United States
£ GBP
Almost all conventional matter in the Universe is fluid, and fluid dynamics plays a crucial role in astrophysics. This new graduate textbook provides a basic understanding of the fluid dynamical processes relevant to astrophysics. The mathematics used to describe these processes is simplified to bring out the underlying physics. The authors cover many topics, including wave propagation, shocks, spherical flows, stellar oscillations, the instabilities caused by effects such as magnetic fields, thermal driving, gravity, shear flows, and the basic concepts of compressible fluid dynamics and magnetohydrodynamics.
The authors are Directors of the UK Astrophysical Fluids Facility (UKAFF) at the University of Leicester, and editors of the Cambridge Astrophysics Series. Astrophysical Flows has been developed from a course in astrophysical fluid dynamics taught at the University of Cambridge. It is suitable for graduate students in astrophysics, physics and applied mathematics, and requires only a basic familiarity with fluid dynamics.
1. The basic fluid equations
2. Compressible media
3. Spherically symmetric flows
4. Stellar models and stellar oscillations
5. Stellar oscillations - waves in stratified media
6. Damping and excitation of stellar oscillations
7. Magnetic instability in a static atmosphere
8. Thermal instabilities
9. Gravitational instability
10. Linear shear flows
11. Rotating flows
12. Circular shear flow with self-gravity
13. Modes in rotating stars
14. Cylindrical shear flow - non-axisymmetric instability
References
Index
Jim Pringle is Professor of Theoretical Astronomy and a Fellow of Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge, and Senior Visitor at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore.
Andrew King is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Leicester and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holder. He is co-author of Accretion Power in Astrophysics (Cambridge University Press, third edition 2002).
While this is a small book, when compared with most texts, it covers the area quite adequately for a basic understanding. Publisher Review
