Proceedings of IAU Symposium No. 75 held in Geneva, Switzerland, September 6-10, 1976. Dedicated to Solomon Pikel'ner

The Pacific Rim Conference originally started with one research concentration only - binary star research. The first Conference was held in Beijing, China, 1985, the second one in Seoul and Taejon, South Korea, 1990 and the third one in Chiang Mai, Thailand, 1995. In recent years, the conference series evolved into a much broader area of stellar astrophysics. The first such conference was held in Hong Kong in 1997. Kwong-Sang Cheng, a. k. a. one of the three Musketeers, documented the "accidental" development in writing in the Proceedings of the 1997 Pacific Rim Conference on Stellar Astrophysics (Volume 138 of the ASP Conference Series)! The meeting at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology covered three major topics: binary stars, compact stars and solar type stars. The conference was extremely successful. There was a general feeling among the participants that the conference on stellar astrophysics provided a good means to share ideas between such closely related disciplines. Unfortunately after the very successful meeting at HKST, Kwing L. Chan (another Musketeer) thought that he had already served and would not like to chair for another LOC for at least five years! After a few drinks at one of the watering holes in Wan Chai district of Hong Kong, Kwong-Sang Cheng was in very hiRh spirit and volunteered to taking on the responsibility of hosting the 51 Pacific Rim Conference at Hong Kong University in 1999.

This book addresses one of the most intriguing mysteries of our universe: the nature of dark matter. The results presented here mark a significant and substantial contribution to the search for new physics, in particular for new particles that couple to dark matter. The first analysis presented is a search for heavy new particles that decay into pairs of hadronic jets (dijets). This pioneering analysis explores unprecedented dijet invariant masses, reaching nearly 7 TeV, and sets constraints on several important new physics models. The two subsequent analyses focus on the difficult low dijet mass region, down to 200 GeV, and employ a novel technique to efficiently gather low-mass dijet events. The results of these analyses transcend the long-standing constraints on dark matter mediator particles set by several existing experiments.

The following topics are addressed: space astrometric missions, ground based optical techniques, very long baseline interferometric (VLBI) techniques, impact of these techniques on astrophysics and on geodynamics, and issues related to celestial and terrestrial reference frames. In the area of space optical astrometry, the reduction of one year of data from the Hipparcos mission shows excellent results for more than 40,000 stars. Recent developments in ground-based optical astrometry are concentrated on CCB meridian circles and transit instruments. The VLBI technique is the most powerful method to determine the earth rotation parameters, nutation series, and baseline lengths. More accurate celestial and terrestrial reference frames are needed and recent achievements in this field are presented, for example FK5 catalogues and a comparison of VLA and Hipparcos positions.

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.

Interest world-wide in the provision of new observational astro nomical facilities in the form of ground-based optical telescopes of large aperture has never been higher than exists at present. The benefits to be gained from increased aperture size, however, are only utilised effectively if efficient instrumentation is also available. There have been significant improvements recently in this area, part icularly in detector technology and data handling as well as in optical design, so that systems which are currently being developed have the capability of being vastly more powerful in terms of the efficient use of photons than those which existed only 5 years ago. The rationale for the decision by Commission 9 of the International Astronomical Union to hold IAU Colloquium 67, therefore, was to obtain reports on these developments with the emphasis placed upon overall efficiency of the complete observational system - from telescope aperture right through to detector output. A fitting venue for the meeting was the site of the 6 metre BTA (Bolshoi Azimuth Telescope) at Zelenchukskaya in the Caucasus mount ains, USSR. The BTA is operated by the Special Astrophysical Observatory located at Nizhnij Arkhyz, a few kilometres from the telescope itself."

Planetary nebulae are the classic subject of astrophysics. The physical pro cesses occurring in this highly ionized gaseous medium, the formation of emis sion lines in clearly specified conditions, the continuous emission extending from the far ultraviolet up to infrared and radio frequencies, the generation of exotic forms of radiation predicted by atomic physics, along with methods for deciphering the observed spectra and detecting physical and kinematic parameters of the radiating medium, etc. - all these problems form the solid foundations of the physical theory of gaseous nebulae. They are an essential part of the arsenal of powerful tools and concepts without which one cannot imagine understanding and interpreting the enormous diversity of processes taking place in the Universe - in gaseous envelopes surrounding the stars of various classes, from cool dwarfs and flare stars up to hot supergiants, as well as in stellar chromospheres and coronae, in atmospheres of unstable and anomalous stars, in circumstellar clouds and gaseous shells born in nova and supernova explosions, in diffuse nebulae and the interstellar medium, in interacting binary systems, in galaxies with emission lines, in quasars, etc. The last thirty years have seen a turning-point in our knowledge concern ing the very nature of planetary nebulae (PNs). The radio emission of PNs was discovered after it was predicted theoretically. On the other hand, the powerful infrared emission discovered both in the continuum and in emission lines was never expected."

Recent space missions to the outer solar system, Galileo (1996 2003) and Cassini-Huygens (2004 today), together with ground observations, have revealed that the moons of the outer solar system are enigmatic objects, introducing extraordinary challenges for geologists, astrobiologists, organic chemists, and planetologists. Chemical exchange exists through the different layers that form their interiors, and also from the interior to the surface. The most convincing evidence is certainly the discovery of water vapour and ice particles emerging from Enceladus s active south polar region. Evidence for exchange with a subsurface liquid ocean has also been provided by the inference of hydrated salts on the surfaces of Jupiter s moons, Europa and Ganymede, as well as the detection of sodium salts in particles originating in Enceladus s plumes. Aqueous exchange with the rocky core may also be possible, considering that 40Ar has been observed in the plumes of Enceladus during one flyby of Cassini and in the atmosphere of Titan. The ongoing CH4 replenishment in Titan s atmosphere is additional striking evidence of exchange processes within the moons."

The Fundamentals of Modern Astrophysics provides an overview of the modern science of astrophysics. It covers the Sun, Solar System bodies, exoplanets, stars, and star life cycle, planetary systems origin and evolution, basics of astrobiology, our galaxy the Milky Way, other galaxies and galactic clusters, a general view of the Universe, its structure, evolution and fate, modern views and advanced models of cosmology as well as the synergy of micro- and macro physics, standard model, superstring theory, multiversity and worm holes. The main concepts of modern astrophysics and prospects for future studies are accompanied by numerous illustrations and a summary of the advanced projects at various astronomical facilities and space missions. Dr. Marov guides readers through a maze of complicated topics to demystify the field and open its wonders to all.

Solid particles are followed from their creation through their evolution in the Galaxy to their participation in the formation of solar systems like our own, these being now clearly deduced from observations by the Hubble Space Telescope as well as by IR and visual observations of protostellar disks, like that of the famous Beta Pictoris object. The most recent observational, laboratory and theoretical methods are examined in detail. In our own solar system, studies of meteorites, comets and comet dust reveal many features that follow directly from the interstellar dust from which they formed. The properties of interstellar dust provide possible keys to its origin in comets and asteroids and its ultimate origin in the early solar system. But this is a continuing story: what happens to the solid particles in space after they emerge from stellar sources has important scientific consequences since it ultimately bears on our own origins - the origins of solar systems and, especially, of our own earth and life in the universe.

Europa The Ocean Moon tells the story of the Galileo spacecraft probe to Jupiter's moon, Europa. It provides a detailed description of the physical processes, including the dominating tidal forces that operate on Europa, and includes a comprehensive tour of Europa using images taken by Galileo's camera. The book reviews and evaluates the interpretative work carried out to date, providing a philosophical discussion of the scientific process of analyzing results and the pitfalls that accompany it. It also examines the astrobiological constraints on this possible biosphere, and implications for future research, exploration and planetary biological protection. Europa The Ocean Moon provides a unique understanding of the Galileo images of Europa, discusses the theory of tidal processes that govern its icy ridged and disrupted surface, and examines in detail the physical setting that might sustain extra-terrestrial life in Europa's ocean and icy crust. "

Use of occultation methodology for observing the Earth's atmosphere and climate has become so broad as to comprise solar, lunar, stellar, navigation and satellite crosslink occultation methods. The atmospheric parameters obtained extend from the fundamental variables temperature, density, pressure, water vapor, and ozone via a multitude of trace gas species to particulate species such as aerosols and cloud liquid water. Ionospheric electron density is sensed as well. The methods all share the key properties of self-calibration, high accuracy and vertical resolution, global coverage, and (if using radio signals) all-weather capability. Occultation data are thus of high value in a wide range of fields including climate monitoring and research, atmospheric physics and chemistry, operational meteorology, and other fields such as space weather and planetary science. This wide area of variants and uses of the occultation method has led to a diversi fication of the occultation-related scientific community into a range of different sub-communities, however. The 1st International Workshop on Occultations for Probing Atmosphere and Cli mate-OPAC-1- held September 16-20, 2002, in Graz, Austria, has set in ex actly at this point. OPAC-1 aimed at providing a casual forum and stimulating at mosphere fertilizing scientific discourse, co-operation initiatives, and mutual learning and support amongst members of all the different sub-communities. The workshop was attended by about 80 participants from 17 different countries who actively contributed to a scientific programme of high quality and to an excellent workshop atmosphere, which was judged by the participants to have fully met the aims expressed.

Written by an international team of experts, this set of tutorial reviews provides a coherent and accessible summary of the current state of supernova research in all of its facets. The newly detected gamma-ray bursts are discussed in this context. While primarily addressing astrophysicists and astronomers, this book will also be of interest to cosmologists and nuclear physicists working on supernova-related issues.

The Ptolemaic system of the universe, with the earth at the center, had held sway since antiquity as authoritative in philosophy, science, and church teaching. Following his observations of the heavenly bodies, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) abandoned the geocentric system for a heliocentric model, with the sun at the center. His remarkable work, On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres, stands as one of the greatest intellectual revolutions of all time, and profoundly influenced, among others, Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton.

The second Erice course in the school of Particle-Astrophysics was held in May, 1988. The topic choosen was Dark Matter. This is one of the most exciting top ics at the interface of particle physics and astrophysics. It is developing rapidly now due to a coming together not only of the theoretical concepts from the early universe with the theoretical concepts of galaxy formation, but also the coming to gether of the theorists, experimentalists and observers. It is with Dark Matter, the combined interrelated topics of galaxy formation and the generation of large scale structure that we see a confrontation of the exotic ideas from the early universe, such as phase transitions and unification, coming face to face with the realities of traditional observational cosmology. These realities have recently been heightened by the tremendous number of new observations, demonstrating that large scale structure of the universe is far more complex than anybody had suspected. In particular, we now see large scale foam, apparent large scale velocity fields, indicating devations from the Hubble flow, large scales of the order 100 Mpc, and galaxy formation occurring at high red shifts much greater than unity. We also see an apparent correlation of clusters of galaxies that may even exceed the c- relation of galaxies despite their being on much larger scales with lower average densities."

More than half of all stars in the universe formed and evolved as binary systems and their study is essential for understanding stellar and galactic evolution. The six lectures in this book give both a readable introduction and an up-to-date review of nearly all aspects of research into binary stars, including the range from common binaries to more exotic systems composed of white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes.

This volume is concerned essentially with the modern developments in reflecting telescope optics. In the last twenty years, modern technology has revolutionized not only manufacturing and test procedures but also the whole area of quality specification with the introduction of active control into the functioning telescope. Other subjects covered here are alignment of telescope optics, atmospheric optics, including adaptive optics, reflecting coatings and ancillary equipment (adapters and baffles). Although an independent work, Vol. II is heavily cross-referenced with Vol. I. It is richly illustrated and gives, together with Vol. I, the most complete list of references available; it can also therefore be regarded as a source book.

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 aim of this book is to introduce scientific ballooning to the many people who are interested in the use of balloons for scientific applications. The book offers a basic understanding of the engineering details and the scientific research giving rise to balloon activities going on today. Above all, the book will serve as a guidebook for young scientists and researchers seeking to become involved in space science and technology by participating in balloon projects. The book deals with three types of balloons: large stratospheric balloons used for scientific purposes, rubber balloons used for aerological observations, and planetary balloons to be used in the atmospheres of other planets. The book provides many figures and photographs, and offers a systematic description of balloon technologies and related matters from historical background to current research topics. The contents include a theoretical discussion of ballon shape design, analysis and synthesis of flight dynamics, actual launching procedure, flight operations, and typical applications of ballooning in various scientific fields. Detailed meteorological descriptions, especially of the Earth's stratosphere and the atmosphere of other planets, are provided for investigating actual flight behavior.

A fundamental, profound review of the key issues relating to the early universe and the physical processes that occurred in it. The interplay between cosmic microwave background radiation, large scale structure, and the dark matter problem are stressed, with a central focus on the crucial issue of the phase transitions in the early universe and their observable consequences: baryon symmetry, baryogenesis and cosmological fluctuations. There is an interplay between cosmology, statistical physics and particle physics in studying these problems, both at the theoretical and the experimental / observational levels. Special contributions are devoted to primordial and astrophysical black holes and to high energy cosmic rays and neutrino astrophysics. There is also a special section devoted to the International Space Station and its scientific utilization.

These are the proceedings of an international meeting hosted by the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the dedication of the UKIRT, the United Kingdom InfraRed Telescope.

The volume comprises 31 professional level papers. The first part of the book has 10 thorough reviews of the conception, design and build of the telescope, as well as accounts of some its key instruments such as IRCAM (the common-user infrared camera), CGS4 (the fourth Cooled Grating Spectrometer) and the Wide Field Camera. The second part of the book comprises 14 reviews of scientific achievements during its twenty years of visitor mode operations. The final part of the book is a series of 7 reviews of the results from the multiple surveys being done as part of UKIDSS (UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey).

The authors are all experts in their respective fields, for example instrument scientists, operations staff and leading astronomers.

This volume presents results from the ESO workshop Multiple Stars across the H-R Diagram, held in Garching in July 2005. It covers observations of multiple stars from ground and space, dynamical and stellar evolution in multiple systems, formation and early evolution of multiple stars, and special components of multiple stars. The book reviews the current state of observational and theoretical knowledge and discusses future studies for further progress in the field.

Many books have been written about the Big Bang and how the universe became the way it is today. But what about the future of the universe? What will happen to the Earth and solar system? What about our galaxy? Indeed, how long will the universe as we recognize it survive? The Future of the Universe takes the reader on a journey through space and time, beginning with a long look at the Earth and solar system, voyaging to the outermost galaxies, and finishing with speculations about the life and fate of the entire universe.

With the success of Cherenkov Astronomy and more recently with the launch of NASA's Fermi mission, very-high-energy astrophysics has undergone a revolution in the last years. This book provides three comprehensive and up-to-date reviews of the recent advances in gamma-ray astrophysics and of multi-messenger astronomy. Felix Aharonian and Charles Dermer address our current knowledge on the sources of GeV and TeV photons, gleaned from the precise measurements made by the new instrumentation. Lars Bergstroem presents the challenges and prospects of astro-particle physics with a particular emphasis on the detection of dark matter candidates. The topics covered by the 40th Saas-Fee Course present the capabilities of current instrumentation and the physics at play in sources of very-high-energy radiation to students and researchers alike. This book will encourage and prepare readers for using space and ground-based gamma-ray observatories, as well as neutrino and other multi-messenger detectors.

In recent years there has been a steadily increasing cross-fertilization between cosmology and particle physics, on both the theoretical and experimental levels. Particle physics has provided new experimental data from the big accelerators in operation, and data from space satellites are accumulating rapidly. Cosmology is still one of the best laboratories for testing particle theory. The present work discusses such matters in the context of inflation, strings, dark matter, neutrinos and gravitational wave physics in the very early universe, field theory at the Planck scale, and high energy physics. A particular emphasis has been placed on a new topology for spatial infinity, on the relation between temperature and gravitational potential, a canonical formulation of general relativity, the neutrino mass, spin in the early universe, the measurement of gravity in the 10--100 m range, galaxy--galaxy and cluster--cluster correlation, black holes, string theory and string/string duality. The work also presents a beautiful review of high energy elementary particle physics, treating the meaning, status and perspectives of unification and standard model gauge couplings.