This book deals with stars during a short episode before they undergo a ma- jor, and fatal, transition. Soon the star will stop releasing nudear energy, it will become a planetary nebula for abrief but poetic moment, and then it will turn into a white dwarf and slowly fade out of sight. Just before this dramatic change begins the star has reached the highest luminosity and the largest diameter in its existence, and while it is a star detectable in galaxies beyond the Local Group, its structure contains already the inconspicuous white dwarf it will become. It is called an "asymptotic giant...

The?rsteditionofthistextappearedin1994.Shortlyafterthethirdprinting, our editor suggested that we attempt a second edition because new devel- mentsinstellarstructureandevolutionhadmadeouroriginalworkoutdated. We (the original authors, CJH and SDK) reluctantly agreed but with res- vations due to the e?ort involved. Our initial reluctance disappeared when we were able to convince (cajole, twist the arm of, etc.) our new coauth- colleague Virginia Trimble to join us. (Welcome Virginia ) We (i.e., all three of us) hope that you agree that the present edition is a great improvement compared to the...

Thirty-threeyears have passed since the ?rst edition of Astrophysical Concepts - peared. During this time astrophysics has undergone major revolutions. We have gained new perspectives on the Universe with the aid of powerful gamma-ray, - ray, and infrared telescopes, whose sensitivitiescould not have been imagined three decades earlier. We have become expert at snaring neutrinos to gain insight on - clear processes at work in the Sun and supernovae. We have direct evidence for the existence of neutron stars and gravitationalwaves, and persuasive arguments for the detection of black holes on...

Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) concerns the interaction between magnetic fields and conducting fluids. We are concerned here with macroscopic inter- actions and, when the conducting fluid is a plasma, time scales are very much longer than the plasma period. Plasma periods vary widely, but are short, say 10 DEGREES DEGREES second. We prefer the term Magneto-F/i DEGREESZ(i-Dynamics (MFD) because the disci- pline concerns mostly plasmas, various liquid conductors, and the liquid part of the Earth's core. It seems that the only applications of MFD to water are the induction of electric currents in...

For about half a century the general theory of relativity attracted little attention from physicists. However, the discovery of compact objects such as quasars and pulsars, as well as candidates for black holes on the one hand, and the microwave background radiation on the other hand completely changed the picture. In addition, developments in elementary particle physics, such as predictions of the behavior of matter at the ultrahigh energies that might have prevailed in the early stages of the big bang, have greatly en- hanced the interest in general relativity. These developments created a...

Special and General Relativity are concisely developed together with essential aspects of nuclear and particle physics. Problem sets are provided for many chapters, making the book ideal for a course on the physics of white dwarf and neutron star interiors. Norman K. Glendenning is Senior Scientist Emeritus at the Nuclear Science Division, Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of numerous books.

There is no dearth of books on telescope optics and, indeed, optics is clearly a keyelementinthedesignandconstructionoftelescopes.Butitisbynomeans the only important element. As telescopes become larger and more costly, other aspects such as structures, pointing, wavefront control, enclosures, and project management become just as critical. Although most of the technical knowledge required for all these ?elds is available in various specialized books, journal articles, and technical reports, they are not necessarily written with application to telescopes in mind. This...

White dwarfs, neutron stars, and (solar mass) black holes are the collapsed cores of stars which, near the ends of their luminous lives, have shed most of their mass in supernova explosions or other, less spectacular, instabilities. Here gravity crushes matter to realms that lie far beyond present empirical knowledge. This book explores the diverse forms that such compact stars can possibly take, as constrained by the laws of nature: the general principles of relativity and quantum mechanics, the properties of nuclear matter deduced from nuclei, and the asymptotic freedom of quarks at high...

Relativistic Astrophysics and Cosmology offers a succinct and self-contained treatment of general relativity and its application to compact objects, gravitational waves and cosmology. The required mathematical concepts are introduced informally, following geometrical intuition as much as possible. The approach is theoretical, but there is ample discussion of observational aspects and of instrumental issues where appropriate.

The book includes such topical issues as the Gravity Probe B mission, interferometer detectors of gravitational waves, and the physics behind the angular power...

In this third corrected and revised edition students and lecturers in astronomy and planetary science as well as planet observers will find a mine of up-to-date information on the solar system and its interaction with the interplanetary medium, its various objects, comparative planetology, discussion of questions for further research and future space exploration.