Black Holes – The Ultimate Engines is about cosmic black holes and how they generate the most powerful observed phenomena in the universe. It begins by reviewing the most important of these (quasars, microquasars, and gamma-ray bursts) and explains why we believe that black holes are responsible for them. The book then introduces the properties of simple, isolated black holes, then addsin complications such as rotation, accretion, radiation and magnetic fields, finally arriving at an understanding of how these objects work. Throughout thebook the close relationship between terrestrial engines and these ultimate, cosmic engines is exploited. A key feature of the book is its discussion and explanation of the violent and spectacular outflows (winds and jets) that are generated by black hole accretion. This is currently a very active area of research in the astronomical community. The book is written in a relaxed style, with the level of mathematics used within the text appropriate for final year university students in the USA, incorporating algebra, matrices, vector calculus,ordinary and partial differential equations. Tensor calculus is kept to a minimum, but when necessary it employs readable matrix equations, rather than themore daunting summation convention. 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 thatblack holes are responsible for important phenomena such as quasars, microquasars and gamma-ray bursts INDICE: Preface.- Part I Observations of Black Hole Engines.- 1 Recognizing Black Holes.- 2 Macroquasars: Supermassive Black Holes in the Centers of Galaxies 13.- 3 Microquasars: Black holes (and Neutron Stars) of Stellar Mass in Our Galaxy.- 4 Miniquasars: Elusive Black Holes of Intermediate Mass.- Part IIPhysics of Black Hole Engines.- 5 Physics in Everyday Life: A Review of Newtonian Mechanics.- 6 Geometry and Physics Without Gravity: Special Relativity.- 7 Physics in Curved Spacetime: General Relativity and Black Holes Contravariant Vectors and 1-Forms.- 8 Four-Dimensional Evolving Geometry: Gravitational Waves and Gravitational Collapse.- 9 Nuts and Bolts of the Black Hole Engine: General Relativistic Mechanics.- Part III Astrophysics of Black Hole Engines.- 10 Assembling the Engine Block: Formation of Black Holes in the Universe 11 Fueling and Carburetion: Breakup and Accretion of Stars and GasClouds.- 12 The Combustion Chamber: Energy Generation by Gravitational Accretion.- 13 The Thermal Exhaust System: Radiation and Thermally-Driven Winds.- 14 The Non-Thermal Exhaust System: Rotating Magnetospheres, MagneticWinds, and Jets.- Appendices.- References.
- ISBN: 978-3-642-01935-7
- Editorial: Springer
- Encuadernacion: Cartoné
- Páginas: 610
- Fecha Publicación: 01/11/2010
- Nº Volúmenes: 1
- Idioma: Inglés