The present volume contains the expanded lectures of a meeting on relativistic astrophysics, the goal of which was to provide a modern introduction to specific aspects of the field for young researchers, as well as for nonspecialists from related areas. Particular emphasis is placed on the theory of black holes and evolution, relativistic stars and jet hydrodynamics, as well as the production and detection of gravitational waves. The book is complemented by further contributions and animation supplied on the accompanying CD-ROM.

Inhalt

Relativistic Astrophysics.- Relativistic Astrophysics.- Black Holes:Theory, Evolution, Accretion and Stability.- Black Hole Thermodynamics.- Perturbations of Black Holes.- Critical Phenomena in Gravitational Collapse: The Role of Angular Momentum.- Numerical and Perturbative Analysis of Astrophysical Processes.- Stellar Perturbations.- Numerical Relativistic Hydrodynamics.- Flux Limiter Methods in 3D Numerical Relativity.- Gauge Conditions for Long-Term Numerical Black Hole Evolution With or Without Excision.- Numerical Relativity with the Conformal Field Equations.- Gravitational Waves:Production and Detection.- Binary Black Holes and Gravitational Wave Production: Post-Newtonian Analytic Treatment.- The Detection of Gravitational Waves.- Other Topics.- Structure of Conformal Lorentz Transformations.- Circularity Conditions on Stationary Axisymmetric Einstein-Yang-Mills Fields.- The Shortest Cut in Brane Cosmology.- Weak Energy Condition Violation and Superluminal Travel.- Factor Structure of Rational Vacuum Metrics and a Generalization of the Tomimatsu-Sato Solutions.- An Anisotropic Cosmological Model with Isotropic Background Radiation.- Lorentzian Comments on Stokes Parameters.- Causal Transformations.- TELEPENSOUTH Project: Measurement of the Earth Gravitomagnetic Field in a Terrestrial Laboratory.- Supermassive Stars with Local Anisotropy, Possible Source of Some Quasars' Luminosity?.- On Modifications of the Einstein-Straus Model to Anisotropic Settings.