Astronomical Soc./Pacific
AGN variability from X-rays to radio waves; proceedings.
The emission produced by secretion onto supermassive black holes in AGN dominates the overall emission of the universe over almost all of the electromagnetic spectrum, particularly the far UV and soft x-ray regions where the power from most AGN peaks. In these proceedings from the June 2004 conference includes significant research on the nature, causes and implications of AGN variability. General topics include optical variability, including long-term optical quasar variability, IR variability, including the correlation of near infrared and optical variability on NGC 4151, x-ray variability, including the relationship between optical and x-ray variability in Seyfert galaxies, radio variability, including 3C 120 and the disk-jet connection, blazars, including photometric and polarimetric observations of BL Lac objects in the optical region, including flows and shocks in Seyfert Galaxy nuclei and general considerations, including closing thoughts on AGN variability by the conference chair. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The future of photometric, spectrophotometric and polarimetric standardization; proceedings.
These proceedings from the May 2006 conference focus on the present status and the future of standardization and calibration of these fields, including the production process for those standards and the construction and use of calibration apparatus. Topics include the basic concepts of standardization; the construction, calibration and maintenance of photometric systems; sky surveys in photometry; standardization of spectrophotometry; spectrophotometric and photometric absolute flux calibrations; standardization for the infrared; standardization of polarimetry; synthetic data and models; reduction techniques, procedures and methods; standardization of unusual objects such as supernovae and variable stars; and recommendations for the future. The editors have provided object, subject and author indices and have dedicated this volume to Arlo U. Landolt in commemoration of his life's work. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The physics of chromospheric plasmas; proceedings.
Papers from an October 2006 meeting present recent work on spectroheliograph equipment and observations, the structure and dynamics of the solar chromosphere, active regions and sun spots, prominences and filaments, chromospheric flares, long-term solar variations, and solar physics instrumentation. Papers examine new developments at the Coimbra University observatory, the long-term evolution of the chromosphere, and solar irradiation variability and its effects on space weather. Specific topics include the origin of solar white-light flares, modeling the hemispheric pattern of solar filaments, stellar atmospheres and the diamagnetic effect, observations of running waves in a sunspot chromosphere, and acoustic shocks in the quiet solar chromosphere. There is no subject index. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Revealing the molecular universe; one antenna is never enough; proceedings.
Astronomers! You give them an antenna, and they want two. Twenty-six papers and six poster presentations represent a September 2005 symposium held in Berkeley, California honoring Jack Welch's retirement from his long career at the U. of California. The papers address topics pertaining to radio telescope facilities, the development of Berkeley's remote Hat Creek Radio Observatory, and star and star formation science; the posters are on the North American ALMA prototype antenna, interstellar molecules in K-12 education, the recently discovered Class O source Barnard 1-c, a massive protobinary system in the hot core, results from the SCUBA public archive, and the impact of galaxy outflows. Concluding remarks address the past and future radio astronomy activities at Berkeley. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
SINS-small ionized and neutral structures in the diffuse interstellar medium; proceedings.
These proceedings from the May 2006 meeting include papers include research on structures observed at scales from astronomical units to kilometers. One intriguing feature is that despite a wealth of data, no single theory satisfactorily explains the phenomenon. The structure may consist of discrete objects rather than being part of a spectrum, indicating these objects are over-pressurized in comparison to their medium. It is not even clear as yet whether the ionized, atomic and molecular structures are connected, which are discrete objects (technically, "things") and which are part of a power spectrum (technically, "spooks"). Here contributors describe recent work on small-scale structures, theory and numerical simulations along with observational and theoretical reviews of the session. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Solar and stellar physics through eclipses; proceedings.
Eclipse phenomena provide opportunities for deducing new astronomical information because it is a kind of scanning, in which information on the eclipsed and eclipsing objects are scanned together with their environment. In this volume, Demircan (physics, Çanakkale U., Turkey), Selam (astronomy and space sciences, Ankara U., Turkey), and Albayrak (astronomy and space sciences, Ankara U.) present the results of a March 2006 workshop devoted to the study of eclipse phenomenon. Seventeen opening papers address eclipse-related issues of solar system physics, including eclipses and planetary transits, mass determination of small solar system bodies with ground-based observation, damping of magnetohydrodynamic waves as a heating mechanism of solar corona, coronal heating and acceleration of the solar wind. A further seventeen papers address eclipse-related issues of extra-solar physics, including solar and stellar eclipse mapping, line profiles during eclipse of binary stars, classification of eclipsing binaries, photometric and spectroscopic studies of the eclipsing binary, the light curve variation of the Be Star EM Cep, and determination of physical parameters of cataclysmic variables from analysis of their light curves. Also included are 23 poster presentations on similar topics. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Solar polarization; proceedings.
Proceedings from an international workshop held in Boulder, Colorado, in September, 2005. Eighty contributions are organized into sections on photospheric magnetism, radiative transfer methods and inversion techniques, new solar polarimeters and techniques, atomic spectro- polarimetry, theory of collisional polarization, laboratory experiments and molecular spectro-polarimetry, stellar spectro- polarimetry, and chromospheric electromagnetism. A sampling of topics: the microstructure of a sunspot penumbra, penumbral moving magnetic features, SOLIS-VSM solar vector magnetograms, multigrid methods for polarized radiative transfer, tunable narrow-band filter for imaging polarimetry, the diffraction limited spectro-polarimeter, a brief overview of the Second Solar Spectrum, polarizability factors for molecular bands, spectro-polarimetry of cool stars, molecular diagnostics of the internal structure of starspots and sunspots, and the effect of turbulent electric fields on the scattering polarization of hydrogen lines. No subject index. Illustrated in b&w. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The Spitzer space telescope; new views of the cosmos; proceedings.
The telescope had been operating in its science phase for about a year when astronomers gathered to report on its observations and interpretations of them regarding the solar system, the galaxy, and the rest of the cosmos. Their topics include the formation and evolution of planetary systems and how our own solar system measures up, solid-state components of varying composition in the outflow of the Red Rectangle, and detecting clusters of galaxies at high red-shift. A profile of Lyman Spitzer and a brief history of the telescope named after him are also included. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Stellar astrophysics; proceedings.
These proceedings of the November 2005 conference include descriptions of research in topics ranging from the births to the deaths of stars, single stars to multiple stellar systems, normal stars to the truly strange and from the stable to the widely variable, with most presentations describing optical observations and theories on binary stars and neutron stars. The papers on binary systems include the interplay between diffusion and accretion in nuclear reactions and tidal effects in binaries, while those on compact star systems include reports on the phase-resolved spectra of the crab pulsar and high energy emissions from strange stars. Papers cover cataclysmic and symbiotic variables (amongst others) and include such topics as the structure and evolution of magnetic cataclysmic variables, while those on star formation and stellar clusters include papers on the initial mass function of stars and a simulation of protostar flares and the expected x-ray spectrum. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Transiting extrasolar planets; proceedings.
Sixty-one papers from the September 2006 workshop discuss methods for finding extrasolar planets by detecting their transit around a star, and report the results of recent transit surveys. Several of the contributions focus on the determination of planetary system parameters after observations are complete. Topics include an optimal deconvolution-based photometric reduction method, signal search and reconstruction by a trend filtering algorithm, the color of noise in SuperWASP data, the life cycle of an XO planet, and planetary transits in the Lupus galactic plane. No index is provided. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
