Relativistic Astrophysics

Hans-Peter Nollert (Penn State University, USA), Harald Riffert (U Tübingen), Hanns Ruder (U Tübingen) und Friedrich W. Hehl (U Köln) forschen alle auf den verschiedenen Teilgebieten der Astrophysik.
Prof. Dr. Hanns Ruder ist außerdem Leiter der entsprechenden Fachgruppe der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft (DPG).

This book summarizes the lectures given at the 162. WE-Heraeus Seminar which took place in the house of the German Physical Society in Bad Honnefin August 1996. Already the number 162 shows the activity and effectiveness of the WE-Heraeus Foundation. We would like to express our thanks to Jutta Adam and Dr. Volker Schafer for the almost incredibly simple and unbureaucratical procedure of funding, organization and realization, and, of course, to the founders. Similar to the 152. WE-Heraeus Seminar Relativity and Scientific Computing (Springer Verlag 1996), this seminar was a joint venture of the Astronomical Society (AG) and of the Section 'Gravitation und Relativity Theory' of the German Physical Society (DPG). Since Einstein has developed his Theory of General Relativity more than 80 years ago, the situation has changed dramatically. In the first decades main efforts were untertaken for a better understanding and for the experimental verification of the theory. Mean while General Relativity (GR) is one of the experimentally best confirmed theories with 13 an accuracy better than 10- ! Consequently, GR has become a powerful tool for the investigation of cosmic processes where strong gravitational fields are involved. The state of the art of our knowledge is summarized by Jiirgen Ehlers in the first chapter. An impressive example of the change of the situation is the gravitational light deflection.

Astrophysik ist das Wissenschaftsgebiet, in dem die Allgemeine Relativitätstheorie von Albert Einstein die größten Effekte bewirkt. Dieses Buch geht auf eine international hochkarätig besetzteWE-Heraeus-Sommerschule im August 1996 zurück, in der Studenten und Nicht-Fachleute in dieses spannende Gebiet eingeführt wurden.

General Relativity as a Tool for Astrophysics.- Cosmological Dark Matter as Seen with Weak Gravitational Lensing.- Gravitational Microlensing: Machos and Quasars.- Laser-Interferometric Gravitational WaveDetectors - on the Ground and in Deep Space.- Light Deflection Near Neutron Stars.- Magnetohydrodynamics of Rotating Black Holes.- Thin Accretion Disks around Black Holes.- Low-Frequency Oscillations of Relativistic Accretion Disks.- Relativistic Radiation Hydrodynamics and Shocks in Gamma-Ray Bursts.- Instabilities of Rotating Neutron Stars.- The Fate of Stars in the Vicinity of Supermassive Black Holes.- Newtonian and Post-Newtonian Calculations of Coalescing Compact Binaries.- Quasinormal Ringdown: The Late Stage of Neutron Star Mergers.- A General Relativistic Approach to Neutron Star Binary Evolution.- A Forty-Year Search for the Hubble Constant.- Experimental Gravity.