In early April 1911 Albert Einstein arrived in Prague to become full professor of theoretical physics at the German part of Charles University. It was there, for the first time, that he concentrated primarily on the problem of gravitation. Before he left Prague in July 1912 he had submitted the paper "Relativitat und Gravitation: Erwiderung auf eine Bemerkung von M. Abraham" in which he remarkably anticipated what a future theory of gravity should look like. At the occasion of the Einstein-in-Prague centenary an international meeting was organized under a title inspired by Einstein's last paper from the Prague period: "Relativity and Gravitation, 100 Years after Einstein in Prague". The main topics of the conference included: classical relativity, numerical relativity, relativistic astrophysics and cosmology, quantum gravity, experimental aspects of gravitation and conceptual and historical issues. The conference attracted over 200 scientists from 31 countries, among them a number of leading experts in the field of general relativity and its applications. This volume includes abstracts of the plenary talks and full texts of contributed talks and articles based on the posters presented at the conference. These describe primarily original results of the authors. Full texts of the plenary talks are included in the volume "General Relativity, Cosmology and Astrophysics--Perspectives 100 Years after Einstein in Prague", eds. J. Bicak and T. Ledvinka, published also by Springer Verlag.

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.

The second edition of Solar System Astrophysics: Background Science and the Inner Solar System provides new insights into the burgeoning field of planetary astronomy. As in the first edition, this volume begins with a rigorous treatment of coordinate frames, basic positional astronomy, and the celestial mechanics of two and restricted three body system problems. Perturbations are treated in the same way, with clear step-by-step derivations. Then the Earth's gravitational potential field and the Earth-Moon system are discussed, and the exposition turns to radiation properties with a chapter on the Sun. The exposition of the physical properties of the Moon and the terrestrial planets are greatly expanded, with much new information highlighted on the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars. 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.

The thesis represents the development of an entirely new experimental platform for generating and studying converging radiative shock waves. It was discovered that the application of large magnetic pressures to gas-filled cylindrical metallic tubes could sequentially produce three shocks within the gas. A comprehensive set of instrumentation was devised to explore this system in detail and an exceptionally thorough experimental and theoretical study was carried out in order to understand the source of the shock waves and their dynamics. The research is directed towards some of the most interesting topics in high energy density physics (HEDP) today, namely the interaction of HED material with radiation and magnetic fields, with broad applications to inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and laboratory plasma astrophysics. The work has already generated significant international interest in these two distinct research areas and the results could have significant importance for magnetic ICF concepts being explored at Sandia National Laboratories in the US and for our understanding of the very strong shock waves that are ubiquitous in astrophysics.

Simon Murphy's thesis has significant impact on the wide use of the revolutionary Kepler Mission data, leading to a new understanding in stellar astrophysics. It first provides a deep characterisation and comparison of the Kepler long cadence and short cadence data, with particular insight into the Kepler reduction pipeline. It then brings together modern reviews of rotation and peculiarities in A-type stars, and their relationship with the pulsating delta Scuti stars. This is the first combined review of these subjects since the classic monograph by Sydney Wolff, "The A stars," was published three decades ago. The thesis presents a novel technique, Super-Nyquist Asteroseismology, that has opened up the asteroseismic study of thousands of Kepler stars. It shows case studies of delta Scuti stars examining amplitude growth, super-Nyquist pulsation, and pulsation in a high-amplitude, population II SX Phoenicis star in a 343-d binary. This work informs our understanding of the relation of rotation to peculiarity, hence has applications to atomic diffusion theory. This is a brilliant thesis written in an elegant and engaging style.

This brief book provides an overview of the gravitational orbital evolution of few-body systems, in particular those consisting of three bodies. The authors present the historical context that begins with the origin of the problem as defined by Newton, which was followed up by Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, and many others. Additionally, they consider the modern works from the 20th and 21st centuries that describe the development of powerful analytical methods by Poincare and others. The development of numerical tools, including modern symplectic methods, are presented as they pertain to the identification of short-term chaos and long term integrations of the orbits of many astronomical architectures such as stellar triples, planets in binaries, and single stars that host multiple exoplanets. The book includes some of the latest discoveries from the Kepler and now K2 missions, as well as applications to exoplanets discovered via the radial velocity method. Specifically, the authors give a unique perspective in relation to the discovery of planets in binary star systems and the current search for extrasolar moons.

The work developed in this thesis addresses very important and relevant issues of accretion processes around black holes. Beginning by studying the time variation of the evolution of inviscid accretion discs around black holes and their properties, the author investigates the change of the pattern of the flows when the strength of the shear viscosity is varied and cooling is introduced. He succeeds to verify theoretical predictions of the so called Two Component Advective Flow (TCAF) solution of the accretion problem onto black holes through numerical simulations under different input parameters. TCAF solutions are found to be stable. And thus explanations of spectral and timing properties (including Quasi-Period Oscillations, QPOs) of galactic and extra-galactic black holes based on shocked TCAF models appear to have a firm foundation.

The search for gravitational radiation with optical interferometers is gaining momentum worldwide. Beside the VIRGO and GEO gravitational wave observatories in Europe and the two LIGOs in the United States, which have operated successfully during the past decade, further observatories are being completed (KAGRA in Japan) or planned (ILIGO in India). The sensitivity of the current observatories, although spectacular, has not allowed direct discovery of gravitational waves. The advanced detectors (Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo) at present in the development phase will improve sensitivity by a factor of 10, probing the universe up to 200 Mpc for signal from inspiraling binary compact stars. This book covers all experimental aspects of the search for gravitational radiation with optical interferometers. Every facet of the technological development underlying the evolution of advanced interferometers is thoroughly described, from configuration to optics and coatings and from thermal compensation to suspensions and controls. All key ingredients of an advanced detector are covered, including the solutions implemented in first-generation detectors, their limitations, and how to overcome them. Each issue is addressed with special reference to the solution adopted for Advanced VIRGO but constant attention is also paid to other strategies, in particular those chosen for Advanced LIGO.

Neutrinos continue to be the most mysterious and, arguably, the most fascinating particles of the Standard Model as their intrinsic properties such as absolute mass scale and CP properties are unknown. The open question of the absolute neutrino mass scale will be addressed with unprecedented accuracy by the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment, currently under construction. This thesis focusses on the spectrometer part of KATRIN and background processes therein. Various background sources such as small Penning traps, as well as nuclear decays from single radon atoms are fully characterized here for the first time. Most importantly, however, it was possible to reduce the background in the spectrometer by more than five orders of magnitude by eliminating Penning traps and by developing a completely new background reduction method by stochastically heating trapped electrons using electron cyclotron resonance (ECR). The work beautifully demonstrates that the obstacles and challenges in measuring the absolute mass scale of neutrinos can be met successfully if novel experimental tools (ECR) and novel computing methods (KASSIOPEIA) are combined to allow almost background-free tritium ss-spectroscopy.

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.

Proceedings from the 2012 Fourth International Meeting on Gravitation and Cosmology, focusing on accelerated cosmic expansion This volume provides both an update and a review of the state of alternative theories of gravity in connection with the accelerated expansion of the universe issue. Different theoretical proposals exist to explain the acceleration in the cosmic expansion, generating the dark energy issue and opening the possibility to theories of gravity alternative to general relativity. Related issues such as the dark matter problem are also surveyed in order to give the readers profound insight on the subject from different points of view. Comprised of short talks and plenary lectures given by leading experts in the field, some of them with brilliant and historic contributions, the book allows the reader to find readable and referenced surveys in topics like f(R) theories, the dark matter and dark energy issues, Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) scenarios, f(T) theories, scalar-tensor theories derived from non-Riemannian geometries, emergent universes, the cosmological constant and other topics of current interest for younger and senior physicists and graduate students. These proceedings are from the Fourth International Meeting on Gravitation and Cosmology, held in Guadalajara, Jalisco, México, from 20 - 25 May, 2012, was sponsored by ICTP- Trieste, Italy and COECyTJAL-Universidad de Guadalajara, México. This event is a series of scientific meetings started in 2004 in Cuba, focusing on current and selected topics in the fields of gravitation and cosmology.

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.

Several of the very foundations of the cosmological standard model — the baryon asymmetry of the universe, dark matter, and the origin of the hot big bang itself — still call for an explanation from the perspective of fundamental physics. This work advocates one intriguing possibility for a consistent cosmology that fills in the theoretical gaps while being fully in accordance with the observational data. At very high energies, the universe might have been in a false vacuum state that preserved B-L, the difference between the baryon number B and the lepton number L as a local symmetry. In this state, the universe experienced a stage of hybrid inflation that only ended when the false vacuum became unstable and decayed, in the course of a waterfall transition, into a phase with spontaneously broken B-L symmetry. This B-L Phase Transition was accompanied by tachyonic preheating that transferred almost the entire energy of the false vacuum into a gas of B-L Higgs bosons, which in turn decayed into heavy Majorana neutrinos. Eventually, these neutrinos decayed into massless radiation, thereby producing the entropy of the hot big bang, generating the baryon asymmetry of the universe via the leptogenesis mechanism and setting the stage for the production of dark matter. Next to a variety of conceptual novelties and phenomenological predictions, the main achievement of the thesis is hence the fascinating notion that the leading role in the first act of our universe might have actually been played by neutrinos.

With his Ph.D. thesis, presented here in the format of a "Springer Theses", Paul Fulda won the 2012 GWIC thesis prize awarded by the Gravitational Wave International Committee. The impact of thermal noise on future gravitational wave detectors depends on the size and shape of the interrogating laser beam. It had been known since 2006 that, in theory, higher-order Laguerre-Gauss modes could reduce thermal noise. Paul Fulda's research brings Laguerre-Gauss modes an enormous step forward. His work includes analytical, numerical and experimental work on table-top setups as well as experiments at the Glasgow 10m prototype interferometer. Using numerical simulations the LG33 mode was selected as the optical mode to be tested. Further research by Paul and his colleagues since then concentrated on this mode. Paul has developed and demonstrated simple and effective methods to create this mode with diffractive optics and successfully demonstrated its compatibility with the essential building blocks of gravitational wave detectors, namely, optical cavities, Michelson interferometers and opto-electronic sensing and control systems. Through this work, Laguerre-Gauss modes for interferometers have been transformed from an essentially unknown entity to a well understood option with an experimental basis.

This book reviews the phenomenology displayed by relativistic jets as well as the most recent theoretical efforts to understand the physical mechanisms at their origin. Relativistic jets have been observed and studied in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) for about half a century and are believed to be fueled by accretion onto a supermassive black hole at the center of the host galaxy. Since the first discovery of relativistic jets associated with so-called "micro-quasars" much more recently, it has seemed clear that much of the physics governing the relativistic outflows in stellar X-ray binaries harboring black holes and in AGN must be common, but acting on very different spatial and temporal scales. With new observational and theoretical results piling up every day, this book attempts to synthesize a consistent, unified physical picture of the formation and disruption of jets in accreting black-hole systems. The chapters in this book offer overviews accessible not only to specialists but also to graduate students and astrophysicists working in other areas. Covered topics comprise Relativistic jets in stellar systems Launching of AGN jets Parsec-scale AGN jets Kiloparsec-scale AGN jets Black hole magnetospheres Theory of relativistic jets The structure and dynamics of the inner accretion disk The origin of the jet magnetic field X-ray observations, phenomenology, and connection with theory

This course-tested textbook conveys the fundamentals of magnetic fields and relativistic plasma in diffuse cosmic media, with a primary focus on phenomena that have been observed at different wavelengths. Theoretical concepts are addressed wherever necessary, with derivations presented in sufficient detail to be generally accessible. In the first few chapters the authors present an introduction to various astrophysical phenomena related to cosmic magnetism, with scales ranging from molecular clouds in star-forming regions and supernova remnants in the Milky Way, to clusters of galaxies. Later chapters address the role of magnetic fields in the evolution of the interstellar medium, galaxies and galaxy clusters. The book is intended for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in astronomy and physics and will serve as an entry point for those starting their first research projects in the field.

In this book an international group of specialists discusses studies of exoplanets subjected to extreme stellar radiation and plasma conditions. It is shown that such studies will help us to understand how terrestrial planets and their atmospheres, including the early Venus, Earth and Mars, evolved during the host star’s active early phase. The book presents an analysis of findings from Hubble Space Telescope observations of transiting exoplanets, as well as applications of advanced numerical models for characterizing the upper atmosphere structure and stellar environments of exoplanets. The authors also address detections of atoms and molecules in the atmosphere of “hot Jupiters� by NASA’s Spitzer telescope. The observational and theoretical investigations and discoveries presented are both timely and important in the context of the next generation of space telescopes. The book is divided into four main parts, grouping chapters on exoplanet host star radiation and plasma environments, exoplanet upper atmosphere and environment observations, exoplanet and stellar magnetospheres, and exoplanet observation and characterization. The book closes with an outlook on the future of this research field.

The purpose of this Gazetteer and Atlas of Astronomy (GAA) is to list, define and illustrate, for the first time, every named (as opposed to merely catalogued) object in the sky within a single reference work for use by the general reader, writers and editors dealing with astronomical themes, and those astronomers concerned with any aspect of astronomical nomenclature. Each part of the GAA will contain: * An introduction to the nomenclature of the body or group of bodies in question * A glossary of terminology used * A gazetteer listing in strict alphanumerical sequence essential information defining the body or feature concerned * An alphanumerically arranged classified index of all the headwords in the gazetteer * An atlas comprising maps and images with coordinate grids and labels identifying features listed in the gazetteer * Appendix material on the IAU nomenclature system and the transcription systems used for non-roman alphabets

The sine-Gordon model is a ubiquitous model of Mathematical Physics with a wide range of applications extending from coupled torsion pendula and Josephson junction arrays to gravitational and high-energy physics models. The purpose of this book is to present a summary of recent developments in this field, incorporating both introductory background material, but also with a strong view towards modern applications, recent experiments, developments regarding the existence, stability, dynamics and asymptotics of nonlinear waves that arise in the model. This book is of particular interest to a wide range of researchers in this field, but serves as an introductory text for young researchers and students interested in the topic. The book consists of well-selected thematic chapters on diverse mathematical and physical aspects of the equation carefully chosen and assigned.

This thesis presents theoretical and numerical studies on phenomenological description of the quark–gluon plasma (QGP), a many-body system of elementary particles. The author formulates a causal theory of hydrodynamics for systems with net charges from the law of increasing entropy and a momentum expansion method. The derived equation results can be applied not only to collider physics, but also to the early universe and ultra-cold atoms. The author also develops novel off-equilibrium hydrodynamic models for the longitudinal expansion of the QGP on the basis of these equations. Numerical estimations show that convection and entropy production during the hydrodynamic evolution are key to explaining excessive charged particle production, recently observed at the Large Hadron Collider. Furthermore, the analyses at finite baryon density indicate that the energy available for QGP production is larger than the amount conventionally assumed.

This volume is the updated and extended translation of the Russian original. It presents the results of observations of solar activity and its effects in the Earth space environment carried out from July 2001 to December 2005 on board the CORONAS-F space mission. The general characteristics of the CORONAS-F scientific payload are provided with a description of the principal experiments. The main results focus on the global oscillations of the Sun (p-modes), solar corona, solar flares, solar cosmic rays, Earth's radiation belts, and upper atmosphere. The book will be welcomed by students, post-graduates, and scientists working in the field of solar and solar-terrestrial physics. This English edition is supplemented by sections presenting new results of the SPIRIT and TESIS experiments under the CORONAS solar program, as well as from the SONG experiment onboard the CORONAS-F satellite.

This thesis addresses two of the central processes which underpin the formation of galaxies: the formation of stars and the injection of energy into the interstellar medium from supernovae, called feedback. In her work Claudia Lagos has completely overhauled the treatment of these processes in simulations of galaxy formation. Her thesis makes two major breakthroughs, and represents the first major steps forward in these areas in more than a decade. Her work has enabled, for the first time, predictions to be made which can be compared against new observations which probe the neutral gas content of galaxies, opening up a completely novel way to constrain the models. The treatment of feedback from supernovae, and how this removes material from the interstellar medium, is also likely to have a lasting impact on the field. Claudia Lagos Ph.D. thesis was nominated by the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University as an outstanding Ph.D. thesis 2012.

This proceedings volume focuses on new methods of image and signal analysis in a wide range of energies (from radio to gamma ray astronomy) and advanced methodologies regarding problems and solutions in information fusion and retrieval, statistical pattern recognition, vision and advances in computing technology.A special section is devoted to the BeppoSAX mission (Satellite per Astronomia X) launched on April 30 1996, inside a program of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programs (NIVR).

Magnetic fields permeate our vast universe, urging electrically charged particles on their courses, powering solar and stellar flares, and focusing the intense activity of pulsars and neutron stars.

Magnetic fields are found in every corner of the cosmos. For decades, astrophysicists have identified them by their effects on visible light, radio waves, and x-rays. J. B. Zirker summarizes our deep knowledge of magnetism, pointing to what is yet unknown about its astrophysical applications.

In clear, nonmathematical prose, Zirker follows the trail of magnetic exploration from the auroral belts of Earth to the farthest reaches of space. He guides readers on a fascinating journey of discovery to understand how magnetic forces are created and how they shape the universe. He provides the historical background needed to appreciate exciting new research by introducing readers to the great scientists who have studied magnetic fields.

Students and amateur astronomers alike will appreciate the readable prose and comprehensive coverage of "The Magnetic Universe."

Subtlety in Relativity is the only book that has been written after the author's discovery of a new way in which wave phenomena occur-the emission origin of waves. This drastically changes most issues of the old debate over the world being either deterministic or probabilistic. The emission origin of waves is not incompatible with the ideas of quantum theory; rather, this new and novel way in which waves can be generated justifies the use of mathematical and probabilistic methods of quantum theory. However, the emission origin of waves shows that quantum theory is statistically incomplete in, precisely, Einstein's sense. There exists, then, a certain, previously unexplored, conceptual framework underlying the ideas of quantum theory. Whether this is the theory that Einstein and others were looking for then, how this way of thinking is related to the ideas of relativity, and whether this is a relativistic theory in the usual sense of this word are questions this book answers. The book demonstrates how the Doppler effect with acceleration is essential to interpreting astronomical observations. It also offers a detailed and self-sufficient technical background of mathematical ideas of category theory. The book is divided into two parts. The first is less mathematical and more conceptual in its orientation. The second focuses on mathematical ideas needed to implement physical concepts. The book is a great reference for advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level students of physics and researchers in physics, astronomy, and cosmology, who will gain a deeper understanding of relativity from it.