This Symposium on fundamental stellar properties was held to honour Emeritus Professor Robert Hanbury Brown on the occasion of his 80th birthday. The speakers described current advances in interferometry, astrometry, spectroscopy and in theoretical models of stellar atmospheres and interiors. The emphasis was on the critical assessment of the quality, accuracy, and prospects for improvement of the observational data and theoretical models, on the outstanding problems in stellar astrophysics, and on the feasibility of achieving the observational and theoretical advances required for their solution. These proceedings should be of interest to researchers and graduate students in all fields of astrophysics.

Understanding star formation is one of the key fields in present-day astrophysics. This book treats a wide variety of the physical processes involved, as well as the main observational discoveries, with key points being discussed in detail. The current star formation in our galaxy is emphasized, because the most detailed observations are available for this case. The book presents a comparison of the various scenarios for star formation, discusses the basic physics underlying each one, and follows in detail the history of a star from its initial state in the interstellar gas to its becoming a condensed object in equilibrium. Both theoretical and observational evidence to support the validity of the general evolutionary path are presented, and methods for comparing the two are emphasized. The author is a recognized expert in calculations of the evolution of protostars, the structure and evolution of disks, and stellar evolution in general. This book will be of value to graduate students in astronomy and astrophysics as well as to active researchers in the field.

This volume contains the Proceedings of the Fifth Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Society (Sociedad Espanola de Astronomfa, SEA). The meeting was held at the Universidad de Castilla La Mancha in Toledo, from September 9 to 13, 2002. The event brought together 219 participants who pre sented their latest results in many different subjects. In comparison with the previous scientific meetings of the Society, the numbers of oral talks and poster contributions (122 and 64, respectively) are rapidly increasing, confirming that the SEA conferences are becoming a point of reference to assess the interests and achievements of astrophysical research in Spain. During the meeting, the SEA made public the granting of the Prize to the Best Spanish Ph. D. Thesis in As tronomy and Astrophysics for the period 2000-2001 ex aequo to Dr. A. Zurita and Dr. E. Villaver. This is the second time that the SEA is awarding this prize, which aim is to encourage young spanish astrophysicists to pursue a high level scientific career. The Society is indebted to the Universidad de Castilla La Mancha, and, in particular, to the San Pedro Martir staff, for its hospitality. It is also indebted to the Local Organizing Committee for its dedication and the good atmosphere that prevailed at any moment, and to the Scientific Organizing Committee for its excel lent work."

This volume contains the proceedings of the meeting entitled, "The IGM/Galaxy Connection: The Distribution of Baryons at z = 0. " The meeting was held August 8 -10 at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) located in Boulder, Colorado on the foothills of the Rocky Mountains (see conference photo). We organized this meeting because we felt it was time to address the link between galaxies and the intergalactic medium at low redshift. In this vein, we posed several questions to the conference participants: Where are the baryons in the local universe and in what phase do they reside? What signatures of galaxy evolution have been imprinted on the IGM? What percentage of intergalactic gas is left from the galaxy formation process? What does the distribution of baryons at z = 0 tell us about the early universe? The conference was an overwhelming success with lots of friendly interaction and discussion among the participants. At lunch we were treated to splendid views from the NCAR terrace and discussions rang ing from the importance of the LSR, GSR, and LGSR velocity frames to how long the desserts would last with 90 astronomers and the hot Boul der sun. From an inventory of the baryons, to the associations between galaxies and Lya absorbers, to the mechanisms by which galaxies obtain and lose gas, the conference covered many topics. The results of these endeavors are contained in these pages and eloquently summarized by Chris Impey."

This long-awaited "second edition" of the classical textbook on "Stellar Structure and Evolution" by Kippenhahn and Weigert is a thoroughly revised version of the original text. Taking into account modern observational constraints as well as additional physical effects such as mass loss and diffusion, Achim Weiss and Rudolf Kippenhahn have succeeded in bringing the book up to the state-of-the-art with respect to both the presentation of stellar physics and the presentation and interpretation of current sophisticated stellar models. The well-received and proven pedagogical approach of the first edition has been retained.
The book provides a comprehensive treatment of the physics of the stellar interior and the underlying fundamental processes and parameters. The models developed to explain the stability, dynamics and evolution of the stars are presented and great care is taken to detail the various stages in a star's life. Just as the first edition, which remained a standard work for more than 20 years after its first publication, the second edition will be of lasting value not only for students but also for active researchers in astronomy and astrophysics.

Every year Earth is bombarded with about 40,000 tons of extraterrestrial material. This includes microscopic cosmic dust particles shed by comets and asteroids in outer space, meteorites, as well as large comets and asteroids that have led to catastrophic events in the geologic past. Originally considered only a curiosity, extraterrestrial matter found on Earth provides the only samples we have from comets, asteroids and other planets. Only recently mankind has started to actively collect extraterrestrial matter in space (Apollo program, Stardust mission) rather than to wait for its delivery to Earth. Still, most of our knowledge of the origin and evolution of our solar system is based on careful studies of meteorites, cosmic dust, and traces of large impact events in the geologic record such as the mass extinction that terminated the Cretaceous Period and led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. This book summarizes our current knowledge of the properties, origin, orbital evolution and accretion mechanism of extraterrestrial matter accreted on Earth and sheds light on accretion processes and fluxes in the geologic past. The chapters in the first part of the book are arranged in order to follow extraterrestrial matter from its origin in space, its orbital evolution on its way to Earth, its interaction with the Earth magnetosphere and atmosphere to its more or less violent collision with the Earth's surface. In the second part of the book several chapters deal with the present?day flux of cosmic dust and meteorites to Earth. Finally, several chapters deal with the reconstruction of the accretion history of extraterrestrial matter on Earth, starting with the most recent geologic past and ending with the very early, violent accretion period shortly after the formation of Earth, Moon and other solid planets in our solar system.

In this PhD thesis, which was nominated for publication in this series by the Astronomical Institute at Charles University, Prague, the author investigates the orbital evolution of an initially thin stellar disc around a supermassive black hole, considering various perturbative sources of gravity. His findings, obtained by both direct numerical N-body modelling and using standard perturbation methods, offer a viable theoretical explanation for the observed configuration of young stars in the Galactic Centre. This marks a significant contribution to a topic of great interest in contemporary astrophysics. The author also shows in his thesis that a secular instability (m = 1 mode) may occur in the embedding spherical cluster of old stars. This increases the richness of possible evolution scenarios of the embedding cluster and may lead to effective feeding of supermassive black holes through tidal disruption of stars on extremely eccentric orbits.

The Pacific Rim Conferences for the first decade from the mid 1980's to the mid 1990's were primary concerned with binary stars research. The Conference expanded to all areas of Stellar Astrophysics for the last two meetings in Hong Kong; at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 1997 and at the Hong Kong University in 1999. At the conclusion of the very successful Pacific Rim Conference on Stellar Astrophysics held in Hong Kong University, members of the Sci entific Organizing Committee began planning for the next conference. We approached Professor Tan Lu of Nanjing University and Professor Tipei Li of the Institute of High Energy Physics about hosting a con ference in China. The city of Xi'an in Shaanxi province and a city in Yunnan province, were considered to be the most likely locations. It be came crucial to find the right person to serve as Chair (or Co-chairs) for the Local Organizing Committee. Initially, Professor Lu was the logical choice but he declined for personal reasons. Professor Li was invited to lead a new department of Astrophysics at Tsinghua University so he could not take on the additional load of chairing the LOC. Professor Gang Zhao of Beijing Astronomical Observatory was approached to take on the task but he also declined. This has been a busy time for Chinese astronomers. The SOC decided to have the conference dedicated to honor Dr. Helmut A."

For every galaxy in the field or in clusters, there are about three galaxies in groups. The Milky Way itself resides in a group. Groups in the local universe offer the chance to study galaxies in environments characterized by strong interactions. In the cosmological context, groups trace large-scale structures better than clusters; the evolution of groups and clusters appears to be related. All these aspects of research are summarized in this book.

The discovery of chemical elements in celestial bodies and the first estimates of the chemical composition of the solar atmosphere were early results of Astrophysics - the subdiscipline of Astronomy that was originally concerned with the general laws of radiation and with spectroscopy. Following the initial quantitative abundance studies by Henry Norris Russell and by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, a tremendous amount of theoretical, observa tional, laboratory and computational work led to a steadily improving body of knowledge of photospheric abundances - a body of knowledge that served to guide the theory of stellar evolution. Solar abundances determined from photospheric spectra, together with the very similar abundances determined from carbonaceous chondrites (where extensive information on isotopic composition is available as well), are nowadays the reference for all cosmic composition measures. Early astrophysical studies of the solar photospheric composition made use of atmosphere models and atomic data. Consistent abundances derived from different atmospheric layers and from lines of different strength helped to confirm and estab lish both models and atomic data, and eventually led to the now accepted, so-called "absolute" abundance values - which, for practical reasons, however, are usually given relative to the number of hydrogen nuclei.

Galaxy groups and clusters provide excellent laboratories for studying galaxy properties in different environments and at different look-back times. In particular, the recent detections of high-redshift cluster candidates, only possible with the current high-technology instrumentation, add a new dimension to the problem. Along with the ever increasing computing power and sophisticated algorithms to model clusters of galaxies, it may help us to understand the origins of today's groups and clusters, as well as of their member galaxies. These workshop proceedings provide a snapshot of the current research in this subject, covering the observations, theory and numerical simulations relevant to galaxy evolution in groups and clusters. In this book, intended primarily to researchers in the field, particular emphasis is given to the recent impressive progress in the field, on important new results, and on the future prospects and open questions to be tackled.

This book contains an up-to-date review of the structure and evolution of disk galaxies from both the observational and theoretical point of view. The book is the proceedings of the Island Universes conference held at the island of Terschelling, The Netherlands in July 2005, which attracted about 130 experts and students in the field. The conference was organized as a tribute to Dr. Piet C. van der Kruit for receiving the honorary Jacobus C. Kapteyn Professorship in Astronomy. The eight topical themes discussed at the meeting are reflected in these proceedings: 1) Properties of Stellar Disks, 2) Kinematics and Dynamics of Disk Galaxies, 3) Bars, Spiral Structure, and Secular Evolution in Disk Galaxies, 4) The Outskirts and Environment of Disk Galaxies, 5) Interstellar Matter, 6) (Evolution of) Star Formation in Galactic Disks, 7) Disk Galaxies through Cosmic Time, and 8) Formation Models of Disk Galaxies.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of stellar structure, evolution and basic stellar properties. It includes integrated problems within the chapters, with worked solutions. In the first part of this book, the author presents the basic properties of the stellar interior and describes them thoroughly, along with deriving the main stellar structure equations of temperature, density, pressure and luminosity, among others. The process and application of solving these equations is explained, as well as linking these results with actual observations. The second part of the text describes what happens to a star over time and how to determine this by solving the same equations at different points during a star's lifetime. The fate of various stars is quite different depending on their masses and this is described in the final parts of the book. This text can be used for an upper level undergraduate course or an introductory graduate course on stellar physics.

Supernovae, their bearing on cosmology and their connection to gamma-ray bursts are now at the center of astrophysical research programs. This volume deals with astronomical observations of supernovae and their relation to nuclear and particle astrophysics. All known aspects of supernovae explosions are investigated in articles specifically written for researchers and advanced graduate students. It also includes recent numerical "experiments" related to the question of hydrodynamical instability in two and three dimensions and to problems concerning the complexity of radiation transport in the models. Other contributions discuss the possible energy sources needed to drive these powerful stellar explosions.

This is a review of the basic elements directly connected to the evolution of galaxies. Owing to advances in observational astronomy and astrophysics, data has become available about remote galaxies, which are consequently in the first stages of their evolution. It is therefore essential to link these data to the observation of very old populations in our own Galaxy, which are the remnants of the populations which existed in the first stages of galactic evolution. In this meeting, the relationship between these two different points of view is emphasized in the texts presented by well-known specialists as well as by young researchers active in the field. The difficulties of the problem and the remaining uncertainties are discussed.

Research of the interstellar medium (ISM) has been advancing rapidly during the last 10 years, mainly due to immensely improved observational facilities and techniques in all wavelength ranges. We are now able to investigate the ISM in external galaxies and even the intergalactic and intracluster medium in great detail. Increased spatial and spectral resolution have provided us with a great deal of information on the interstellar gas in its various phases, the magnetic field and the cosmic rays, and of course, also the stellar component, which is the driving agent of the interstellar matter cycle.
Since only fairly recently, a sufficient amount of computing power has become available to tackle these problems with some prospect of obtaining a self-consistent picture of the ISM, a major goal of this workshop was to bring together observers and theoreticians sufficiently close, so that intense discussions about the necessities and desiderata of modelling the ISM could be stimulated. Observers have shown in great detail on this conference of what is seen on all scales of the ISM, near and far, and what boundary conditions would be appropriate for realistic models, and theoreticians pointed out what assumptions and simplifications their codes need, and how future observations could test their models. As a first step towards this goal, some self-consistent numerical simulations with a minimum number of relevant physical processes were also presented on this meeting. There was wide agreement, that this approach - to keep observers and theoreticians in close contact and also in sometimes quite controversial discussions - will bear fruitful results in the near future.

The underlying astrophysical mechanisms of the objects known as asymptotic giant branch stars - the structures that occur during the dramatic period prior to a star's death - is the main theme of this text. Over the past three decades, asymptotic giant branch stars have become a topic of their own, and the contributions to this volume all focus on these entities themselves, rather than their connections to other fields of astronomy. Among the many topics covered are new methods of high- quality infrared observation and the more detailed and realistic simulations made possible by increasingly fast computers. This collection should be useful to graduate students who work in the field, teachers who want to address the subject in their courses, and to astronomers from various backgrounds who are interested in the astrophysics of AGB stars.

This volume contains the proceedings of an international conference on Shocks in Astrophysics held at UMIST, Manchester, England from January 9-12, 1995. The study of interstellar and circumstellar gas dynamics has a long and distinguished history in Manchester and has been almost entirely concentrated in the school founded by Franz Kahn in the Astronomy Department, University of Manchester. In January 1993, one of us (AR) was appointed to the faculty of the Astrophysics Group in the Department of Mathematics at UMIST and astrophysical gas dynam ics became a major interest of the Group. The subject of this conference was chosen partly for the topicality of the subject matter and partly to help synthesise this expertise with the expertise in interstellar chemistry already present in the Group. The first fruits of this synthesis are contained in this volume. As it happened, this conference celebrated, not so much the beginnings of a long and fruitful collabo ration, but rather gave many of Alex's friends the chance to say a fond farewell as he departed UMIST at the end of January 1995 to take up a chair at UNAM, Mexico City. The core of this volume consists of twelve review articles, marked (R) in the list of contents, incorporating observational and theoretical studies of shock waves in a variety of situations from Herbig-Haro objects to Supernova Remnants to Active Galactic Nuclei. We have also included the contributed (C) and poster (P) papers."

TheFifthHEIDELBERGInternationalConferenceonDarkMatterinAst- and Particle Physics, DARK 2004, took place at Texas A&M University, College Station Texas, USA, October 3-9, 2004. It was, after Cape Town 2002, the second conference of this series held outside Germany. The earlier meetings, starting in 1996, were held in Heidelberg. Dark Matter is still one of the most exciting and central ?elds of ast- physics, particle physics and cosmology. The conference covered, as usual for this series, a large range of topics, theoretical and experimental. Theoretical talks covered SUSY/SUGRA phenomenology, which provides at present a preferred theoretical framework for the existence of cold dark matter. Also included were other possible explanations of dark matter such as SUSY Q balls, exciting New Symmetries, etc. The most important experiments in the underground search for cold and hot dark matter were presented. Talks describing the current experimental dark matter bounds, what might be obtained in the near future, and the reach of future large (i.e. one ton) detectors were given. The potential of future colliders to correlate accelerator physics with dark matter searches was also outlined. Thus the reader will be able to see the present status and future prospects in the search for dark matter. The exciting astronomical evidence for dark matter and corresponding observations concerning the Milky Way's black hole, high-redshift clusters, wakes in dark matter halos were other important topics at the conference.

This book presents a study of the young supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946 in order to reveal the origin of cosmic rays in our galaxy. The study focuses on the X-ray and gamma radiation from the cosmic ray electrons and protons in the supernova remnant as well as the emission from the surrounding interstellar gas measured by the NANTEN2 4-m radio telescope at Nagoya University. The gamma rays show a good spatial correspondence with the interstellar gas, which for the first time provides strong evidence of the acceleration of cosmic ray protons. Additionally, the author determines that an interaction between the supernova shockwaves and interstellar gas, referred to as "shock-cloud interaction," promotes the efficient acceleration of cosmic ray electrons in the supernova remnant. The book reveals that the interstellar gas plays an essential role in producing the high-energy radiation and cosmic rays, offering vital new insights into the origin and behavior of galactic cosmic rays.

This workshop is devoted to Double stars. The general topics of the meeting were: for mation, dynamics and evolutionary tracks. In accordance with the pure tradition of the Saint James way, "pilgrims" from all over the world come to meet together in Santiago. Although with a common interest (double stars), this meeting was a multidisciplinary one, since scientists with different backgrounds participated in it. As a matter of fact, we think that this is the first workshop jointly supported by IAU Commissions 7 (Celestial mechanics) and 26 (Double and multiple stars). It is our belief that this meeting will be the origin of a more close relations and common research. This meeting was held under the invitation of the University of Santiago de Compostela to commemorate its fifth centenary, and organized by the Astronomical Observatory named after its founder, Ramon M. Aller, who made significant contributions in the study of visual double stars, and was one of the pioneers who put the seeds of the present blossoming of Astronomy in Spain. The Scientific Organizing Committee was formed by Drs. C. Allen, P. Couteau, J. A. Docobo, R. Dvorak, A. Elipe, S. Ferraz-Mello (co-chairman), H.A.McAlister, M. Valtonen, C.Worley (chairman) and H. Zinnecker. The Local Organizing Committee was formed by Drs. J. A. Docobo (chairman), A."

Planetary nebulae present a fascinating range of shapes and morphologies. They are ideal laboratories for the study of different astrophysical processes: atomic physics, radiative transfer, stellar winds, shocks, wind-wind interaction, and the interaction between stellar winds and the interstellar medium. In addition, planetary nebulae provide information about the late stages of stellar evolution. In the last five years studies of planetary nebulae have progressed very rapidly and new phenomena and insights have been gained. This is partly due to new observations (e.g. from the Hubble Space Telescope, the ISO satellite and new infrared and millimeter spectrographs) and partly to the advancement of hydrodynamic simulations of the structures of planetary nebulae (PN). Many of these new results were reported at IAU Symposium 180 in Groningen, the Netherlands, on August 26 to 30, 1996. This symposium was dedicated to one of the pioneers of PN research: Stuart Pottasch. These proceedings contain chapters on: Introduction to PN with the basic parameters Distances of PN The central stars of PN The envelopes of PN The evolution from AGB to PN The evolution from PN to white dwarfs PN in the galactic context PN in extragalactic systems The future of PN research . The book contains 29 reviews and more than 200 shorter contributions.

Galaxies are vast ensembles of stars, gas and dust, embedded in dark matter halos. They are the basic building blocks of the Universe, gathered in groups, clusters and super-clusters. They exist in many forms, either as spheroids or disks. Classifications, such as the Hubble sequence (based on mass concentration and gas fraction) and the colormagnitude diagram (which separates a blue cloud from a red sequence) help to understand their formation and evolution. Galaxies spend a large part of their lives in the blue cloud, forming stars as spiral or dwarf galaxies. Then, via a mechanism that is still unclear, they stop forming stars and quietly end in the red sequence, as spheroids. This transformation may be due to galaxy interactions, or because of the feedback of active nuclei, through the energy released by their central super-massive black holes. These mechanisms could explain the history of cosmic star formation, the rate of which was far greater in the first half of the Universe s life. Galaxies delves into all of these surrounding subjects in six chapters written by dedicated, specialist astronomers and researchers in the field, from their numerical simulations to their evolutions.

The reviews and highlights included in this book of proceedings of the plenary sessions, of the Joint European and National Astronomical Meeting (2002), cover some of the major fields and projects which will determine the research in astronomy in the next decades. The highlights have been presented by young astronomers from several European countries, selected from a list of proposals submitted by different institutions across Europe.

This book reflects the multi-disciplinarity and interaction that took place in the meeting. By including reviews on space and ground-based observational programmes, the scientific topics are associated with the new observational efforts in instrumentation. These projects, under development, are expected to drive the research in the coming decades. With such a wide and interdisciplinary coverage this book provides a comprehensive review on the present status and expectations for some of the major fields in astrophysics.

This work is of great relevance for students and researchers alike, as it provides an introductory approach to a wide range of fields in Astronomy, but also includes some detailed reviews for the major topics in each field.