Physics of Active Galactic Nuclei at all Scales

Physics of Active Galactic Nuclei at all Scales PDF Author: Danielle Alloin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 354034621X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
This book contains a collection of lecture notes written by recognized experts in the field of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). The collection is aimed at providing both an introduction and at the same time an overview of the state-of-the-art of AGN research. This book also addresses the still not entirely understood link of an AGN with its host galaxy and also the related question of the birth and growth of massive black holes in the Universe.

Physics of Active Galactic Nuclei at all Scales

Physics of Active Galactic Nuclei at all Scales PDF Author: Danielle Alloin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 354034621X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book contains a collection of lecture notes written by recognized experts in the field of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). The collection is aimed at providing both an introduction and at the same time an overview of the state-of-the-art of AGN research. This book also addresses the still not entirely understood link of an AGN with its host galaxy and also the related question of the birth and growth of massive black holes in the Universe.

The Physics and Evolution of Active Galactic Nuclei

The Physics and Evolution of Active Galactic Nuclei PDF Author: Hagai Netzer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107021510
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
A comprehensive introduction to the theory underpinning our study of active galactic nuclei and the ways we observe them.

Physics of Active Galactic Nuclei at All Scales

Physics of Active Galactic Nuclei at All Scales PDF Author: Danielle Alloin
Publisher: Lecture Notes in Physics
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
This book contains a collection of lecture notes written by recognized experts in the field of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). The collection is aimed at providing both an introduction and at the same time an overview of the state-of-the-art of AGN research. This book also addresses the still not entirely understood link of an AGN with its host galaxy and also the related question of the birth and growth of massive black holes in the Universe.

Active Galactic Nuclei

Active Galactic Nuclei PDF Author: Julian H. Krolik
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691227470
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 632

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Book Description
This is the first comprehensive treatment of active galactic nuclei--the cosmic powerhouses at the core of many distant galaxies. The term active galactic nuclei refers to quasars, radio galaxies, Seyfert galaxies, blazars, and related objects, all of which are believed to share a similar central engine--a supermassive black hole many times the mass of the Sun. Astrophysicists have studied these phenomena for the past several decades and have begun to develop a consensus about many of their properties and internal mechanisms. Julian Krolik, one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, sums up leading ideas from across the entire range of research, making this book an invaluable resource for astronomers, physicists interested in applications of the theory of gravitation, and graduate students. Krolik begins by addressing basic questions about active galactic nuclei: What are they? How can they be found? How do they evolve? He assesses the evidence for massive black holes and considers how they generate power by accretion. He discusses X-ray and g-ray emission, radio emission and jets, emission and absorption lines, anisotropic appearance, and the relationship between an active nucleus and its host galaxy. He explores the mysteries of what ignites, fuels, and extinguishes active galactic nuclei, and concludes with a general review of where the field now stands. The book is unique in paying careful attention to relevant physics as well as astronomy, reflecting in part the importance of general relativity to understanding active galactic nuclei. Clear, authoritative, and detailed, this is crucial reading for anyone interested in one of the most dynamic areas of astrophysics today.

An Introduction to Active Galactic Nuclei

An Introduction to Active Galactic Nuclei PDF Author: Bradley M. Peterson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521479110
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
How can we test if a supermassive black hole lies at the heart of every active galactic nucleus? What are LINERS, BL Lacs, N galaxies, broad-line radio galaxies and radio-quiet quasars and how do they compare? This timely textbook answers these questions in a clear, comprehensive and self-contained introduction to active galactic nuclei - for graduate students in astronomy and physics. The study of AGN is one of the most dynamic areas of contemporary astronomy, involving one fifth of all research astronomers. This textbook provides a systematic review of the observed properties of AGN across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, examines the underlying physics, and shows how the brightest AGN, quasars, can be used to probe the farthest reaches of the Universe. This book serves as both an entry point to the research literature and as a valuable reference for researchers in the field.

QSO Absorption Lines

QSO Absorption Lines PDF Author: J. Chris Blades
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521345613
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
This second title in the series published for the Space Telescope Science Institute researches the current models of quasar absorption and the systems of absorption lines in the spectra of quasars. Experts in this field discuss the nature of the absorbing process in the vicinity of quasars, the "Lyman-alpha forest", metal-line systems, and quasars as probes of high redshift galaxies. The Hubble Space Telescope will be a valuable tool for learning more about the physics and astronomy of quasars.

Active Galactic Nuclei

Active Galactic Nuclei PDF Author: Volker Beckmann
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 3527410783
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
Active Galactic Nuclei This AGN textbook gives an overview on the current knowledge of the Active Galacitc Nuclei phenomenon. The spectral energy distribution will be discussed, pointing out what can be observed in different wavebands. The different physical models are presented together with formula important for the understanding of AGN physics. Furthermore, the authors discuss the AGN with respect to its environment, host galaxy, feedback in galaxies and in clusters of galaxies, variability, etc. and finally the cosmological evolution of the AGN phenomenon. This book includes phenomena based on new results in the X-Ray and gamma-ray domain from new telescopes such as Chandra, XMM-Newton, the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, and the VHE regime not mentioned so far in AGN books. Those and other new developments as well as simulations of AGN merging events and formations, enabled through latest super-computing capabilities. From the contents: The observational picture of AGN Radiative processes The central engine AGN types and unification AGN through the electromagnetic spectrum AGN variability Environment Quasars and cosmology Formation, evolution and the ultimate fate of AGN What we do not know (yet)

Dynamics and Evolution of Galactic Nuclei

Dynamics and Evolution of Galactic Nuclei PDF Author: David Merritt
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400846129
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 567

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Book Description
Deep within galaxies like the Milky Way, astronomers have found a fascinating legacy of Einstein's general theory of relativity: supermassive black holes. Connected to the evolution of the galaxies that contain these black holes, galactic nuclei are the sites of uniquely energetic events, including quasars, stellar tidal disruptions, and the generation of gravitational waves. This textbook is the first comprehensive introduction to dynamical processes occurring in the vicinity of supermassive black holes in their galactic environment. Filling a critical gap, it is an authoritative resource for astrophysics and physics graduate students, and researchers focusing on galactic nuclei, the astrophysics of massive black holes, galactic dynamics, and gravitational wave detection. It is an ideal text for an advanced graduate-level course on galactic nuclei and as supplementary reading in graduate-level courses on high-energy astrophysics and galactic dynamics. David Merritt summarizes the theoretical work of the last three decades on the evolution of galactic nuclei, the formation of massive black holes, and the interaction between black holes and stars. He explores in depth such important topics as observations of galactic nuclei, dynamical models, weighing black holes, motion near supermassive black holes, evolution of nuclei due to gravitational encounters, loss cone theory, and binary supermassive black holes. Self-contained and up-to-date, the textbook includes a summary of the current literature and previously unpublished work by the author. For researchers working on active galactic nuclei, galaxy evolution, and the generation of gravitational waves, this book will be an essential resource.

Active Galactic Nuclei

Active Galactic Nuclei PDF Author: Francoise Combes
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1394163711
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
All galaxies host a super-massive black hole in their center. These black holes grow their mass in symbiosis with their host galaxy and moderate their star formation. When matter is driven towards the nucleus, an accretion disk is formed to transfer angular momentum and considerable energy is released when the material falls into the black hole: this is the phenomenon of active galactic nuclei (AGN). A nucleus can shine one thousand times more brightly than the entire galaxy with its 200 billion stars. The nuclear activity can take many forms, from very powerful quasars to more ordinary Seyfert galaxies, passing by radio-galaxies, which eject a collimated plasma at ten times the radius of the galaxy. This book examines all of these manifestations and presents a unified view. When two galaxies merge, a binary black hole is formed and the two black holes will spiral inwards and merge, emitting long gravitational waves, which could be detected by the future LISA satellite.

Quasars at All Cosmic Epochs

Quasars at All Cosmic Epochs PDF Author: Paola Marziani
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2889456048
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
The last 50 years have seen a tremendous progress in the research on quasars. From a time when quasars were unforeseen oddities, we have come to a view that considers quasars as active galactic nuclei, with nuclear activity a coming-of-age experienced by most or all galaxies in their evolution. We have passed from a few tens of known quasars of the early 1970s to the 500,000 listed in the catalogue of the Data Release 14 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Not surprisingly, accretion processes on the central black holes in the nuclei of galaxies — the key concept in our understanding of quasars and active nuclei in general — have gained an outstanding status in present-day astrophysics. Accretion produces a rich spectrum of phenomena in all bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. The power output of highly-accreting quasars has impressive effects on their host galaxies. All the improvement in telescope light gathering and in computing power notwithstanding, we still miss a clear connection between observational properties and theory for quasars, as provided, for example, by the H-R diagram for stars. We do not yet have a complete self-consistent view of nuclear activity with predictive power, as we do for main-sequence stellar sources. At the same time quasars offer many “windows open onto the unknown". On small scales, quasar properties depend on phenomena very close to the black hole event horizon. On large scales, quasars may effect evolution of host galaxies and their circum-galactic environments. Quasars’ potential to map the matter density of the Universe and help reconstruct the Universe’s spacetime geometry is still largely unexploited. The times are ripe for a critical assessment of our present knowledge of quasars as accreting black holes and of their evolution across the cosmic time. The foremost aim of this research topic is to review and contextualize the main observational scenarios following an empirical approach, to present and discuss the accretion scenario, and then to analyze how a closer connection between theory and observation can be achieved, identifying those aspects of our understanding that are still on a shaky terrain and are therefore uncertain knowledge. This research topic covers topics ranging from the nearest environment of the black hole, to the environment of the host galaxies of active nuclei, and to the quasars as markers of the large scale structure and of the geometry of spacetime of the Universe. The spatial domains encompass the accretion disk, the emission and absorption regions, circum-nuclear starbursts, the host galaxy and its interaction with other galaxies. Systematic attention is devoted to some key problems that remain outstanding and are clearly not yet solved: the existence of two quasar classes, radio quiet and radio loud, and in general, the systematic contextualization of quasar properties the properties of the central black hole, the dynamics of the accretion flow in the inner parsecs and the origin of the accretion matter, the quasars’ small and large scale environment, the feedback processes produced by the black hole into the host galaxy, quasar evolutionary patterns from seed black holes to the present-day Universe, and the use of quasars as cosmological standard candles. The timing is appropriate as we are now witnessing a growing body of results from major surveys in the optical, UV X, near and far IR, and radio spectral domains. Radio instrumentation has been upgraded to linear detector — a change that resembles the introduction of CCDs for optical astronomy — making it possible to study radio-quiet quasars at radio frequencies. Herschel and ALMA are especially suited to study the circum-nuclear star formation processes. The new generation of 3D magnetohydrodynamical models offers the prospective of a full physical modeling of the whole quasar emitting regions. At the same time, on the forefront of optical astronomy, applications of adaptive optics to long-slit spectroscopy is yielding unprecedented results on high redshift quasars. Other measurement techniques like 2D and photometric reverberation mapping are also yielding an unprecedented amount of data thanks to dedicated experiments and instruments. Thanks to the instrumental advances, ever growing computing power as well as the coming of age of statistical and analysis techniques, the smallest spatial scales are being probed at unprecedented resolution for wide samples of quasars. On large scales, feedback processes are going out of the realm of single-object studies and are entering into the domain of issues involving efficiency and prevalence over a broad range of cosmic epochs. The Research Topic "Quasars at all Cosmic Epochs" collects a large fraction of the contributions presented at a meeting held in Padova, sponsored jointly by the National Institute for Astrophysics, the Padova Astronomical Observatory, the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Padova, and the Instito de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA) of the Consejo Superiór de Investigación Cientifica (CSIC). The meeting has been part of the events meant to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the foundation of the Padova Observatory.