This is a follow-on book to the introductory textbook "Physics of the Solar Corona" previously published in 2004 by the same author, which provided a systematic introduction and covered mostly scientific results from the pre-2000 era. Using a similar structure as the previous book the second volume provides a seamless continuation of numerous novel research results in solar physics that emerged in the new millennium (after 2000) from the new solar missions of RHESSI, STEREO, Hinode, CORONAS, and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) during the era of 2000-2018. The new solar space missions are characterized by unprecedented high-resolution imaging, time resolution, spectral capabilities, stereoscopy and tomography, which reveal the intricate dynamics of magneto-hydrodynamic processes in the solar corona down to scales of 100 km. The enormous amount of data streaming down from SDO in Terabytes per day requires advanced automated data processing methods. The book focuses exclusively on new research results after 2000, which are reviewed in a comprehensive manner, documented by over 3600 literature references, covering theory, observations, and numerical modeling of basic physical processes that are observed in high-temperature plasmas of the Sun and other astrophysical objects, such as plasma instabilities, coronal heating, magnetic reconnection processes, coronal mass ejections, plasma waves and oscillations, or particle acceleration.

Pulsar timing is a promising method for detecting gravitational waves in the nano-Hertz band. In his prize winning Ph.D. thesis Rutger van Haasteren deals with how one takes thousands of seemingly random timing residuals which are measured by pulsar observers, and extracts information about the presence and character of the gravitational waves in the nano-Hertz band that are washing over our Galaxy. The author presents a sophisticated mathematical algorithm that deals with this issue. His algorithm is probably the most well-developed of those that are currently in use in the Pulsar Timing Array community. In chapter 3, the gravitational-wave memory effect is described. This is one of the first descriptions of this interesting effect in relation with pulsar timing, which may become observable in future Pulsar Timing Array projects. The last part of the work is dedicated to an effort to combine the European pulsar timing data sets in order to search for gravitational waves. This study has placed the most stringent limit to date on the intensity of gravitational waves that are produced by pairs of supermassive black holes dancing around each other in distant galaxies, as well as those that may be produced by vibrating cosmic strings. Rutger van Haasteren has won the 2011 GWIC Thesis Prize of the Gravitational Wave International Community for his innovative work in various directions of the search for gravitational waves by pulsar timing. The work is presented in this Ph.D. thesis.

"Experiments in Reduced Gravity: Sediment Settling on Mars" is the first book to be published that reflects experiments conducted on Martian geomorphology in reduced gravity.

This brief yet important book on sediment experiments assesses the theoretical and empirical foundation of the models used to analyze the increasing information we have on the past geography on Mars. The book also evaluates the need to develop new methods for analyzing new information by providing a conceptual outline and a case study on how experiments can be used to test current theoretical considerations. The conceptual approach to identifying the need for and role of experiments will be of interest to planetary scientists and geoscientists not necessarily involved with Mars, but those using experiments in their research who can apply the book s concepts.
Includes figures, diagrams, illustrations, and photographs to vividly explore experiments and outcomes in reduced gravityProvides an outline of planned experiments and questions related to Martian geomorphologyFeatures results from the MarsSedEx 1 Experiment in 2012"

First Snow White encounters one of the Little People, then one of the Even Smaller People, and finally one of the Truly Infinitesimal People. And no matter how diligently she searches, the only dwarves she can find are collapsed stars! Clearly, she's not at home in her well-known Brothers Grimm fairy tale, but instead in a strange new landscape that features quantum behavior, the wavelike properties of particles, and the Uncertainty Principle. She (and we) must have entered, in short, one of the worlds created by Robert Gilmore, physicist and fabulist.

Written by one of the astronomers who 'lived the dream' of working there this book is a restrospectively expanded diary featuring the 'birth and long life' of what was a truely innovative telescope. Based on input received from people involved in its planning, building, operation, and many scientists who observed with it, the author tells this success story of The United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT). Conceived in the mid 1970's as a cheap and cheerful light-bucket for the newly emerging field of infrared astronomy it has re-invented itself once a decade to remain at the forefront of infrared astronomy for more than 30 years. Even in 2012 / 2013, when ironically it faced almost certain closure, it remained one of the most scientifically productive telescopes in the world. Everybody, including amateur and professional astronomers, interested in real astronomy projects will enjoy reading that story and meet (again) the persons who lived it.

This book offers review chapters written by invited speakers of the 3rd Session of the Sant Cugat Forum on Astrophysics - Gravitational Waves Astrophysics. All chapters have been peer reviewed. The book goes beyond normal conference proceedings in that it provides a wide panorama of the astrophysics of gravitational waves and serves as a reference work for researchers in the field.

Right now, you are orbiting a black hole. The Earth orbits the Sun, and the Sun orbits the centre of the Milky Way: a supermassive black hole, the strangest and most misunderstood phenomenon in the galaxy. In A Brief History of Black Holes, the award-winning University of Oxford researcher Dr Becky Smethurst charts five hundred years of scientific breakthroughs in astronomy and astrophysics. She takes us from the earliest observations of the universe and the collapse of massive stars, to the iconic first photographs of a black hole and her own published findings. A cosmic tale of discovery, Becky explains why black holes aren't really 'black', that you never ever want to be 'spaghettified', how black holes are more like sofa cushions than hoovers and why, beyond the event horizon, the future is a direction in space rather than in time. Told with humour and wisdom, this captivating book describes the secrets behind the most profound questions about our universe, all hidden inside black holes. 'A jaunt through space history . . . with charming wit and many pop-culture references' - BBC Sky At Night Magazine

In this thesis, ultimate sensitive measurement for weak force imposed on a suspended mirror is performed with the help of a laser and an optical cavity for the development of gravitational-wave detectors. According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, such measurements are subject to a fundamental noise called quantum noise, which arises from the quantum nature of a probe (light) and a measured object (mirror). One of the sources of quantum noise is the quantum back-action, which arises from the vacuum fluctuation of the light. It sways the mirror via the momentum transferred to the mirror upon its reflection for the measurement. The author discusses a fundamental trade-off between sensitivity and stability in the macroscopic system, and suggests using a triangular cavity that can avoid this trade-off. The development of an optical triangular cavity is described and its characterization of the optomechanical effect in the triangular cavity is demonstrated. As a result, for the first time in the world the quantum back-action imposed on the 5-mg suspended mirror is significantly evaluated. This work contributes to overcoming the standard quantum limit in the future.

This book presents a study of the saturation of unstable f-modes (fundamental modes) due to low-order nonlinear mode coupling. Since their theoretical prediction in 1934, neutron stars have remained among the most challenging objects in the Universe. Gravitational waves emitted by unstable neutron star oscillations can be used to obtain information about their inner structure, that is, the equation of state of dense nuclear matter. After its initial growth phase, the instability is expected to saturate due to nonlinear effects. The saturation amplitude of the unstable mode determines the detectability of the generated gravitational-wave signal, but also affects the evolution of the neutron star. The study shows that the unstable (parent) mode resonantly couples to pairs of stable (daughter) modes, which drain the parent's energy and make it saturate via a mechanism called parametric resonance instability. Further, it calculates the saturation amplitude of the most unstable f-mode multipoles throughout their so-called instability windows.

Origins of Life: A Cosmic Perspective presents an overview of the concepts, methods, and theories of astrobiology and origins of life research while presenting a summary of the latest findings. The book provides insight into the environments and processes that gave birth to life on our planet, which naturally informs our assessment of the probability that has arisen (or will arise) elsewhere. In addition, the book encourages readers to go beyond basic concepts, to explore topics in greater depth, and to engage in lively discussions. The text is intended to be suitable for mid- and upper-level undergraduates and beginning graduate students and more generally as an introduction and overview for researchers and general readers seeking to follow current developments in this interdisciplinary field. Readers are assumed to have a basic grounding in the relevant sciences, but prior specialized knowledge is not required. Each chapter concludes with a list of questions and discussion topics as well as suggestions for further reading. Some questions can be answered with reference to material in the text, but others require further reading and some have no known answers. The intention is to encourage readers to go beyond basic concepts, to explore topics in greater depth, and, in a classroom setting, to engage in lively discussions with class members.

The work in this thesis was a part of the experiment of squeezed light injection into the LIGO interferometer. The work first discusses the detailed design of the squeezed light source which would be used for the experiment. The specific design is the doubly-resonant, traveling-wave bow-tie cavity squeezed light source with a new modified coherent sideband locking technique. The thesis describes the properties affecting the squeezing magnitudes and offers solutions which improve the gain. The first part also includes the detailed modeling of the back-scattering noise of a traveling Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO). In the second part, the thesis discusses the LIGO Squeezed Light Injection Experiment, undertaken to test squeezed light injection into a 4km interferometric gravitational wave detector. The results show the first ever measurement of squeezing enhancement in a full-scale suspended gravitational wave interferometer with Fabry-Perot arms. Further, it showed that the presence of a squeezed-light source added no additional noise in the low frequency band. The result was the best sensitivity achieved by any gravitational wave detector. The thesis is very well organized with the adequate theoretical background including basics of Quantum Optics, Quantum noise pertaining to gravitational wave detectors in various configurations, along with extensive referencing necessary for the experimental set-up. For any non-experimental scientist, this introduction is a very useful and enjoyable reading. The author is the winner of the 2013 GWIC Theses Prize.

A collection of papers edited by four experts in the field, this book sets out to describe the way solar activity is manifested in observations of the solar interior, the photosphere, the chromosphere, the corona and the heliosphere. The 11-year solar activity cycle, more generally known as the sunspot cycle, is a fundamental property of the Sun. This phenomenon is the generation and evolution of magnetic fields in the Sun's convection zone, the photosphere. It is only by the careful enumeration and description of the phenomena and their variations that one can clarify their interdependences. The sunspot cycle has been tracked back about four centuries, and it has been recognized that to make this data set a really useful tool in understanding how the activity cycle works and how it can be predicted, a very careful and detailed effort is needed to generate sunspot numbers. This book deals with this topic, together with several others that present related phenomena that all indicate the physical processes that take place in the Sun and its exterior environment. The reviews in the book also present the latest theoretical and modelling studies that attempt to explain the activity cycle. It remains true, as has been shown in the unexpected characteristics of the first two solar cycles in the 21st century, that predictability remains a serious challenge. Nevertheless, the highly expert and detailed reviews in this book, using the very best solar observations from both ground- and space based telescopes, provide the best possible report on what is known and what is yet to be discovered. Originally published in Space Science Reviews, Vol 186, Issues 1-4, 2014.

The full story of how our relationship with light shapes our health, productivity and mood.

'A sparkling and illuminating study, one of those rare books that could genuinely improve your life' Sunday Times

Since the dawn of time, humans have worshipped the sun. And with good reason. Our biology is set up to work in partnership with it. From our sleep cycles to our immune systems and our mental health, access to sunlight is crucial for living a happy and fulfilling life. New research suggests that our sun exposure over a lifetime - even before we were born - may shape our risk of developing a range of different illnesses, from depression to diabetes.

Bursting with cutting-edge science and eye-opening advice, Chasing the Sun explores the extraordinary significance of sunlight, from ancient solstice celebrations to modern sleep labs, and from the unexpected health benefits of sun exposure to what the Amish know about sleep that the rest of us don't.

As more of us move into light-polluted cities, spending our days in dim offices and our evenings watching brightly lit screens, we are in danger of losing something vital: our connection to the star that gave us life. It's a loss that could have far-reaching consequences that we're only just beginning to grasp.

This book employs computer simulations of 'artificial' Universes to investigate the properties of two popular alternatives to the standard candidates for dark matter (DM) and dark energy (DE). It confronts the predictions of theoretical models with observations using a sophisticated semi-analytic model of galaxy formation. Understanding the nature of dark matter (DM) and dark energy (DE) are two of the most central problems in modern cosmology. While their important role in the evolution of the Universe has been well established-namely, that DM serves as the building blocks of galaxies, and that DE accelerates the expansion of the Universe-their true nature remains elusive. In the first half, the authors consider 'sterile neutrino' DM, motivated by recent claims that these particles may have finally been detected. Using sophisticated models of galaxy formation, the authors find that future observations of the high redshift Universe and faint dwarf galaxies in the Local Group can place strong constraints on the sterile neutrino scenario. In the second half, the authors propose and test novel numerical algorithms for simulating Universes with a 'modified' theory of gravity, as an alternative explanation to accelerated expansion. The authors' techniques improve the efficiency of these simulations by more than a factor of 20 compared to previous methods, inviting the readers into a new era for precision cosmological tests of gravity.

This book consists of invited reviews on Galactic Bulges written by experts in the field. A central point of the book is that, while in the standard picture of galaxy formation a significant amount of the baryonic mass is expected to reside in classical bulges, the question what is the fraction of galaxies with no classical bulges in the local Universe has remained open. The most spectacular example of a galaxy with no significant classical bulge is the Milky Way. The reviews of this book attempt to clarify the role of the various types of bulges during the mass build-up of galaxies, based on morphology, kinematics and stellar populations and connecting their properties at low and high redshifts. The observed properties are compared with the predictions of the theoretical models, accounting for the many physical processes leading to the central mass concentration and their destruction in galaxies. This book serves as an entry point for PhD students and non-specialists and as a reference work for researchers in the field.

Nominated as an outstanding thesis by Professor Robert Crittenden of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation in Portsmouth, and winner of the Michael Penston Prize for 2014 given by the Royal Astronomical Society for the best doctoral thesis in Astronomy or Astrophysics, this work aims to shed light on one of the most important probes of the early Universe: the bispectrum of the cosmic microwave background. The CMB bispectrum is a potential window on exciting new physics, as it is sensitive to the non-Gaussian features in the primordial fluctuations, the same fluctuations that evolved into today's planets, stars and galaxies. However, this invaluable information is potentially screened, as not all of the observed non-Gaussianity is of primordial origin. Indeed, a bispectrum arises even for perfectly Gaussian initial conditions due to non-linear dynamics, such as CMB photons scattering off free electrons and propagating in an inhomogeneous Universe. Dr. Pettinari introduces the reader to this intrinsic bispectrum in a pedagogic way, building up from the standard model of cosmology and from cosmological perturbation theory, the tool cosmologists use to unravel the history of the cosmos. In doing so, he introduces SONG, a new and efficient code for solving the second-order Einstein and Boltzmann equations. Next, he moves on to answer the crucial question: is the intrinsic bispectrum going to screen the primordial signal in the CMB? Using SONG, he computes the intrinsic bispectrum and shows how its contamination leads to a small bias in the estimates of primordial non-Gaussianity, a great news for the prospect of using CMB data to probe primordial non-Gaussianity.

The second edition of Solar System Astrophysics: Planetary Atmospheres and the Outer Solar System provides a timely update of our knowledge of planetary atmospheres and of the bodies of the outer solar system and their analogs in other planetary systems. This volume begins with an expanded treatment of the physics, chemistry, and meteorology of the atmospheres of the Earth, Venus, and Mars, moving on to their magnetospheres and then to a full discussion of the gas and ice giants and their properties. From here, attention switches to the small bodies of the solar system, beginning with the natural satellites. The comets, meteors, meteorites, and asteroids are discussed in order, and the volume concludes with the origin and evolution of our solar system. Finally, a fully revised section on extrasolar planetary systems puts the development of our system in a wider and increasingly well understood galactic context. All of the material is presented within a framework of historical importance. This book and its sister volume, Solar System Astrophysics: Background Science and the Inner Solar system, are pedagogically well written, providing clearly illustrated explanations, for example, of such topics as the numerical integration of the Adams-Williamson equation, the equations of state in planetary interiors and atmospheres, Maxwell's equations as applied to planetary ionospheres and magnetospheres, and the physics and chemistry of the Habitable Zone in planetary systems. Together, the volumes form a comprehensive text for any university course that aims to deal with all aspects of solar and extra-solar planetary systems. They will appeal separately to the intellectually curious who would like to know how just how far our knowledge of the solar system has progressed in recent years.

It has been known for a long time that stars are similar to our Sun. But it was only in 1810 that they were shown to be made of an incandescent gas. The chemical composition of this gas began to be determined in 1860. In 1940, it was demonstrated that the energy radiated by the stars is of thermonuclear origin. How stars form from interstellar matter and how they evolve and die was understood only recently, with our knowledge still incomplete. It was also realized recently that close double stars present a wide variety of extraordinary phenomena, which are far from being completely explored.This book explains all these aspects, and also discusses how the evolution of stars determine that of galaxies. The most interesting observations are illustrated by spectacular images, while the theory is explained as simply as possible, without however avoiding some mathematical or physical developments when they are necessary for a good understanding of what happens in stars. Without being a textbook for specialists, this book can be profitably read by students or amateurs possessing some basic scientific knowledge, who would like to be initiated in-depth to the fascinating world of stars.The author, an emeritus astronomer of the Paris Observatory, worked in various domains of astronomy connected with the subject of this book: interstellar matter and evolution of stars and galaxies. He directed the Marseilles observatory from 1983 to 1988 and served for fifteen years as Chief Editor of the professional European journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. He has written many articles and books about physics and astronomy at different levels.

This is the first comprehensive bibliography of temporal scholarship-research on the subject of time and the phenomenon of time itself. As the author notes in his introduction, the nature of research insights on the subject of time is difficult to comprehend within the confines of any specific discipline since relevant materials are scattered throughout the literature in numerous scholarly fields. By bringing together the most significant published works in a wide variety of disciplines, this unique compendium enables scholars and researchers to look beyond their own particular area of expertise when selecting appropriate resource materials. Throughout, the focus is on the time dimension itself as a problematic or researchable phenomenon rather than on narrow topics such as time management, time series analysis, or forecasting.

Organized by discipline, the work begins with an initial chapter that lists general works on the time dimension. Nineteen chapters then list works in particular disciplines ranging from anthropology and culture to biology, economics, futures studies, history, linguistics, management studies, psychology, and more. The final chapter lists miscellaneous entries which could not be categorized into any of the specific disciplinary headings. Within each chapter, entries are arranged alphabetically by author or editor. Nearly all sources are from scholarly journals and books.

This thesis describes the essential features of Moon-plasma interactions with a particular emphasis on the Earth's magnetotail plasma regime from both observational and theoretical standpoints. The Moon lacks a dense atmosphere as well as a strong intrinsic magnetic field. As a result, its interactions with the ambient plasma are drastically different from solar-wind interactions with magnetized planets such as Earth. The Moon encounters a wide range of plasma regime from the relatively dense, cold, supersonic solar-wind plasma to the low-density, hot, subsonic plasma in the geomagnetic tail. In this book, the author presents a series of new observations from recent lunar missions (i.e., Kaguya, ARTEMIS, and Chandrayaan-1), demonstrating the importance of the electron gyro-scale dynamics, plasma of lunar origin, and hot plasma interactions with lunar magnetic anomalies. The similarity and difference between the Moon-plasma interactions in the geomagnetic tail and those in the solar wind are discussed throughout the thesis. The basic knowledge presented in this book can be applied to plasma interactions with airless bodies throughout the solar system and beyond.

This thesis brings together the various techniques of X-ray spectral analysis in order to examine the properties of black holes that vary in mass by several orders of magnitude. In all these systems it is widely accepted that the X-ray emission is produced by Compton up-scattering of lower energy seed photons in a hot corona or accretion flow, and here these processes are examined through a study of the X-ray spectral variability of each source. A new technique is introduced, in which models are fitted to over 2 million X-ray spectra on time-scales as short as 16 ms, and subsequently it is shown that the nature of the correlation between intensity and spectral index is strongly dependent upon the spectral state of the black hole. Finally, the results of an extensive survey of nearby galactic nuclei using the Chandra X-ray telescope are presented in the form of images and spectra, and these results are used along with data from the literature to search for Compton-thick nuclei.

The series of texts composing this book is based on the lectures presented during the II Jose Plinio Baptista School of Cosmology, held in Pedra Azul (Espirito Santo, Brazil) between 9 and 14 March 2014. This II JBPCosmo has been entirely devoted to the problem of understanding theoretical and observational aspects of Cosmic Background Radiation (CMB).The CMB is one of the most important phenomena in Physics and a fundamental probe of our Universe when it was only 400,000 years old. It is an extraordinary laboratory where we can learn from particle physics to cosmology; its discovery in 1965 has been a landmark event in the history of physics.The observations of the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation through the satellites COBE, WMAP and Planck provided a huge amount of data which are being analyzed in order to discover important informations regarding the composition of our universe and the process of structure formation.