How does it happen that billions of stars can cooperate to produce the beautiful spirals that characterize so many galaxies, including ours? This book reviews the history behind the discovery of spiral galaxies and the problems faced when trying to explain the existence of spiral structure within them. In the book, subjects such as galaxy morphology and structure are addressed as well as several models for spiral structure. The evidence in favor or against these models is discussed. The book ends by discussing how spiral structure can be used as a proxy for other properties of spiral galaxies, such as their dark matter content and their central supermassive black hole masses, and why this is important.

Since the year 2000 the ESA Cluster mission has been investigating the small-scale structures and processes of the Earth's plasma environment, such as those involved in the interaction between the solar wind and the magnetospheric plasma, in global magnetotail dynamics, in cross-tail currents, and in the formation and dynamics of the neutral line and of plasmoids.

This book contains presentations made at the 15th Cluster workshop held in March 2008. It also presents several articles about the Cluster Active Archive and its datasets, a few overview papers on the Cluster mission, and articles reporting on scientific findings on the solar wind, the magnetosheath, the magnetopause and the magnetotail.

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

The invention of the semiconductor laser along with silica glass fiber has enabled an incredible revolution in global communication infrastructure of direct benefit to all. Development of devices and system concepts that exploit the same fundamental light-matter interaction continues. Researchers and technologists are pursuing a broad range of emerging applications, everything from automobile collision avoidance to secure quantum key distribution. This book sets out to summarize key aspects of semiconductor laser device physics and principles of laser operation. It provides a convenient reference and essential knowledge to be understood before exploring more sophisticated device concepts. The contents serve as a foundation for scientists and engineers, without the need to invest in specialized detailed study. Supplementary material in the form of MATLAB is available for numerically generated figures.

This thesis describes the experimental work that finally led to a successful measurement of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering-a process proposed forty-three years ago. The experiment was performed at the Spallation Neutron Source facility, sited at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee. Of all known particles, neutrinos distinguish themselves for being the hardest to detect, typically requiring large multi-ton devices for the job. The process measured here involves the difficult detection of very weak signals arising from nuclear recoils (tiny neutrino-induced "kicks" to atomic nuclei), but leads to a much larger probability of neutrino interaction when compared to all other known mechanisms. As a result of this, "neutrino technologies" using miniaturized detectors (the author's was handheld and weighed only 14 kg) become a possibility. A large community of researchers plans to continue studying this process, facilitating an exploration of fundamental neutrino properties that is presently beyond the sensitivity of other methods.

This exhaustive survey is the result of a four year effort by many leading researchers in the field to produce both a readable introduction and a yardstick for the many upcoming experiments using heavy ion collisions to examine the properties of nuclear matter. The books falls naturally into five large parts, first examining the bulk properties of strongly interacting matter, including its equation of state and phase structure. Part II discusses elementary hadronic excitations of nuclear matter, Part III addresses the concepts and models regarding the space-time dynamics of nuclear collision experiments, Part IV collects the observables from past and current high-energy heavy-ion facilities in the context of the theoretical predictions specific to compressed baryonic matter. Part V finally gives a brief description of the experimental concepts. The book explicitly addresses everyone working or planning to enter the field of high-energy nuclear physics.

Astronomers learn much of what they know about the mass, brightness, and size of stars by observing binary systems, in which two stars orbit each other, periodically cutting off the others light. This book provides astronomers with a guide to specifying an astrophysical model for a set of observations, selecting an algorithm to determine the parameters of the model, and estimating the errors of the parameters.

This thesis develops and establishes several methods to determine the detailed geometric architecture of transiting exoplanetary systems (planets orbiting around, and periodically passing in front of, stars other than the sun) using high-precision photometric data collected by the Kepler space telescope. It highlights the measurement of stellar obliquity - the tilt of the stellar equator with respect to the planetary orbital plane(s) - and presents methods for more precise obliquity measurements in individual systems of particular interest, as well as for measurements in systems that have been out of reach of previous methods. Such information is useful for investigating the dynamical evolution of the planetary orbit, which is the key to understanding the diverse architecture of exoplanetary systems. The thesis also demonstrates a wide range of unique applications of high-precision photometric data, which expand the capability of future space-based photometry.

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.

This volume integrates the latest findings on earliest life forms, identified and characterised in some of the oldest rocks on Earth. New material from prominent researchers in the field is presented and evaluated in the context of previous work. Emphasis is placed on the integration of analytical methods with observational techniques and experimental simulations. The opening section focuses on submarine hot springs that the majority of researchers postulates served as the cradle of life on Earth. In subsequent sections, evidence for life in strongly metamorphosed rocks such as those in Greenland is evaluated and early ecosystems identified in the well preserved Barberton and Pilbara successions in Southern Africa and Western Australia. The final section includes a number of contributions from authors with alternate perspectives on the evidence and record of early life on Earth. Audience This volume will be valuable to researchers and graduate students in biogeosciences, geochemistry, paleontology and geology interested in the origin of life on earth.

Most stars appear to show some degree of magnetic activity. Varying magnetic fields show up in the familiar sun-spot cycle and in similar activity in other cool stars. Many hot stars carry steady magnetic fields stronger than the average solar field and are well described as oblique rotators. A similar model is applicable to the rapidly rotating, enormously dense neutron stars with their far stronger fields, observed as radio and X-ray pulsars. Galactic magnetic fields may play a crucial role in star formation, and in the spectacular behaviour in galactic nuclei. Cosmical magnetism in general is a rapidly developing field, and this book has grown out of the lifelong work of an outstanding researcher in the area. An authoritative account with broad astronomical scope, its thorough, careful and well-argued approach makes it a fine addition to the professional literature. Most of the important topics are treated in mathematical depth with references to other relevant literature. Some of the studies, especially those on accretion discs, dynamos, and winds, are applicable to galaxies and galactic nuclei. This book is sure to become an invaluable professional reference and guide to current thinking in the field. It will be of particular interest to graduate students, for whom it shows how the area has developed and indicates the many challenging research problems, some of which may soon yield their secrets to the emerging supercomputers.

1. Paradigmatische Konstruktionen.- Unser heutiges Wirklichkeits-Verstandnis.- Wirklichkeits-Pluralismus.- Entstehen von Wirklichkeiten.- Lebendiger Vollzug von Wirklichkeiten.- Fruchtbare Vielfalt.- Simultane und sequenzielle Wirklichkeiten in der Lebenswelt.- Okkulte Wirklichkeiten und andere Geheimlehren.- Gefahrliche Verabsolutierungen.- 2. Farbe als Wirklichkeit.- Goethes Farbenlehre.- Physiologische Farben.- Farblose Bilder.- Farbige Bilder.- Farbige Schatten.- Schwach wirkende Lichter, subjektive Hoefe, pathologische Farben.- Physische Farben.- Dioptrische Farben der 1. Klasse.- Dioptrische Farben der 2. Klasse.- Das Phanomen der Refraktion.- Refraktion ohne Farberscheinung.- Farberscheinungen bei Linsen.- Grundzuge refraktionsbedingter Farberscheinungen.- Farberscheinungen bei Prismen.- Farberscheinungen an gro?en und kleinen wei?en Bildern.- Farberscheinungen an gro en und kleinen schwarzen Bildern.- Farberscheinungen sind nie statisch.- Zum Wesen von Licht und Farbe aus Goetheseher Sieht.- Wichtige, ganz allgemeine Begriffe.- Die Polaritat.- Die Steigerung.- Phanomen und Urphanomen.- Farbenkreis und Spektrogramm.- Newtons Farben des Liehts.- Newtons Experimente.- 1. Experiment.- 2. Experiment.- 3. Experiment.- 4. Experiment.- 5. Experiment.- Das We sen der Farbe.- Einfache Farbmetrik.- Das Auge.- Der Spektralfarbenzug.- Zwei Wirklichkeiten.- 3. Heilkundliche Wirkliehkeiten.- Chinesische Lebenswirkliehkeit.- Das Schafgarbenorakel.- Das Yin-Yang-Prinzip.- Shen und Kuei. Qi und Jing.- Die funf Elemente.- Chinesische Medizin.- Yin-Yang-Theorie.- Lebenssubstanzen.- Qi.- Blut und Safte.- Jing.- Shen.- Die Funktion der inneren Organe.- Die Leitbahnen oder die Meridiane.- Wie kommt es zur Disharmonie?.- Die Sechs UEbel.- Die sieben Emotionen.- Die Lebensweise.- Das Dishannoniemuster.- Ein Beispiel.- Ein simultanes Massenphanomen.- 4. Mikro-Wirklichkeiten.- Spiele als Mikro-Wirklichkeiten.- Definition des Spielbegriffes.- Die Vielfalt der Spiele.- Mikro-Wirklichkeiten im weiteren Sinn.- 5. Wirklichkeit eines Verbrechens.- Ein Beispiel aus der japanischen Literatur.- Eine neue Erzlihlung des Rashomon-Textes.- Die Aussage eines Holzfallers.- Die Aussage eines Wandergeistlichen.- Die Aussage eines Gerichtsdieners.- Die Aussage einer alten Frau.- Das Gestandnis des Raubers.- Die Aussage eines Gefahrten des Raubers.- Bericht eines Waldbewohners.- Die Beichte der Ehefrau in einem Kloster.- Der Geist des Toten spricht durch den Mund einer Wahrsagerin.- Vergewaltigung und Tod.- 6. Verwandlung von Wirklichkeiten.- Siddhartha. Eine indische Dichtung.- Die Brahmana-Welt.- Die Samana-Welt.- Die Buddha-Welt.- Die Menschenkinder-Welt.- Am Flu?.- 7. Magie und Damonie.- Weissagung.- Wirksarnkeit von Weissagungen.- Kassandra.- Die delphische Seherin.- Andere Fonnen der Weissagung.- Zauber und Damonen.- Magische Praktikep in der Volkskunst.- Magische Praktiken' der Antike.- Kirke verzaubert Manner.- Hexen morden Knaben.- Fluche verandern das Leben.- Fluchtafeln.- Ovids Ibis.- Schamanen.- Spuren des Schamanismus in der Neuzeit.- Antike Schamanen.- Orpheus.- Pythagoras.- Empedokles.- Vespasian.- Nekromantie.- Die Macht des Okkulten.- Magie und Damonie als Wirklichkeit?.- 8. Totalitare Wirklichkeiten.- Wahnsinn als totalitare Wirklichkeit.- Das Entstehen eines Wahnes.- Der logische Zusammenhang von Wahnideen.- Die weitgehende Unkorrigierbarkeit.- Gro?en und Verfolgungswahn.- Groe?enwahn.- Verfolgungswahn.- Paranoia erotica.- Eifersuchtsparanoia.- Religioeser Wahn mit erotischer Komponente.- Kraftentfaltung in totalitaren Wirklichkeiten.- Der Kriegstanz der Maori.- Atomare Bedrohung.- Extremsituationen in totalitaren Wirklichkeiten.- Der Tag des Blutes.- Der spontane Volkszorn.- Entgleisung einer Hochtechnologie.- Die Eigendynamik und die Hilflosigkeit.- 9. Chance und Bedrangnis.- Wirklichkeit ist eine Konstruktion. Der Urgrund ist ohne Eigenschaften.- Wirklichkeiten als Gewordenes.- Die Lebenswirklichkeit als Ausgangsbasi

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 is devoted to the scientific legacy of Professor Victor Ambartsumian - one of the distinguished scientists of the last century. He obtained very essential results not only in astrophysics, but also in mathematics and theoretical physics. One can recall his fundamental results concerning the Sturm-Liouville inverse problem, quantum field theory, structure of atomic nuclei etc. Nevertheless, his revolutionary ideas in astrophysics and corresponding results are known more widely and have predetermined the further development of this science. The concept about the activity phenomena and objects' evolution, particularly, determination of the age of our Galaxy, ideas about the stars' formation nowadays in stellar associations, the activity of galactic nuclei appeared to be exceptionally fruitful. These directions are being elaborated at many astronomical centers all over the world.

This book discusses the state of the art of the basic theoretical and observational topics related to black hole astrophysics. It covers all the main topics in this wide field, from the theory of accretion disks and formation mechanisms of jet and outflows, to their observed electromagnetic spectrum, and attempts to measure the spin of these objects. Black holes are one of the most fascinating predictions of general relativity and are currently a very hot topic in both physics and astrophysics. In the last five years there have been significant advances in our understanding of these systems, and in the next five years it should become possible to use them to test fundamental physics, in particular to predict the general relativity in the strong field regime. The book is both a reference work for researchers and a textbook for graduate students.

In 1988, in an article on the analysis of the measurements of the variations in the radial velocities of a number of stars, Campbell, Walker, and Yang reported an - teresting phenomenon;the radial velocity variations of Cephei seemed to suggest the existence of a Jupiter-like planet around this star. This was a very exciting and, at the same time, very surprising discovery. It was exciting because if true, it would have marked the detection of the ?rst planet outside of our solar system. It was surprising because the planet-hosting star is the primary of a binary system with a separation less than 19 AU, a distance comparable to the planetary distances in our solar system. The moderatelyclose orbit of the stellar companionof Cephei raised questions about the reality of its planet. The skepticism over the interpretation of the results (which was primarily based on the idea that binary star systems with small sepa- tions would not be favorable places for planet formation) became so strong that in a subsequent paper in 1992, Walker and his colleagues suggested that the planet in the Cephei binary might not be real, and the variations in the radial velocity of this star might have been due to its chromospheric activities.

This outstanding thesis by Dominic Bowman provides a thorough investigation of long-standing questions as to whether amplitude modulation is astrophysical, whether it offers insights into pulsating stars, and whether simple beating of modes with stable amplitudes is unrecognised because of a lack of frequency resolution. In this thesis, the author studied a uniform sample of 983 delta Scuti stars-the most common type of main-sequence heat engine pulsator-that were observed nearly continuously for 4 years at stunning photometric precision of only a few parts per million by the Kepler space mission. With no mission planned to supersede the Kepler 4-year data set, this thesis will stand as the definitive study of these questions for many years. With revolutionary photometric data from the planet-hunting Kepler space mission, asteroseismic studies have been carried out on many hundreds of main-sequence solar-type stars and about 10,000 red giants. It is easy to understand why those stochastically driven stars have highly variable amplitudes. Over much of the rest of the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram, stellar pulsations are driven by heat mechanisms, which are much more regular than the stochastic driving in solar-like pulsators. Yet for decades, amplitude and frequency modulation of pulsation modes have been observed in almost all types of heat-driven pulsating stars. The author shows that the amplitude and frequency modulation are astrophysical, and he has investigated their implications and prospects to provide new insights into the delta Scuti stars and the many other types of heat-engine pulsators across the HR diagram.

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.

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Fulleranes are a special class of carbon molecules derived from fullerenes whose double bonds are partially or at least theoretically fully saturated by hydrogen. The hydrogenation changes the chemical properties of fullerenes which can become susceptible to substitution reactions as opposed to addition reactions to the double bonds (present in common fullerenes). One of the most intriguing aspects of fulleranes is the fact that they have been thought to exist in the interstellar medium or even in certain circumstellar media.

"Fulleranes: The Hydrogenated Fullerenes" presents the state of the art research, synthesis and properties of these molecules.This book also includes astrophysicists' and astrochemists' expectations regarding the presence of these molecules in space.

This PhD thesis details the development of a new 1D ionospheric model to describe the upper atmospheres of extrasolar giant plants. The upper atmospheres of Hot Jupiters are subject to extreme radiation conditions that can result in rapid atmospheric escape. The composition and structure of these planets' upper atmospheres are affected by high-energy emissions from the host star. The nature of these emissions depends on the stellar type and age, making them important factors in understanding the behaviour of exoplanetary atmospheres.

Targeting advanced students of astronomy and physics, as well as astronomers and physicists contemplating research on supernovae or related fields, David Branch and J. Craig Wheeler offer a modern account of the nature, causes and consequences of supernovae, as well as of issues that remain to be resolved. Owing especially to (1) the appearance of supernova 1987A in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud, (2) the spectacularly successful use of supernovae as distance indicators for cosmology, (3) the association of some supernovae with the enigmatic cosmic gamma-ray bursts, and (4) the discovery of a class of superluminous supernovae, the pace of supernova research has been increasing sharply. This monograph serves as a broad survey of modern supernova research and a guide to the current literature. The book's emphasis is on the explosive phases of supernovae. Part 1 is devoted to a survey of the kinds of observations that inform us about supernovae, some basic interpretations of such data, and an overview of the evolution of stars that brings them to an explosive endpoint. Part 2 goes into more detail on core-collapse and superluminous events: which kinds of stars produce them, and how do they do it? Part 3 is concerned with the stellar progenitors and explosion mechanisms of thermonuclear (Type Ia) supernovae. Part 4 is about consequences of supernovae and some applications to astrophysics and cosmology. References are provided in sufficient number to help the reader enter the literature.

Have you ever wondered what could happen when we discover another communicating species outside the Earth? This book addresses this question in all its complexity. In addition to the physical barriers for communication, such as the enormous distances where a message can take centuries to reach its recipient, the book also examines the biological problems of communicating between species, the problems of identifying a non-Terrestrial intelligence, and the ethical, religious, legal and other problems of conducting discussions across light years. Most of the book is concerned with issues that could impinge on your life: how do we share experiences with ETI? Can we make shared laws? Could we trade? Would they have religion? The book addresses these and related issues, identifying potential barriers to communication and suggesting ways we can overcome them. The book explores this topic through reference to human experience, through analogy and thought experiment, while relying on what is known to-date about ourselves, our world, and the cosmos we live in.

Accretion flows, winds and jets of compact astrophysical objects and stars are generally described within the framework of hydrodynamical and magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) flows. Analytical analysis of the problem provides profound physical insights, which are essential for interpreting and understanding the results of numerical simulations. Providing such a physical understanding of MHD Flows in Compact Astrophysical Objects is the main goal of this book, which is an updated translation of a successful Russian graduate textbook. The book provides the first detailed introduction into the method of the Grad-Shafranov equation, describing analytically the very broad class of hydrodynamical and MHD flows. It starts with the classical examples of hydrodynamical accretion onto relativistic and nonrelativistic objects. The force-free limit of the Grad-Shafranov equation allows us to analyze in detail the physics of the magnetospheres of radio pulsars and black holes, including the Blandford-Znajek process of energy extraction from a rotating black hole immersed in an external magnetic field. Finally, on the basis of the full MHD version of the Grad-Shafranov equation the author discusses the problems of jet collimation and particle acceleration in Active Galactic Nuclei, radio pulsars, and Young Stellar Objects. The comparison of the analytical results with numerical simulations demonstrates their good agreement. Assuming that the reader is familiar with the basic physical and mathematical concepts of General Relativity, the author uses the 3+1 split approach which allows the formulation of all results in terms of physically clear language of three dimensional vectors. The book contains detailed derivations of equations, numerous exercises, and an extensive bibliography. It therefore serves as both an introductory text for graduate students and a valuable reference work for researchers in the field.

Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, published in 1915, made a remarkable prediction: gravitational radiation. Just like light (electromagnetic radiation), gravity could travel through space as a wave and affect any objects it encounters by alternately compressing and expanding them. However, there was a problem. The force of gravity is around a trillion, trillion, trillion times weaker than electromagnetism so the calculated compressions and expansions were incredibly small, even for gravity waves resulting from a catastrophic astrophysical event such as a supernova explosion in our own galaxy. Discouraged by this result, physicists and astronomers didn't even try to detect these tiny, tiny effects for over 50 years. Then, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, two events occurred which started the hunt for gravity waves in earnest. The first was a report of direct detection of gravity waves thousands of times stronger than even the most optimistic calculation. Though ultimately proved wrong, this result started scientists thinking about what instrumentation might be necessary to detect these waves. The second was an actual, though indirect, detection of gravitational radiation due to the effects it had on the period of rotation of two 'neutron stars' orbiting each other. In this case, the observations were in exact accord with predictions from Einstein's theory, which confirmed that a direct search might ultimately be successful. Nevertheless, it took another 40 years of development of successively more sensitive detectors before the first real direct effects were observed in 2015, 100 years after gravitational waves were first predicted. This is the story of that hunt, and the insight it is producing into an array of topics in modern science, from the creation of the chemical elements to insights into the properties of gravity itself.