The first comprehensive and up-to-date review of our new understanding of accretion disks around black holes - with chapters from experts from around the world.

This book is a thorough and engaging presentation of the key concepts in planetary ring science informed by the latest research findings.

The observational evidence for the existence of black holes has grown significantly over recent decades. Stellar-mass black holes are detected as X-ray sources in binary systems, while supermassive black holes, with masses more than a million times the mass of the Sun, lurk in the nuclei of galaxies. These proceedings provide a useful and up-to-date overview of the observations of black holes in binaries, in the center of the Milky Way, and in the nuclei of galaxies, presented by leading expert astronomers. Special attention is given to the formation (including the recent evidence from gamma-ray bursts), physical properties, and demographics of black holes.

Recent discoveries in astronomy and relativistic astrophysics as well as experiments on particle and nuclear physics have blurred the traditional boundaries of physics. It is believed that at the birth of the Universe, a whirlwind of matter and antimatter, of quarks and exotic leptons, briefly appeared and merged into a sea of energy. The new phenomena and new states of matter in the Universe revealed the deep connection between quarks and the Cosmos. Motivated by these themes, this book discusses different topics: gravitational waves, dark matter, dark energy, exotic contents of compact stars, high-energy and gamma-ray astrophysics, heavy ion collisions and the formation of the quark-gluon plasma in the early Universe. The book presents some of the latest researches on these fascinating themes and is useful for experts and students in the field.

"This is a basic introduction to the physics of compact objects in the context of High Time Resolution Astrophysics (HTRA)"--

The New Physics is a sweeping survey of developments in physics up to the present day. All of the major topics at the frontiers of the subject have been covered in this collection of reviews. Whether the reader wants to know about the ultimate building blocks of matter; the structure, origin and evolution of the Universe; quantum gravity; low temperature physics; optics and lasers; chaos or quantum mechanics; this widely acclaimed book contains a clear explanation by one of the top scientists working in the field. Aimed at scientists and laymen alike, the articles are profusely illustrated throughout with colour photographs and clear explanatory diagrams, and have been meticulously edited to ensure they will appeal to a wide range of readers. In this single volume, Paul Davies, renowned for his ability to communicate advanced topics to the non-specialist, has gathered an exciting collection of reviews by many of the world's top physicists.

"Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts" appearing twice a year has become oneof the fundamental publications in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics andneighbouring sciences. It is the most important English-language abstracting journal in the mentioned branches. The abstrats are classified under more than a hundred subject categories, thus permitting a quick survey of the whole extended material. The AAA is a valuable and important publication for all students and scientists working in the fields of astronomy and related sciences. As such it represents a necessary ingredient of any astronomical library all over the world.

The Marcel Grossmann Meetings seek to further the development of the foundations and applications of Einstein's general relativity by promoting theoretical understanding in the relevant fields of physics, mathematics, astronomy and astrophysics and to direct future technological, observational, and experimental efforts. The meetings discuss recent developments in classical and quantum aspects of gravity, and in cosmology and relativistic astrophysics, with major emphasis on mathematical foundations and physical predictions, having the main objective of gathering scientists from diverse backgrounds for deepening our understanding of spacetime structure and reviewing the current state of the art in the theory, observations and experiments pertinent to relativistic gravitation. The range of topics is broad, going from the more abstract classical theory, quantum gravity, branes and strings, to more concrete relativistic astrophysics observations and modeling.The three volumes of the proceedings of MG13 give a broad view of all aspects of gravitational physics and astrophysics, from mathematical issues to recent observations and experiments. The scientific program of the meeting included 33 morning plenary talks during 6 days, and 75 parallel sessions over 4 afternoons. Volume A contains plenary and review talks ranging from the mathematical foundations of classical and quantum gravitational theories including recent developments in string/brane theories, to precision tests of general relativity including progress towards the detection of gravitational waves, and from supernova cosmology to relativistic astrophysics including such topics as gamma ray bursts, black hole physics both in our galaxy and in active galactic nuclei in other galaxies, and neutron star and pulsar astrophysics. Volumes B and C include parallel sessions which touch on dark matter, neutrinos, X-ray sources, astrophysical black holes, neutron stars, binary systems, radiative transfer, accretion disks, quasors, gamma ray bursts, supernovas, alternative gravitational theories, perturbations of collapsed objects, analog models, black hole thermodynamics, numerical relativity, gravitational lensing, large scale structure, observational cosmology, early universe models and cosmic microwave background anisotropies, inhomogeneous cosmology, inflation, global structure, singularities, chaos, Einstein-Maxwell systems, wormholes, exact solutions of Einstein's equations, gravitational waves, gravitational wave detectors and data analysis, precision gravitational measurements, quantum gravity and loop quantum gravity, quantum cosmology, strings and branes, self-gravitating systems, gamma ray astronomy, and cosmic rays and the history of general relativity.