications foreseen in the near future. The book will thus be particularly useful as a high-level textbook for nonspecialist researchers and advanced students wishing to become familiar with the field all the way up to the forefront of research.
A new branch of physics, black hole gravitohydromagnetics (GHM) is developed from the rudiments to the frontiers of research. GHM describes plasma interactions that combine the effects of gravity and a strong magnetic field, in the vicinity (ergosphere) of a rapidly rotating black hole. This topic was created in response to the astrophysical quest to understand the central engines of radio loud extragalactic radio sources. The theory describes a "torsional tug of war" between rotating ergospheric plasma and the distant asymptotic plasma that extracts the rotational inertia of the black hole.
On the 100th anniversary of Marconi's successful experiment on radio broadcasting, 250 astronomers from all over the world met in Bologna (Italy) for five days, to update their knowledge of the physics and statistical properties of powerful extragalactic radio sources. Since their discovery in the fifties enormous progress has been made. The existence of superluminal motions in the cores of radio sources, the presence there of a black hole surrounded by an absorbing dust torus, as inferred mostly from studies at other wavelengths, are now accepted ideas. Nevertheless, in spite of these efforts, there are many questions still unanswered. For instance we do not know which mechanism produces the huge amount of energy supplied to radio sources, how the jets connecting the `engine' to the lobes are formed and collimated, which of the differences observed among the various classes of radio sources are apparent and which are real. These and other related topics are discussed in this book.
An up-to-date survey of astrochemistry in the early years of the twenty-first century. For researchers and graduate students.
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The possibilities of astronomical observation have dramatically increased over the last decade. Major satellites, like the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra and XMM Newton, are complemented by numerous large ground-based observatories, from 8m-10m optical telescopes to sub-mm and radio facilities. As a result, observational astronomy has access to virtually the whole electromagnetic spectrum of galaxies, even at high redshifts. Theoretical models of galaxy formation and cosmological evolution now face a serious challenge to match the plethora of observational data. In October 2003, over 170 astronomers from 15 countries met for a 4-day workshop to extensively illustrate and discuss all major observational projects and ongoing theoretical efforts to model galaxy formation and evolution. This volume contains the complete proceedings of this meeting and is therefore a unique and timely overview of the current state of research in this rapidly evolving field.
Recent years have seen increasing evidence that the main epoch of galaxy formation in the universe may be directly accessible to observation. An gular fluctuations in the background relict radiation have been detected by various ground-based instruments as well as by the COBE satellite, and suggest that the epoch of galaxy formation was not so very early. Combined optical and radio studies have found galaxies at redshifts above 2. 0, systems that at least superficially show the characteristics expected of large galaxies seen only shortly after their formation. And absorption lines in the spectra of quasars seem to be telling us that most cold gas at early to intermediate cosmological epochs ...