This book offers eleven coordinated reviews on multi-scale structure formation in cosmic plasmas in the Universe. Observations and theories of plasma structures are presented in all relevant astrophysical contexts, from the Earth's magnetosphere through heliospheric and galactic scales to clusters of galaxies and the large scale structure of the Universe. Basic processes in cosmic plasmas starting from electric currents and the helicity concept governing the dynamics of magnetic structures in planet magnetospheres, stellar winds, and relativistic plasma outflows like pulsar wind nebulae and Active Galactic Nuclei jets are covered. The multi-wavelength view from the radio to gamma-rays with modern high resolution telescopes discussed in the book reveals a beautiful and highly informative picture of both coherent and chaotic plasma structures tightly connected by strong mutual influence. The authors are all leading scientists in their fields, making this book an authoritative, up-to-date and enduring contribution to astrophysics.

Autorentext
Prof. Andé Balogh is Distinguished Research Fellow and Emeritus Professor of Space Physics at Imperial College, London and the past Director of the International Space Science Institute of Bern, Switzerland. His main research interests are solar and heliospheric magnetic fields, solar activity phenomena and the nature of heliospheric turbulence. Prof. Balogh has been a Principal Investigator on the Ulysses and Cluster space missions and is author and co-author of over 500 scientific papers on solar physics, space research and planetary physics; as well as editor of ten books, including eight volumes in Springer's Space Sciences Series of ISSI. His recent research has covered the measurements of the Sun's magnetic flux and its dependence on the solar activity cycle.
Andrei Bykov is head of the High Energy Astrophysics laboratory in the Ioffe Institute of Physics and Technology, Russian Academy of Sciences and professor of St.Petersburg State Politechnical University. His principal research interests are theory and observations of processes in astrophysical objects with extreme energy release supernovae, gammaray bursts and clusters of galaxies. He is author and coauthor of over 200 scientific publications, a book Turbulence, Current Sheets and Shocks in Cosmic Plasma and editor of four books on high energy astrophysics.

Jonathan Eastwood is a lecturer in the Department of Physics at Imperial College London where he is a member of the Space and Atmospheric Physics research group. He has previously worked at UC Berkeley and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. In 2012 he was the recipient of the COSPAR Zeldovich medal (Commission D) in recognition of his research into the physics of magnetic reconnection and collisionless shocks using satellite data.

Jelle Kaastra (PhD 1985, Utrecht University) is a senior scientist at SRON, the Netherlands Institute for Space Research and professor of high-energy astrophysics at Leiden University. He is an expert on high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy of cosmic plasmas, and is currently principal investigator of the Reflection Grating Spectrometer on XMM-Newton and the Low-Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer on Chandra. He has an active track record on clusters of galaxies, active galactic nuclei and X-ray models for cosmic plasmas.

Inhalt

1. Multi-scale Structure Formation and Dynamics in Cosmic Plasmas.- 2. Electric Current Circuits in Astrophysics.- 3. Magnetic Helicity and Large Scale Magnetic Fields: A Primer.- 4. Large-Scale Structure Formation: from the first non-linear objects to massive galaxy clusters.- 5. Structures and components in galaxy clusters: observations and models.- 6. Supernova Remnants Interacting with Molecular Clouds: X-Ray and Gamma-Ray Signatures.- 7. The Heliosphere: What did we learn in recent years and the current challenges.- 8. Structures in the Outer Solar Atmosphere.- 9. What Controls the Structure and Dynamics of Earth's Magnetosphere?.- 10. Properties of Magnetic Field Fluctuations in the Earth's Magnetotail and Implications for the General Problem of Structure Formation in Hot Plasmas.- 11. Current Sheets in the Earth Magnetotail.