The theme of the conference held at the Institute of Astronomy in the summer of 1981 was 'Supernovae'. The topic was interpreted very broadly: observations in all wavebands were discussed, along with theories for the explosion mechanism and the light curves; there were papers on supernova remnants and pulsar statistics; other sessions dealt with the use of new techniques for improving supernova searches, and with the importance of supernovae for cosmogonic and cosmological studies. This book contains texts based on all the main review lectures, together with a number of shorter papers which describe new results presented at the conference. The Scientific Organising Committee, responsible for arranging the programme, consisted of J. Audouze, G. B. Brown, J. Danziger, F. Pacini, M. J. Rees (Chairman) and J. W. Truran. The conference was well attended, with over 100 visitors to Cambridge as well as many local participants. We are grateful to all those who helped with the practical organisation of the meeting, especially Dr Michael Ingham (Secretary of the Institute of Astronomy) and Mrs Norah Tate. We thank all the authors of the papers in this volume for the trouble they took in preparing written versions of their excellent lectures, and for the efforts they made to meet our ' final' deadl ine: we wish especially to thank Drs W. O. Arnett and J. M. Lattimer for help with the edi torial work.

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute, Cambridge, U.K., June 29-July 10, 1981

Inhalt
An optimist's guide to Supernovae.- Models for core collapse and the explosion mechanism.- The fate of massive stars: Collapse, bounce and shock formation.- Supernova shocks and neutrino diffusion.- Supernovae for pedestrians.- Shock stagnation and neutrino losses in stellar collapse.- Theoretical models for supernovae.- Computer simulations of stellar collapse and supernovae explosions: Non-rotating and rotating models.- Gravitational radiation from collapsing rotating stellar cores.- Theoretical models of type I supernovae.- The origin of the Crab nebula and electron capture supernova of 810 M? stars.- Carbon-Oxygen white dwarf presupernova models.- Light curves and their interpretation.- The nature of supernovae as determined from their light curves.- Type II supernovae photospheres and distances.- Type I supernovae: Observational constraints.- Radio Supernovae.- Very Massive Objects.- Evolution and nucleosynthesis in population III stars.- The boundary between explosion and collapse in very massive objects.- Pregalactic very massive objects and their cosmological consequences.- Supernova search strategies.- Automated supernova search.- The Berkeley automated supernova search.- Automated supernova search from photographic plates.- Supernova and pulsar statistics.- The historical supernovae.- Supernova statistics and related problems.- The galactic distribution of pulsars.- Theory of supernova remnants.- Young supernova remnants.- The evolution of supernova remnants and the structure of the interstellar medium.- Non-Thermal aspects of supernova remnants.- Observations of supernova remnants.- Supernova remnants in M31.- Optical supernova remnants in external galaxies.- Optical spectrophotometry of the Cygnus Loop.- X-ray spectroscopy and imagery of supernova remnants with the Einstein observatory.- Einstein observations of supernova remnants.- An X-ray survey of supernova remnants in the Large Magellanic Cloud.- Supernovae, cosmogony and cosmology.- Supernovae and the origin of the solar system.- Supernovae and the formation of galaxies.- Name index.- Object index.