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The 50th anniversary of the discovery of quasars in 1963 presents an interesting opportunity to ask questions about the current state of quasar research. Formatted as a series of interviews with noted researchers in the field, each of them asked to address a specific set of questions covering topics selected by the editors, this book deals with the historical development of quasar research and discusses how advances in instrumentation and computational capabilities have benefitted quasar astronomy and have changed our basic understanding of quasars. In the last part of the book the interviews address the current topic of the role of quasars in galaxy evolution. They summarise open issues in understanding active galactic nuclei and quasars and present an outlook regarding what future observational facilities both on the ground and in space might reveal. Its interview format, the fascinating topic of quasars and black holes, and the lively recollections and at times controversial views of the contributors make this book both rewarding and a pleasure to read!
What evidence is there for and against unified schemes for active galactic nuclei (AGN)? How do the AGN populations evolve over cosmological timescales? And what can the variability of their UV and X-ray emission tell us? These are just some of the exciting issues addressed in this volume of papers collected from the 33rd Herstmonceux conference in Cambridge. AGN are among the most spectacular objects known to astronomy. Yet, despite years of intense and wide-ranging research, the debate continues - what is their fundamental source of power? Rapid progress has been made towards answering this question by a variety of large-scale, multi-wavelength monitoring campaigns and the latest generation of satellite-borne observations. This volume provides a valuable overview and timely update of the exciting and rapidly developing field of AGN research - essential reading for graduate students and researchers.
This book provides a theoretical and observational overview of the state of the art of gamma-ray astrophysics, and their impact and connection with the physics of cosmic rays and neutrinos. With the aim of shedding new and fresh light on the problem of the nature of the gamma-ray sources, particularly those yet unidentified, this book summarizes contributions to a workshop that continues today.
Supermassive black holes are now believed to play an important role in the evolution of the Universe. Every respectable galaxy hosts in its center a black hole that appears to regulate the growth of the galaxy itself. In this book, leading experts in the field review the most recent theoretical and observational results on the following topics: - formation and growth of the first black holes in the Universe and their role in the formation and evolution of galaxies - the physics of black-hole accretion and the production of relativistic jets - binary black-hole mergers and gravitational radiation. Theoretical work is supplemented by the most recent exciting results from space and ground based observatories. This volume is useful research and reference tool for the entire astrophysical community.
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: The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will provide more than one order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity compared with any existing radio telescope over a wavelength range of several hundred to one, from decametric to microwave wavelengths. It will revolutionize the study of the most abundant element in the Universe, hydrogen, from the epoch of reionisation to the present-day, probing the onset formation period of the very first stars, will closely scan proto-planets and, through the precision timing of pulsars, will detect the distortions of space-time due to gravitational radiation. The SKA is a sensing network spanning 3000 km from its centre and with a collecting area of more than 1 s...
Given the fact that there are perhaps 400 billion stars in our Galaxy alone, and perhaps 400 billion galaxies in the Universe, it stands to reason that somewhere out there, in the 14-billion-year-old cosmos, there is or once was a civilization at least as advanced as our own. The sheer enormity of the numbers almost demands that we accept the truth of this hypothesis. Why, then, have we encountered no evidence, no messages, no artifacts of these extraterrestrials? In this second, significantly revised and expanded edition of his widely popular book, Webb discusses in detail the (for now!) 75 most cogent and intriguing solutions to Fermi's famous paradox: If the numbers strongly point to the ...
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The last 50 years have seen a tremendous progress in the research on quasars. From a time when quasars were unforeseen oddities, we have come to a view that considers quasars as active galactic nuclei, with nuclear activity a coming-of-age experienced by most or all galaxies in their evolution. We have passed from a few tens of known quasars of the early 1970s to the 500,000 listed in the catalogue of the Data Release 14 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Not surprisingly, accretion processes on the central black holes in the nuclei of galaxies — the key concept in our understanding of quasars and active nuclei in general — have gained an outstanding status in present-day astrophysics. Acc...