Related papers: Astrophysics in 2006
The outbursts of novae are among the strongest explosions in the Universe. The eruptions involve physical processes that span the whole electromagnetic spectrum, demanding multifrequency observations. The photometric and spectroscopic…
Strange stars ought to exist in the universe according to the strange quark matter hypothesis, which states that matter made of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks could be the true ground state of baryonic matter rather…
We give a brief overview of the highest energy messengers: very high energy photons, neutrinos, and ultra-high energy cosmic rays. The mysterious workings of the extreme universe should soon be unveil with new observatories now under…
1. Introduction - 2. Astrophysics and Cosmology - 3. Neutrino Oscillations - 4. Higgs and New Physics Searches - 5. Flavour Physics and CP Violation - 6. QCD - 7. Heavy Ion Collisions - 8. Outlook
Stars are powerful sources for weakly interacting particles that are produced by nuclear or plasma processes in their hot interior. These fluxes can be used for direct measurements (e.g. solar or supernova neutrinos) or the back-reaction on…
With each passing decade, we gain new appreciation for the dynamic, connected, and often violent nature of the Universe. This reality necessarily places the study of high-energy processes at the very heart of modern astrophysics. This White…
It is argued that the surface radius of a compact source can not be less than its gravitational radius due to the strong gravitational time dilation effects. The such "topological" difference between the Newtonian and relativistic gravity…
Cosmic rays have been observed up to energies $10^8$ times larger than those of the best particle accelerators. Studies of astrophysical particles (hadrons, neutrinos and photons) at their highest observed energies have implications for…
Recent measurements of the properties of cosmic rays above 10^17 eV are summarized and implications on our contemporary understanding of their origin are discussed. Cosmic rays with energies exceeding 10^20 eV have been measured, they are…
The dramatic confrontation between new observations and theories of the early and recent universe makes cosmology one of the most rapidly advancing fields in the physical sciences. The universe is a unique laboratory in which to probe…
Probing the existence of hypothetical particles beyond the Standard model often deals with extreme parameters: large energies, tiny cross-sections, large time scales, etc. Sometimes laboratory experiments can test required regions of…
Among the many different classes of stellar objects, neutron stars provide a unique environment where we can test (at the same time) our understanding of matter with extreme density, temperature, and magnetic field. In particular, the…
We show that young pulsars with normal magnetic fields, which are born as fast rotating neutron stars (NSs) in Type II/Ib supernova explosions, can slow down quickly by relativistic particles emission along their magnetic axis. When they…
The extremely luminous supernova SN 2006gy challenges the traditional view that the collapse of a stellar core is the only mechanism by which a massive star makes a supernova, because it seems too luminous by more than a factor of ten. Here…
Neutron stars are fascinating astrophysical objects immersed in strong gravitational and electromagnetic fields, at the edge of our current theories. These stars manifest themselves mostly as pulsars, emitting a timely very stable and…
Black holes are among the most extreme objects that can be found in the Universe and an ideal laboratory for testing fundamental physics. This article will briefly review the basic properties of black holes as expected from general…
Stars have been recognized as optimal laboratories to probe axion properties. In the last decades there have been significant advances in this field due to a better modelling of stellar systems and accurate observational data. In this work…
The formation of hot subdwarf stars is still unclear. Both single-star and binary scenarios have been proposed to explain the properties of these evolved stars situated at the extreme blue end of the horizontal branch. The observational…
This paper gives an overview of the properties of all possible equilibrium sequences of compact strange-matter stars with nuclear crusts, which range from strange stars to strange dwarfs. In contrast to their non-strange counterparts,…
Half a century has passed since the foundation of nuclear astrophysics. Since then, this discipline has reached its maturity. Today, nuclear astrophysics constitutes a multidisciplinary crucible of knowledge that combines the achievements…