RELATIVISTIC JETS: The Common Physics of AGN, Microquasars, and Gamma-Ray Bursts

Relativistic Jets: The Common Physics of AGN, Microquasars, and Gamma-Ray Bursts

Philip A. Hughes, University of Michigan, Astronomy Department, Ann Arbor, MI, USA ; Joel N. Bregman, University of Michigan, Astronomy Department, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Conference Location and Date: Ann Arbor, Michigan, 14-17 December 2005

Subseries: Astronomy and Astrophysics

Published September 2006; ISBN 978-0-7354-0353-6 One Volume, Print; 172 pages; 6 3/8 X 9 1/4 inches; Hardcover; $123.00

Readership: Graduate students and physicists interested in astrophysics, mathematics, computational methods, and laboratory astrophysics.

Highly collimated flows of plasma (jets), with speeds comparable to that of light, are a ubiquitous feature of our Universe. They are found in old stellar systems (the Galactic microquasars and gamma-ray bursts) and in active galaxies - wherever infalling matter forms a disk of material within which gravitational energy is released, and funneled along the system's axis. While the global dynamics of extragalactic jets is reasonably well understood, their composition and internal structure, and the role of magnetic fields, remain obscure. Major questions remain concerning the physics of the gamma-ray emission itself.

This proceedings includes the eight invited talks presented at this conference: an overview of extragalactic jets for the microquasar and gamma-ray burst community, microquasars for the extragalactic and gamma-ray burst community, and gamma-ray bursts for the extragalactic and microquasar community, followed by more technical material on extragalactic jets, microquasars, gamma-ray bursts, physical processes, and numerical simulation methods.

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