Three eminent scientists, each well known for the clarity of their writing, present for students and researchers what is known about the internal structure, origin and evolution of White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars and Black Holes, all objects at the final stage of stellar evolution. They cover fascinating topics such as pulsation of white dwarfs, millisecond pulsars or the dynamics around black holes. The book is written for graduate students in astrophysics, but is also of interest to professional astronomers and physicists.

Inhalt
Contents: White Dwarfs (S.D. Kawaler): Introduction.- Observed Properties of White Dwarfs.- Physics of White Dwarf Interiors.- White Dwarf Formation and Early Cooling.- Chemical Evolution of White Dwarfs.- White Dwarf Cooling and the White Dwarf Luminosity Function.- Nonradial Oscillations of White Dwarfs: Theory.- Pulsating White Dwarfs.- Astrophysical Applications of White Dwarfs. Neutron Stars (G. Srinivasan): A Historical Introduction.- The Nature of Pulsars.- The Physics of Neutron Stars.- The Progenitors of Neutron Stars.- Binary Pulsars.- Millisecond Pulsars.- Magnetic Field Evolution.- Glitches.- Plate Tectonics. Black Holes (I. Novikov): Astrophysics of Black Holes.- A Nonrotating Black Hole.- A Rotating Black Hole.- Electromagnetic Fields Near a Black Hole.- Some Aspects of Physics of Black Holes, Wormholes, and Time Machines.- Observational Appearance of the Black Holes in the Universe.- Primordial Black Holes.- Acknowledgements.- References.