Kategoria BISAC: Science >> Physics - Relativity

The exploration of the first billion years of the history of the Universe represents one of the great challenges of contemporary astrophysics. During this time, the first structures start to form the first stars, galaxies, and possibly also soon the first quasars. At the same time, light comes to the dark, neutral Universe. This book contains the worked out lectures given at the 36th Saas-Fee Advanced Course "First Light in the Universe" by three eminent scientists in the field.

Some 25 years after the birth of inflationary cosmology, this volume sets out to provide both an authoritative and pedagogical introduction and review of the current state of the field. Readers learn about the arguments supporting the many different scenarios of cosmic inflation. Articles are written by eminent scientists, many of whom have made pioneering contributions to the field of inflationary cosmology.

"Relativistic Astrophysics and Cosmology" have developed into important and fruitful research areas with a hitherto unprecented public interest. The year 2005, which marked the 100th anniversary of the 'annus mirabilis', that year in which Albert Einstein published three of his most important scientific papers, was the perfect opportunity to review and to present the current scientific understanding of relativistic topics including cosmological models, cosmology related measurements, the large scale properties of the Universe, dark matter and dark energy, the theory of gravity, black...

Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars, the collapsed cores of once massive stars that ended their lives as supernova explosions. Pulsar rotation rates can reach incredible speeds, up to hundreds of times per second. The story of how an object spins up to a significant fraction of the speed of light is fascinating and involves collapsing stellar cores following supernova explosions, while the faster ones result from stellar cannibalism.

In this book, Geoff McNamara explores the history, subsequent discovery and contemporary research into pulsar astronomy. The story of pulsars is...