Book Description
Graduate students and researchers in astrophysics and cosmology need a solid grasp of a wide range of physical processes. This authoritative textbook helps readers develop the necessary toolkit of theory. The book is modular in design, allowing the reader to pick and chose a selection of chapters, if necessary. After reviewing the basics of dynamics, electromagnetic theory, and statistical physics, the book carefully develops a solid understanding of radiative processes, spectra, fluid mechanics, plasma physics and MHD, dynamics of gravitating systems, general relativity, nuclear physics, and other key concepts. Throughout, the reader's understanding is developed and tested with problems and helpful hints. This welcome volume provides graduate students with an indispensable introduction to and reference on all the physical processes they will need to successfully tackle cutting-edge research in astrophysics and cosmology.It can be used alone or in conjunction with two companion volumes, which cover stars and stellar systems, and galaxies and cosmology (both forthcoming). ... Read more

Book Description

In the last 45 years, X-ray astronomy has become an integral part of modern astrophysics and cosmology. There is a wide range of astrophysical objects and phenomena, where X-rays provide crucial diagnostics. In particular they are well suited to study hot plasmas and matter under extreme physical conditions in compact objects. This book summarizes the present status of X-ray astronomy in terms of observational results and their astrophysical interpretation. It is written for students, astrophysicists as well a growing community of physicists interested in the field. An introduction including historical material is followed by chapters on X-ray astronomical instrumentation. The next two parts summarize in 17 chapters the present knowledge on various classes of X-ray sources in the galactic and extragalactic realm. While the X-ray astronomical highlights discussed in this book are mainly based on results from ROSAT, ASCA, RXTE, BeppoSAX, Chandra and XMM-Newton, a final chapter provides an outlook on observational capabilities and projects discussed for the future.

Book Description

Astronomy and Astrophysics is a comprehensive, fundamental, up-to-date reference book. It is filled with vital information and basic facts for amateur astronomers and professional astrophysicists, and for anyone interested in the Universe, from the Earth and other planets to the stars, galaxies and beyond. Although serious and thorough, the language, and ideas will attract the general reader, as well as students and professionals.

Book Description

In this book, a distinguished expert introduces plasma physics from the ground up, presenting it as a comprehensible field that can be grasped largely on the basis of physical intuition and qualitative reasoning, similar to other fields of physics. Plasmas are ionized gases that can be found in a hydrogen bomb explosion, the confinement chamber of an experimental fusion reactor, the solar corona, the aurora borealis, the interstellar medium, and the immediate vicinity of a gravitational black hole. Not surprisingly, plasma physics appears to consist of numerous topics arising independently from astrophysics, fusion physics, and other practical applications, and hence it remains a field poorly understood even by many astrophysicists. But, in fact, most of these topics can be approached from the same perspective, with a simple, physical intuition.

Selecting simple examples and presenting them in a simultaneously intuitive and rigorous manner, Russell Kulsrud guides readers through a careful derivation of the results and allows them to think through the physics for themselves. Thus, they are better prepared for complex cases and more general results. The first eleven chapters present topics by their importance to plasma physics while the last three chapters emphasize the field's astrophysical applications, applying the results accrued earlier. Throughout, many problems illustrate the field's applications. Based on a course the author taught for many years, Plasma Physics for Astrophysics is intended for graduate students as well as for working astrophysicists.

Customer Reviews (1)

More on cosmic plasma
This useful text is a companion to the classic, definitive, Cosmic Plasma by Hannes Alfven. It is part of an essential reference library for understanding the role of electricity and magnetism in astrophysical objects. It is a welcome quantitative description of these phenomena in a field characterised by hand-waving and not much science.The Virtue of Heresy: Confessions of a Dissident Astronomer ... Read more

Book Description
Fully updated with data from space-based observations and a comprehensive index and bibliography, this third edition contains the most frequently used information in modern astrophysics. As well as a vast number of tables, graphs, diagrams and formulae it also contains information covering topics including atomic physics, nuclear physics, relativity, plasma physics, electromagnetism, mathematics, probability and statistics, and geophysics. This handbook will be an essential reference for graduate students, researchers and professionals working in astronomy and the space sciences. A website containing extensive supplementary information and databases can be found at www.cambridge.org/9780521782425. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A reference for modern Space Scientists
This book is meant to be like the C.R.C.
Mathematics Tables that many of us have carried since high school.
Starting with fundamentals constants it presents values and equations
necessary for calculations in astronomical science
and ends with information on space delivery systems available at the time of printing.
Every college library connected with an astronomy program should have this reference on it's shelves. ... Read more

Book Description
This book is the final one in a series of three texts which together provide a modern, complete and authoritative account of our present knowledge of the stars. It discusses the internal structure and the evolution of stars, and is completely self-contained. There is an emphasis on the basic physics governing stellar structure and the basic ideas on which our understanding of stellar structure is based. The book also provides a comprehensive discussion of stellar evolution. Careful comparison is made between theory and observation, and the author has thus provided a lucid and balanced introductory text for the student. As for volumes 1 and 2, volume 3 is self-contained and can be used as an independent textbook. The author has not only taught but has also published many original papers in this subject. Her clear and readable style should make this text a first choice for undergraduate and beginning graduate students taking courses in astronomy and particularly in stellar astrophysics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent book
This is one of those rare books bridging the gap between undergraduate and more advanced graduated books. The book is not very big in size, but it is certainly dense. I goes straight to the point and allows very little deviation from its main topic: basic stellar structure and evolution. The book is easy to follow. Uses lots of formulae, but mathematics are kept at a basic level and most important, developments are always complete. Little is left for the imagination of the reader. That contributes to make it a pleasure to read. The book is part of a series, but it is self-contained and the frequent references to volume 2 are not too much annoying.

The book covers lots of stellar topics from the very beginning, but it is focused mainly in main sequence stars and red giants. Stars formation is treated only superficially and black holes are simply avoided; i.e. general relativity background is not required.

The book is always close to the observational phenomena but does not overwhelm the reader with lots of observational data. The first part of the book is oriented to settling the background of the basic stellar equations. The second part builds on that to draw conclusions and compare the results with observational phenomena.

I strongly recommend this book for readers who are not experts in the subject, but would like to advance one more step into stellar astrophysics. It would be also a good reference book for a one semester course in stellar evolution.

Excellent overview of a fascinating topic
The third volume in this series is an excellent text.It provides a good level of detail (ie, no hand-waving and no obsession with minutiae), moving efficiently through convection, energy generation, basic stellar structure equations, methods for calculating the models, evolution and tests of the models, star formation.It is worth noting that this book has the clearest description of degeneracy I have yet come across; this is a topic where many authors wave their hands and give a footnote, but she has taken the time to clearly delineate issues that many students find puzzling.This is a REAL text, so come prepared with the usual background in calculus, quantum, and thermodynamics. ... Read more

Book Description

G. Beutler's Methods of Celestial Mechanics is a coherent textbook for students as well as an excellent reference for practitioners. The first volume gives a thorough treatment of celestial mechanics and presents all the necessary mathematical details that a professional would need. The reader will appreciate the well-written chapters on numerical solution techniques for ordinary differential equations, as well as that on orbit determination. In the second volume applications to the rotation of earth and moon, to artificial earth satellites and to the planetary system are presented. The author addresses all aspects that are of importance in high-tech applications, such as the detailed gravitational fields of all planets and the earth, the oblateness of the earth, the radiation pressure and the atmospheric drag. The concluding part of this monumental treatise explains and details state-of-the-art professional and thoroughly-tested software for celestial mechanics. The accompanying CD-ROM enables readers to employ this software themselves and also serves as to illustrate and reinforce the related theoretical concepts.

Book Description
With the recent advent of large, ground-based telescopes and space telescopes, it is now possible to study in detail stars outside our galaxy--in neighboring galaxies in the so-called Local Group. The VIII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics gathered leading experts from around the world to review this exciting new area of research--extragalactic stellar astrophysics. This volume presents eight specially written articles based on the meeting, reviewing how the study of stars in nearby galaxies can be used to understand stellar and galactic structure and evolution in general. This book covers all aspects of extragalactic stellar astrophysics: stellar physics, stellar winds, stellar evolution, the use of photometric and spectroscopic techniques for studying extragalactic stars, stellar populations, chemical evolution, star formation histories and the calibration of the extragalactic distance scale. It provides graduate students and researchers with an invaluable introduction to and reference on the new subject of extragalactic stellar astrophysics. ... Read more

Book Description
This book contains the lectures delivered at the XIII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics, which reviewed current knowledge about the origin and evolution of the chemical elements in the Universe. Written by seven prestigious astrophysics researchers, it covers cosmological and stellar nucleosynthesis, abundance determinations in stars and ionized nebulae, chemical composition of nearby and distant galaxies, and models of chemical evolution of galaxies and intracluster medium. ... Read more

Book Description

This book investigates the question of how matter has evolved since its origin in the Big Bang, from the cosmological synthesis of hydrogen and helium to the generation of the complex set of nuclei that comprise our world and our selves. A central theme is the evolution of gravitationally contained thermonuclear reactors, otherwise known as stars. Our current understanding is presented systematically and quantitatively, by combining simple analytic models with new state-of-the-art computer simulations.

The narrative begins with the clues (primarily the solar system abundance pattern), the constraining physics (primarily nuclear and particle physics), and the thermonuclear burning in the Big Bang itself. It continues with a step-by-step description of how stars evolve by nuclear reactions, a critical investigation of supernova explosion mechanisms and the formation of neutron stars and of black holes, and an analysis of how such explosions appear to astronomers (illustrated by comparison with recent observations). It concludes with a synthesis of these ideas for galactic evolution, with implications for nucleosynthesis in the first generation of stars and for the solar system abundance pattern. Emphasis is given to questions that remain open, and to active research areas that bridge the disciplines of astronomy, cosmochemistry, physics, and planetary and space science. Extensive references are given.

Customer Reviews (1)

A must for graduate students
"Supernovae and Nucleosynthesis" is not a textbook, but it is extremely useful for astronomy students, especially in stellar and chemical evolution. There are lots of formulae, tables and figures, helping tounderstand the basics of synthesis and evolution of nuclei in our Cosmos.The thermonuclear reactions are well-explained, but less emphasis was takenin chemical evolution (especially in the observational part). In some partsis similar to the classic stellar evolution textbook by Clayton, but withupdate material. This book is a must for any astronomy library, seriousstudents and professional astronomers. ... Read more

Book Description
Recent years have seen a symbiosis of the fields of elementary particle physics and the astrophysics of the early universe. This text presents the background of the subjects and the latest developments at a level suitable for the average physics undergraduate. After introductory chapters in elementary particles and their interactions and role in the expanding universe, the problems and challenges of cosmological asymmetries, dark matter and dark energy are presented, followed by chapters on the growth of cosmic structure, on high energy cosmic rays and on particle processes in stars. A balance is maintained between theory and experiment and the text supplemented with over 100 problems, together with answers and model solutions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Partial impressions are good
Bought this book a little while ago to help me with an article I wrote in one of the local popular science magazines. I have only read parts of it (that concerned the article metioned above) and found it to be quite readable and well structured. I was not a great fan of the authors previous book - Introduction to High Energy Physics - as a postgraduate student since I felt that it lacked the depth I was looking for, so I was a bit skeptical concerning this book as well. Nevertheless, it was of great help to me and the parts that I read were well written. This is not a "heavy" book and it could prove to be of interest for readers with a background in university level Physics without needing a lot of Maths to understand the concepts.
Recommended. ... Read more

Book Description
This textbook introduction to the basic elements of fundamental astronomy and astrophysics serves as a foundation for understanding the structure, evolution, and observed properties of stars.The first half of the book explains how stellar motions, distances, luminosities, colors, radii, masses and temperatures are measured or derived.The author then shows how data of these sorts can be arranged to classify stars through their spectra. Stellar rotation and stellar magnetic fields are introduced.Stars with peculiar spectra and pulsating stars also merit special attention.The endpoints of stellar evolutions are briefly described. There is a separate chapter on the Sun and a final one on interstellar absorption.The usefulness of this text is enhanced by the inclusion of problems for students, tables of astronomical constants, and a selective bibliography. This is an excellent textbook for undergraduate and beginning graduate students studying astronomyand astrophysics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent book for teaching
I used this book for teaching the undergraduates. Although some chapters were not directly useful, the major part of it was very good. Some more illustrative examples would make it still more easy to grasp. ... Read more

Book Description
Numerical Methods in Astrophysics: An Introduction outlines various fundamental numerical methods that can solve gravitational dynamics, hydrodynamics, and radiation transport equations. This resource indicates which methods are most suitable for particular problems, demonstrates what the accuracy requirements are in numerical simulations, and suggests ways to test for and reduce the inevitable negative effects.

After an introduction to the basic equations and derivations, the book focuses on practical applications of the numerical methods. It explores hydrodynamic problems in one dimension, N-body particle dynamics, smoothed particle hydrodynamics, and stellar structure and evolution. The authors also examine advanced techniques in grid-based hydrodynamics, evaluate the methods for calculating the gravitational forces in an astrophysical system, and discuss specific problems in grid-based methods for radiation transfer. The book incorporates brief user instructions and a CD-ROM of the numerical codes, allowing readers to experiment with the codes to suit their own needs.

With numerous examples and sample problems that cover a wide range of current research topics, this highly practical guide illustrates how to solve key astrophysics problems, providing a clear introduction for graduate and undergraduate students as well as researchers and professionals. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Extremely good introduction!
This is an extremely well written introduction to a rapidly developing field. The authors cover a broad swath of topics, providing a clear understanding of the physical principles underlying numerical astrophysics. Such a focus on basic principles and physical understanding ensures that one does not lose sight of the forest for the trees. I recommend this book highly for graduate students in astrophysics, as well as active researchers in the field who want a quick overview before going into the details.

HUGE disappointment
I was really looking forward to this title, hoping in a book that would go beyond the usual toy problems of typical standard numerical simulations books. Also knowing that this book included real working code I was also hoping it would bridge the huge gap between theory and practice with a practical approach. Boy, was I mistaken. hard to believe, but there is not a single line of code in this book! The numerical codes in Fortran (yuk) are just dumped in the CD and superficially described (just barely saying what it does and what the input and output are) in a final 10 pages ( yes, you read that well, 10 pages) "chapter" that looks more like an appendix to anyone with a little common sense. I know college professors can be a bit disoriented about what is important and what not in their field of research (I still my quantum mechanics prof. employed approximately the same time to try to explain us while there are 2n+1 numbers between n and -n and to introduce us to Fourier Transforms) but this is really too much! The bunch of theory and equations that this book is littered is totally useless unless you show me how these equations get implemented in code.
And if I have to wade through the code in a CD trying to figure it out by myself, what is the value of buying this book? Given this approach , I really pity the grad students of these guys...

... Read more

Book Description

Describing interstellar matter in our galaxy in all of its various forms, this book also considers the physical and chemical processes that are occurring within this matter. The first seven chapters present the various components making up the interstellar matter and detail the ways that we are able to study them. The following seven chapters are devoted to the physical, chemical and dynamical processes that control the behaviour of interstellar matter. These include the instabilities and cloud collapse processes that lead to the formation of stars. The last chapter summarizes the transformations that can occur between the different phases of the interstellar medium. Emphasizing methods over results, The Interstellar Medium is written for graduate students, for young astronomers, and also for any researchers who have developed an interest in the interstellar medium.

Book Description

This book provides a survey of the current state of research into the physics of neutrinos. It is presented in a form accessible to non-specialists and graduate students, but will also be useful as a handbook for researchers in this field. The reader finds here a global view of the areas of physics in which neutrinos play important roles, including astrophysics and cosmology. The book is intended to be self-contained: Starting from the standard theory of electroweak interactions, the key notions are explained in detail and the fundamental equations are derived explicitly, so that readers can understand their precise content. Prime emphasis is given to the mass of neutrinos and its implications. The first eight chapters deal mostly with well-established knowledge whilst later chapters probe into research problems.

Book Description
Covering topics of radio astronomy, this book contains graduate-level problems with carefully presented solutions. The problems are arranged following the content of the book "Tools of Radio Astronomy" by K. Rohlfs and T.L.Wilson (also available in the this series) on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Some of these problems have been formulated to provide an extension to the material presented in "Tools of Radio Astronomy". ... Read more