These are the proceedings of international conference on Numerical As trophysics 1998 (NAP98), held at National Olympic Memorial Youth Cen ter, in Tokyo, Japan in the period of March 10 - 13, 1998, and hosted by the National Astronomical Observatory, Japan (NAOJ). In the last decade numerical simulations have grown up as a major tool for astrophysics. Numerical simulations give us invaluable informa tion on complex systems and physical processes under extreme conditions which can be neither realized by experiments nor directly observed. Super computers and special purpose computers may work as very large telescopes and special purpose telescopes for theoretical astrophysics, respectively. Nu merical astrophysics ranks with other tool-oriented astronomy such as ra dio astronomy, infrared astronomy, ultraviolet astronomy, X-ray astronomy, and ')'-ray astronomy. This conference, NAP98, was planned to explore recent advances in astrophysics aided by numerical simulations. The subjects of the confer ence included the large-scale structure formation, galaxy formation and evolution, star and planets formation, accretion disks, jets, gravitational wave emission, and plasma physics. NAP98 had also sessions on numerical methods and computer science. The conference was attended by 184 sci entists from 21 countries. We enjoyed excellent talks, posters, videos, and discussions: there are 40 oral presentations, 96 posters and 16 video pre sentations. We hope that these proceedings and accompanying CD-ROM replay the friendly but inspiring atmosphere of the conference."

Fundamental unsolved problems of stellar astrophysics include the effects of angular momentum on stellar structure and evolution, the nature and efficiency of the processes by which angular momentum is redistributed within and lost from stars, and the role that stellar rotation plays in enhancing or driving stellar mass loss. There appears to be a qualitative change in the nature and efficiency of these mechanisms near spectral type FO: hotter (more massive) stars typically retain more angular momentum at least until they reach the main sequence, while cooler stars typically spin down quickly. For the hotter stars, recent work suggests a strong link between the type of pulsation behavior, the mass loss rates, and the rotation velocity. If the same mechanisms are able to drive mass loss from the main sequence A stars, as has recently been proposed, then the current interpretations of a number of observations will be drastically affected: e. g. the ages of clusters may be incorrect by up to a factor of two, and the surface abundances of isotopes of He, Li and Be may no longer give constraints on cosmological nucleosynthesis. There are also effects on the evolution of the abundances of elements in the interstellar medium and on the general evolution of populations of stars. Thus the questions of the mechanisms of angular momentum and mass loss of stars more massive than the sun is important not only for stellar studies but for the foundations of much of modern astrophysics.

The reader will find in this volume the Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute held in Maratea-Acquafredda, Italy, between June 29 and July 12, 1997, entitledTHE DYNAMICS OF SMALL BODIES IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM: A MAJOR KEY TO SOLAR SYSTEM STUDIES . This Advanced Study Institute was the latest in the 'Cortina' series of NATO ASI's begun in the early 1970's firstly under the directorship of Professor Victor Szebehely and subsequently under Professor Archie Roy. All, except the latest, were held at the Antonelli Institute, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. Many of those now active in the field made their first international contacts at these Institutes. The Institutes bring together many of the brightest of our young people working in dynamical astronomy, celestial mechanics and space science, enabling them to obtain an up-to-date synoptic view of their subjects delivered by lecturers of high international reputation. The proceedings from these institutes have been well-received in the internationalcommunity of research workers in the disciplines studied. The present institute included 15 series of lectures given by invited speakers and some 45 presentations made by the other participants. The majority of these contributions are includedinthese proceedings.

In this book, the author draws on his broad experience to describe both the theory and the applications of wave propagations. The contents are presented in four parts and the sequence of these parts reflect the development of ionospheric and propagational research in areas such as space research geophysics and communications. The first part of the book presents an outline of the theory of electromagnetic waves propagating in a cold electron plasma. For reference, vector analysis, dyadics and eigenvalues introduced in this part are presented in the appendices. Practical aspects of radio wave propagation are the subject of the second part. The typical conditions in different frequency ranges are discussed and the irregular features of the ionospheric structure such as sound and gravity waves are also considered. Warm plasma and the effects of ions are considered in the third part, which includes a discussion of sound-like waves in electron and ion plasmas. Nonlinear effects and instabilities are described in the fourth part.

Relativistic jets are a powerful, spectacular, yet poorly-understood phenomenon associated with accreting black holes and neutron stars. The question of the internal structure - matter content and magnetic field - of relativistic jets is of prime importance for our understanding of the underlying physics. The study of circular polarisation is both challenging and potentially very rewarding, and when applied to relativistic jets has the potential to probe the structure of the jets in unique ways.
This book compiles the contributions, both theoretical and observational, from a three-day workshop held in Amsterdam in July 2002, concerning the study of circular polarisation from relativistic jet sources.

If our eyes were radio rather than optical wide-band detectors it is well known that for us the brightest object in the sky would still be the Sun; that planets, stars and the Milky Way would still shine feebly (and that we would still occasionally be blinded by man-made sources). What is less well known is that quite a different earthbound overcast would hover about us, with its climatic zones, its seasonal changes, its unpredictable storms and scintillating transparence. To be sure, we can get a sort of glimpse of this peculiar type of weather when we tune our receiver to radio broad casting from some remote spot, or photograph the Earth from space at certain specific wavelengths. Nevertheless no one has ever looked at the ionized shroud of the Earth without the help of sophisticated apparatus, and this is one of the reasons why in this domain the phenomena are not easily abstracted from the use of specific techniques. For generations, the study of the ionosphere has been deeply interwoven with the practice of radio communication and detection. Today however, ionospheric physics is best thought of as a branch of space physics; that part of physics which deals with processes at work in the solar system and methods developed for its exploration."

The 37th Annual Denver Conference on Applications of X-Ray Analysis was held August 1-5, 1988, at the Sheraton Steamboat Resort and Conference Center, Steamboat Springs, Colorado. As usual, alternating with x-ray diffraction, the emphasis this year was x-ray fluorescence, but as has been the pattern for several occasions over the last few years, the Plenary Session did not deal with that subject, specifically. In an attempt to introduce the audience to one of the new developments in x-ray analysis, the title of the session was "High Brilliance Sources/Applications," and dealt exclusively with synchrotron radiation, a topic which has made a very large impact on the x-ray community over the last decade. As the organizer and co-chairman of the Plenary Session (with Paul Predecki), it is my responsibility to report on that session here. The Conference had the privilege of obtaining the services of some of the preeminent practitioners of research using this remarkable x-ray source; they presented the audience with unusually lucid descriptions of the work which has been accomplished in the development and application of the continuous, high intensity, tunable, polarized and collimated x-rays available from no facility other than these specialized storage rings. The opening lecture (and I use that term intentionally) was an enthusiastic description of "What is Synchrotron Radiation?" by Professor Boris Batterman of Cornell University and the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Sourc(! (CHESS).

Both the high level of activity in worldwide space exploration programmes and the discovery of extra-solar planets have spurred renewed interest in the physics and evolution dynamics of solar systems. The present book has grown out of a set of lectures by leading experts in the field within the framework of the well-known EADN summer schools. It addresses primarily graduate students and young researchers but will be equally useful for scientists in search of a comprehensive tutorial account that goes beyond the material found in standard textbooks.

Physics of Planetary Rings describes striking structures of the planetary rings of Saturn, Uranus, Jupiter, and Neptune: Narrow ringlets, spiral waves, and a chain of clumps. The author has contributed essential ideas to the full understanding of planetary rings via the stability analysis of dynamical systems. The combination of a high-quality description, the set of interesting illustrations, as well as the fascinating and natural presentation will make this book of considerable interest to astronomers, physicists, and mathematicians as well as students. There is no competing text for this book so far.

The evolution of life on Earth during the last four billion years has not been uniform. Several distinct periods of mass extinction are known, the last led to the extinction of the dinosaurs some 60 million years ago. The causes for these mass extinctions are, at least in some cases, cosmic catastrophes, such as impacts of asteroid sized bodies, nearby supernova explosions etc. It is also well known that the last ice ages are triggered by variations of different parameters of the Earth'r orbit about the Sun. Cosmic catastrophes therefore have to be considered when evolution of life on planets are discussed, especially the question of habitability on them.
In this book we first discuss habitability not only on planets (in the solar system as well in extrasolar planetary systems) but also on satellites of giant planets. Life needs some energy source which is provided either by the central star of a planetary system or by tidal forces exerted by a giant planet on a large satellite of it. On Earth it took about four billion years for intelligent life to evolve. Such a long time span (which is about 1/3 of the total age of the universe) requires rather stable conditions. We therefore investigate in detail how cosmic catastrophes may destroy life, and at the same time lead to the evolution of new species. Catastrophes therefore seem to be essential for evolution to higher lifeforms.
With the recent advances of biology, the detection of extrasolar planetary systems, the great advancement of our knowledge about the chemical and physical processes that enable life, these questions can be answered in much more detail than several years ago. The reader is provided with an introduction into the various topics and for further details recent literature is cited. It will be also stressed that the evolution of life on Earth is not only connected with the existence of a stable long-lived star, the Sun, but also depends on conditions and distribution of mass in the planetary system (the existence of giant planets at a certain distance from the Sun), the existence of the Moon (which stabilizes the Earth's rotational axis), the location of the solar system in the galaxy and other factors. Primitive forms of life, however, may require less stringent environmental conditions as the detection of extremophiles has proven.

An up-to-date progress report on the current status of solar-terrestrial relation studies with an emphasis on observations by the Russian Interball spacecraft and the Czech Magion subsatellites. Papers in the volume describe the various spacecraft in the International Solar-Terrestrial Program and the research questions that they are being used to address. The emphasis is on correlative studies employing multiple instruments and multiple spacecraft. The book begins with a description of each spacecraft active in 1998 and describes the roles they can play in correlative studies. This is followed by an up-to-date status report concerning ongoing studies of the solar wind, foreshock, bow shock, magnetopause, magnetotail, and ionosphere, with an emphasis on the observations made by the four Interball spacecraft. Readership Researchers and graduate students of space physics and astrophysics.

As a result of significant research over the past 20 years, black holes are now linked to some of the most spectacular and exciting phenomena in the Universe, ranging in size from those that have the same mass as stars to the super-massive objects that lie at the heart of most galaxies, including our own Milky Way. This book first introduces the properties of simple isolated holes, then adds in complications like rotation, accretion, radiation, and magnetic fields, finally arriving at a basic understanding of how these immense engines work.

Black Hole Astrophysics

reviews our current knowledge of cosmic black holes and how they generate the most powerful observed pheonomena in the Universe;

highlights the latest, most up-to-date theories and discoveries in this very active area of astrophysical research;

demonstrates why we believe that black holes are responsible for important phenomena such as quasars, microquasars and gammaray bursts;

explains to the reader the nature of the violent and spectacular outfl ows (winds and jets) generated by black hole accretion.

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This book represents the Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Insti tute on Formation and Evolution of Low Mass Stars held from 21 September to 2 October 1987 at Viana do Castelo, Portugal. Holding the meeting in Portugal recognized both the historical aspects and the bright future of astronomy in Portugal. In the early sixteenth century, the Portugese played an important role in the critical diffusion of classical and medieval knowledge which formed so large a part of scientific activity at that time. Navigation and course setting, brought to a high level by Portugese explorers, relied on mathematics and astronomy to produce precise tables of solar positions. In contemporary Portu gal, astronomy is the focus of renewed interest and support at the universities. It is thus particularly appropriate that the NATO Advanced Study Institute was held on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in the friendly surroundings of the Costa Verde.

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.

Features * Provides a self-contained introduction to General Relativity and to its standar applications. * Presents readers with all the tools necessary for further learning and research in the field. * Accessible to readers with just foundational knowledge of linear algebra and Lagrangian mechanics.

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.

th Coinciding with the 300 anniversary of the publication of Newton's Principia The International Astronomical Union organized the colloquium No. 96 "The Few Body Problem" in Turku, Finland, June 14.-19.1987. It provided an opportunity to review the progress in the very field which caused Newton a headache, as Victor Szebehely reminded the audience in his introductory remarks. It is a measure of the difficulty and complication of the few body problem that even after 300 years so many aspects of the problem are still unsolved. To quote Szebehely again, "Sir Isaac established the rules, Poincare presented the challenges." Many of these challenges are reviewed in the present proceedings. The gravitational few body problem cuts across the borders of established disciplines. The participants of the colloquium came from departments as different as Aerospace Engineering, Astronomy, Theoretical Physics, Physics, Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, Planetology, Geodesy, Celestial Mechanics and Space Science. The few body problem is a problem of practical significance in many fields and the main aim of the colloquium was to bring together people with research interests in this area, many of whom normally attend different conferences.

This volume contains the detailed text of the major lectures and the abstracts of the lectures delivered during the seminar sessions. The subject of our NATO Advanced Study Institute in 1981 was the Application of Modern Dynamics to Celestial Mechanics and Astrodynamics. This Preface will first explain the terminology, then it will review shortly the content of the lectures and will outline how all this was made possible and, finally, it will disclose our future aspirations. Periodicity is an extremely important concept in our field, therefore, it should not be unexpected that our NATO Advanced Study Institute is enjoying a period of three years. Since 1972 we conducted four Institutes with increasing interest and en thusiasm displayed by the participants, lecturers and by this Director. Celestial Mechanics or Dynamical Astronomy is part of Astronomy dealing mostly with the motion of natural celestial bodies. Astrodynamics or Orbital Mechanics is the application of dynamics to problems of Space Engineering and it treats mostly the dynamical behavior of artificial satellites and space probes. The underlying mathematical and dynamical principles are, of course, the same for Celestial Mechanics and for Astrodynamics. This Director of the Institute and Editor of the Proceedings was extremely fortunate to have obtained the cooperation of out standing lecturers who were clear, thorough, understandable, patient to answer questions, but above all, had knowledge of the ix V. Szebehely (ed.). Applications of Modern Dynamics to Celestial Mechanics and Astrodynamics. ix-x."

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.

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.

Accretion disks are ubiquitous in our universe, and produce intense brightening. How does the gas in the disk lose its angular momentum to release massive amounts of gravitational energy? This is one of the biggest open questions in astronomy. This book studies four types of newly detected outbursts in dwarf novae through optical observations and/or numerical simulations and puts forward physical interpretations of these outbursts on the basis of the disk instability model, the most plausible model for dwarf-nova outbursts. It demonstrates that the disk-instability model can explain rich variety in dwarf-nova outbursts if some new aspects are taken into account (e.g. the extremely slow growth of tidal instability and thermal instability in the disk misaligned against the binary orbital plane). Moreover, it shares valuable insights on the evolution of binary systems by finding period bouncers and dwarf novae with F-type companion stars, which are rare objects.