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, Mexico, from 20 - 25 May, 2012, was sponsored by ICTP- Trieste, Italy and COECyTJAL-Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico. 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 goal of the project presented in this book is to detect neutrinos created by resonant interactions of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays on the CMB photon field filling the Universe. In this pioneering first analysis, the author puts forward much of the analysis framework, including calibrations of the electronic hardware and antenna geometry, as well as the development of algorithms for event reconstruction and data reduction. While only two of the 37 stations planned for the Askaryan Radio Array were used in this assessment of 10 months of data, the analysis was able to exclude neutrino fluxes above 10 PeV with a limit not far from the best current limit set by the IceCube detector, a result which establishes the radio detection technique as the path forward to achieving the massive volumes needed to detect these ultrahigh energy neutrinos.

The space between the stars contains a large diversity of objects in which physical processes occur that are fundamental to the structure and evolution of galaxies. This book offers the reader a basic knowledge of these processes and presents simple numeric estimates of the main quantities relevant to the interstellar medium. The main objects that constitute the interstellar space are described, but the emphasis of the book lies in the physical processes occurring in these objects, which may also occur in other astrophysical environments. The book is directed tor graduate as well as advanced undergraduate students of physics and astrophysics.

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. Bi ak and T. Ledvinka, published also by Springer Verlag."

This book takes the reader for a short journey over the structures of matter showing that their main properties can be obtained even at a quantitative level with a minimum background knowledge including, besides first year calculus and physics, the extensive use of dimensional analysis and the three cornerstones of science, namely the atomic idea, the wave-particle duality and the minimization of energy as the condition for equilibrium. Dimensional analysis employing the universal physical constants and combined with "a little imagination and thinking", to quote Feynman, allow an amazing short-cut derivation of several quantitative results concerning the structures of matter. In the current 2nd edition, new material and more explanations with more detailed derivations were added to make the book more student-friendly. Many multiple-choice questions with the correct answers at the end of the book, solved and unsolved problems make the book also suitable as a textbook. This book is of interest to students of physics, engineering and other science and to researchers in physics, material science, chemistry and engineering who may find stimulating the alternative derivation of several real world results which sometimes seem to pop out the magician's hat.

Understanding the stars is the bedrock of modern astrophysics. Stars are the source of life. The chemical enrichment of our Milky Way and of the Universe withallelementsheavierthanlithiumoriginatesintheinteriorsofstars.Stars arethe tracersofthe dynamics ofthe Universe,gravitationallyimplying much more than meets the eye. Stars ionize the interstellar medium and re-ionized the early intergalactic medium. Understanding stellar structure and evolution is fundamental. While stellar structure and evolution are understood in general terms, we lack important physical ingredients, despite extensive research during recent decades.Classicalspectroscopy,photometry,astrometryandinterferometryof stars have traditionally been used as observational constraints to deduce the internal stellar physics. Unfortunately, these types of observations only allow the tuning of the basic common physics laws under stellar conditions with relatively poor precision. The situation is even more worrisome for unknown aspects of the physics and dynamics in stars. These are usually dealt with by using parameterised descriptions of, e.g., the treatments of convection, rotation,angularmomentumtransport,theequationofstate,atomicdi?usion andsettlingofelements,magneto-hydrodynamicalprocesses,andmore.There is a dearth of observational constraints on these processes, thus solar values areoftenassignedtothem.Yetitishardtoimaginethatonesetofparameters is appropriate for the vast range of stars.

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 workadvocates 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.
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This exhaustive work sheds new light on unsolved questions in gamma-ray astrophysics. It presents not only a complete introduction to the non-thermal Universe, but also a description of the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov technique and the MAGIC telescopes. The Fermi-LAT satellite and the HAWC Observatory are also described, as results from both are included. The physics section of the book is divided into microquasars and pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe), and includes extended overviews of both. In turn, the book discusses constraints on particle acceleration and gamma-ray production in microquasar jets, based on the analyses of MAGIC data on Cygnus X-1, Cygnus X-3 and V404 Cygni. Moreover, it presents the discovery of high-energy gamma-ray emissions from Cygnus X-1, using Fermi-LAT data. The book includes the first joint work between MAGIC, Fermi-LAT and HAWC, and discusses the hypothetical PWN nature of the targets in depth. It reports on a PWN population study that discusses, for the first time, the importance of the surrounding medium for gamma-ray production, and in closing presents technical work on the first Large-Size-Telescope (LST; CTA Collaboration), along with a complete description of the camera.

The years 2012/2013 mark the 50th anniversary of the theoretical prediction that Brown Dwarfs, i.e. degenerate objects which are just not massive enough to sustain stable hydrogen fusion, exist. Some 20 years after their discovery, how Brown Dwarfs form is still one of the main open questions in the theory of star formation. In this volume, the pioneers of Brown Dwarf research review the history of the theoretical prediction and the subsequent discovery of Brown Dwarfs. After an introduction, written by Viki Joergens, reviewing Shiv Kumar's theoretical prediction of the existence of brown dwarfs, Takenori Nakano reviews his and Hayashi's calculation of the Hydrogen Burning Minimum Mass. Both predictions happened in the early 1960s. Jill Tarter then writes on the introduction of the term 'Brown Dwarf', before Ben Oppenheimer, Rafael Rebolo and Gibor Basri describe their first discovery of Brown Dwarfs in the 1990s. Lastly, Michael Cushing and Isabelle Baraffe describe the development of the field to the current state of the art. While the book is mainly aimed at the Brown Dwarf research community, the description of the pioneering period in a scientific field will attract general readers interested in astronomy as well.

Laurent Gizon.Paul Cally.John Leibacher Originally published in the journal Solar Physics, Volume 251, Nos 1-2, 1-2. DOI: 10. 1007/s11207-008-9248-y (c) The Author(s) 2008 The seismology of the Sun and stars has come a long way in a short time. The "original" Global Helioseismology has reached a level of maturity that allows many internal prop- ties of the Sun to be probed with exquisite precision, although it currently faces a severe challenge to reconcile interior models with helioseismic inversions near the base of the c- vection zone in the age of the new solar chemical abundances. Asteroseismology suffers in comparisonbybeingrestrictedtoverylowsphericalharmonicdegree( ), butitmakesupfor this by providing many more subjects for study (including solar-like stars) and many cases of well-identi ed g modes. Where once we were restricted to stellar spectra in studying in- vidual stars, asteroseismology now provides a crucial tool with which we may explore their deep structure. Its natural synergy with planet-search programs also invigorates it. Local Helioseismology has seen the development of an exciting array of techniques and insights over the two decades since observations of surface oscillations in and around active regions gave the rst clues that something different was happening there, and it has been parti- larly important in mapping ows of various types in shallow subsurface layers."

A trio of editors [Professors from Austria, Germany and Israel] present Life on Earth and other Planetary Bodies. The contributors are from twenty various countries and present their research on life here as well as the possibility for extraterrestrial life. This volume covers concepts such as life's origin, hypothesis of Panspermia and of life possibility in the Cosmos. The topic of extraterrestrial life is currently 'hot' and the object of several congresses and conferences. While the diversity of "normal" biota is well known, life on the edge of the extremophiles is more limited and less distributed. Other subjects discussed are Astrobiology with the frozen worlds of Mars, Europa and Titan where extant or extinct microbial life may exist in subsurface oceans; conditions on icy Mars with its saline, alkaline, and liquid water which has been recently discovered; chances of habitable Earth-like [or the terrestrial analogues] exoplanets; and SETI's search for extraterrestrial Intelligence.

Since the use of high-precision/resolution spectroscopy is closely connected to the ability to collect a large number of photons, the scientific domains using this technique benefit tremendously from the use of 8-meter class telescopes and will fully exploit the tremendous gain provided by future Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs). This volume comprehensively covers the astrophysical and technical aspects of high-precision spectroscopy with an outlook to future developments.

This book gives a detailed, up-to-date account of the Lense-Thirring effect and its implications for physics and astrophysics. Starting from a profound intuition of Lense and Thirring in 1918, based on a simple solution to the linearized Einstein field equations, this has emerged in the past four decades as a phenomenon of extraordinary importance in cosmology, radio jets in quasars, and the physics of neutron stars and black holes, besides leading to some of the most sophisticated experiments ever performed in the space surrounding our planet. The book contains the contributions presented at the "Third William Fairbank Meeting," which have been expanded by adding a complete set of classical and prominent contemporary papers on this subject and a general introduction by R Ruffini.

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

Mars, the most habitable of our sister planets, holds a special place in our imaginations and in our space exploration program. Fully half of NASA's planetary exploration effort is now devoted to Mars. Key questions include: Has Mars ever harbored life? Is there life on Mars now? Will humans be able to survive on the Martian surface? Answers to these questions lie in determining the present location of water on Mars and its likely inventory in the past, and in determining the present radiation environment of Mars. The 2001 Mars Odyssey Mission contributes greatly these answers by detecting near-surface water through measurements of neutron flux, from the detection of carbonates, and the quantification of its radiation environment. This book captures the objectives, the design of the mission and the details of the instruments carried to Mars. It should be of interest to every scientist interested in participating in the on-going exploration of Mars from graduate students to senior scientists as it provides the background information essential to interpret the many exciting results now appearing from the mission.

This work contains the proceedings of an International Astronomical Symposium devoted to the interactions between physics and dynamics in the solar system, especially with regard to the small bodies (asteroids, comets, meteors). These two topics were traditionally considered as almost independent, but their interactions are increasingly being reviewed as the key to an understanding of the formation and evolution of the solar system. For instance, the rotational dynamics of planets have a profound influence on their climate. On the other hand, a good understanding of the complicated dynamics of asteroids and the identification of families of bodies born from the break-up of a parent body may tell us much about the formation and the evolution of the solar system. All these, and several related questions are discussed in these proceedings, which should be of interest to both physicists and dynamicists.

It is over a quarter of a century since the discovery of out?ows from young stars. The intervening years have led to remarkable advances in our understanding of this phenomenon. Much of the progress can be attributed to advances in facilities and technologies, including not only larger telescopes but also improved instrument and detector performance. In addition protostellar out?ows have now been imaged from the ground and space at high spatial resolution, e. g. with HST, and at a wide - riety of wavelengths from X-rays to radio waves, revealing more and more about their physics. This veritable revolution in observation has been accompanied by an exponential growth in our ability to numerically simulate the launching and pro- gation of jets. Codes continue to improve: they now incorporate more physics and are increasingly ef?cient through, for example, techniques such as adaptive mesh re?nement and the use of parallel processing in cluster environments. Simulating the launching and propagation of a jet all the way from the vicinity of the star up to 4 several thousand AU (a size range of10 ) is now much closer. In more recent times, developments in observation, theory and numerical s- ulation have been joined by laboratory jet experiments reproducing, on centimetre scales, that which is seen in astrophysics to stretch for several parsecs.

This text comprises selected lectures presented in the 9th course of the International School of Cosmic-Ray Astrophysics held at the Ettore Majorana Centre in Erice, Sicily, May 7-18, 1994. Devoted to problems and prospects in high-energy astrophysics and cosmology, the major areas explored are: gamma- ray, X-ray, and neutrino astronomies; cosmic rays; pulsars and supernova remnants; and cosmology, as well as cosmogony. Among the principal developments in gamma-ray astrophysics are those generated by the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Cosmic neutrinos at MeV energies, i.e. those from the Sun and from Supernova 1987a are discussed, as well as neutrino masses in astrophysics. The source composition of cosmic rays and extensive air shower experiments receive special attention. The early universe according to COBE data, and as viewed by theorists of cosmology, is reviewed.

This book deals with the astrophysics and spectroscopy of the interstellar molecules. In the introduction, overview and history of interstellar observations are described in order to help understanding how the modern astrophysics and molecular spectroscopy have been developed interactively. The recent progress in the study of this field is briefly summarized. Furthermore, the basic knowledge of molecular spectroscopy, which is essential to correctly comprehend the astrophysical observations, is presented in a compact form.

This thesis presents valuable contributions to several aspects of the rapidly growing field of gravitational wave astrophysics. The potential sources of gravitational waves in globular clusters are analyzed using sophisticated dynamics simulations involving intermediate mass black holes and including, for the first time, high-order post-Newtonian corrections to the equations of motion. The thesis further demonstrates our ability to accurately measure the parameters of the sources involved in intermediate-mass-ratio inspirals of stellar-mass compact objects into hundred-solar-mass black holes. Lastly, it proposes new techniques for the computationally efficient inference on gravitational waves. On 14 September 2015, the LIGO observatory reported the first direct detection of gravitational waves from the merger of a pair of black holes. For a brief fraction of a second, the power emitted by this merger exceeded the combined output of all stars in the visible universe. This has since been followed by another confirmed detection and a third candidate binary black hole merger. These detections heralded the birth of an exciting new field: gravitational-wave astrophysics.

The book's principal aim is to clarify fundamental concepts, decipher mathematical structures used to model space-time and relativistic worlds, and to disclose their physical meaning. After each chapter, philosophical implications of the presented material are commented upon.Both special and general theories of relativity are presented in the book with the stress on their global aspects. Although global mathematical methods are extensively used throughout the book, the definitions of new concepts, short comments and examples make reading smooth without the need to consult other textbooks or review papers.

This book is a synopsis of modern deep-field astronomy, based on the powerful telescopes and instruments developed in recent years. It is organized along topical themes, such as the extragalactic background radiation at different wavelengths, the evolution of galaxies, the history of star formation, the nature of absorbers, the reionization of the intergalactic medium, the validity of photometric redshifts, gravitational lensing, and clustering of galaxies. Stellar and substellar objects were not neglected, however, and one session was devoted to nearby bodies such as trans-Neptunian solar system objects, brown dwarfs, and stars with special characteristics.

The origin of the most energetic particles observed in nature is one of the major unresolved questions in modern astrophysics. Theoretical speculations range from electromagnetic acceleration in some unknown astrophysical source to as yet undiscovered particle physics beyond the Standard Model. These speculations have also lead to the development of new detection concepts and experimental projects, some of which are currently under construction. The present volume consists of a self-contained set of lectures which cover most of these aspects: from the speculative origins and the acceleration and propagation mechanisms to a discussion of the detection techniques. It emphasizes the strong interdisciplinarity of this topic and highlights the many open questions. This volume is intended for students entering this field and for professional astronomers and particle and theoretical physicists.

From a star astrophysicist, a journey into the world of particle physics and the cosmos -- and a call for more just, inclusive practice of science.

Science, like most fields, is set up for men to succeed, and is rife with racism, sexism, and shortsightedness as a result. But as Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein makes brilliantly clear, we all have a right to know the night sky. One of the leading physicists of her generation, she is also one of the fewer than one hundred Black women to earn a PhD in physics. You will enjoy -- and share -- her love for physics, from the Standard Model of Particle Physics and what lies beyond it, to the physics of melanin in skin, to the latest theories of dark matter -- all with a new spin and rhythm informed by pop culture, hip hop, politics, and Star Trek.

This vision of the cosmos is vibrant, inclusive and buoyantly non-traditional. By welcoming the insights of those who have been left out for too long, we expand our understanding of the universe and our place in it.

The Disordered Cosmos is a vision for a world without prejudice that allows everyone to view the wonders of the universe through the same starry eyes.

Cosmic rays consist of elementary particles with enormous energy which originate from outside our solar system and constantly hit the Earth's atmosphere. Where do these cosmic rays originate? How does nature accelerate the cosmic-ray particles to energies with orders of magnitude beyond the limits of manmade particle accelerators? What can we learn by measuring the interactions of the cosmic rays with the atmosphere? Digital radio-antenna arrays offer a promising, complementary measurement method for high-energy cosmic rays. This thesis reports on substantial advances in the development of the radio technique, which will be used to address these questions in future experiments.