Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T15:09:13.387Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Outside the Stars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Malcolm S. Longair
Malcolm S. Longair*
Affiliation:
Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Road, CAMBRIDGE CB3 OHE, England

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

It is a great pleasure and privilege to give the opening lecture at this IAU Colloquium “Inside the Stars”. It is particularly appropriate that it is held in Austria, the country of Ludwig Boltzmann whose name will appear explicitly or implicitly in every lecture.

My task is to describe the astrophysical and cosmological setting within which our discussions will take place. I emphasise that I am an outsider at this colloquium in all possible senses. My own research interests are in the areas of high energy astrophysics, extragalactic research and astrophysical cosmology. In lecturing to my students, however, I emphasise that the subject of the present colloquium is at the very heart of virtually all astrophysics and these studies are quite essential in order to make sense of galaxies and extragalactic systems. If we did not have this confidence in our ability to understand the stars, at least in principle, we would worry about the reliability of the enormous astrophysical edifice which has been built up to explain the large scale features of our Universe. I also emphasise to my students that the study of the stars is among the most exact of the astrophysical sciences — in my enthusiastic moments, I claim that, in the very best of these studies, astrophysics approaches the precision of laboratory experiment. I hope to find many examples this week to reinforce this belief.

From my perspective, what I need is a User’s Guide to Stars and Stellar Evolution, in other words, a reliable set of rules about the origin and evolution of stars in order to diagnose the physical properties of the systems I am trying to understand. I will illustrate the types of information we need by discussing three case studies in the areas of (i) high energy astrophysics, (ii) classical cosmology and (iii) astrophysical cosmology and the origin of galaxies. Necessarily, these studies will be far from complete, but I hope they will illustrate some of the issues which come up in these disciplines. In the course of the discussion, it will become apparent that I will touch upon essentially all branches of contemporary astrophysics. I will take very different approaches to the three case studies.

Type
I. Setting the stage: Sun, Stars Galaxies and the Universe
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 137: Inside the Stars , 1993 , pp. 1 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 1993

References

Abasov, A.I., Anosov, O.L., Bowles, T.J., Cherry, M.L., Cleveland, B.T., Davis, R. Jr., Elliott, S.R., Faizov, E.L., Gavrin, V.N., Kalikhov, A.V., Knodel, T.V., Knyshenko, I.I., Kornoukhov, V.N., Kouzes, R.T., Lande, K., Mezentseva, S.A., Mirmov, I.N., O’Brien, H.A., Ostrinsky, A.V., Pshukov, A.M., Revzin, N.E., Shikhin, A.A., Timofeyev, P.V., Veretenkin, E.P., Vermul, V.M., Wark, D.L., Wilkerson, J.F. and Zatsepin, G.T. (1991). Proc. 22nd International Cosmic Ray Conference, Dublin. 3, 724.Google Scholar
Bancali, J.N. (1989). Neutrino Astrophysics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bancali, J.N. and Bethe, H.A. (1990). Phys. Rev. Letters, 65, 2233.Google Scholar
Chambers, K.C. and Charlot, S (1990). Astrophys. J., 348, L1.Google Scholar
Chambers, K.C, Miley, G.K. and van Breugel, W.J.M. (1990). Astrophys. J., 363, 21.Google Scholar
Davis, M., Efstathiou, G., Frenk, C.S. and White, S.D.M. (1992). Nature, 356, 489.Google Scholar
Dunlop, J. and Peacock, J.A. (1990). Mon. Not. R. Astr. Soc., 247, 19.Google Scholar
Cowie, L.L. (1989). In The Epoch of Galaxy Formation, eds. Frenk, C.S., Ellis, R.S., Shanks, T., Heavens, A.F. and Peacock, J.A., 31. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Elsworth, Y, Howe, R., Isaak, G.R., McLeod, C.P. and New, R. (1990). Nature, 347, 536.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunn, J.E. (1978). In Observational Cosmology, 8th Advanced Course, Swiss Society of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Saas-Fee, Geneva Observatory Publications.Google Scholar
Hesser, J.E., Harris, W.E., VandenBerg, D.A., Allwright, J.W.B., Schott, P. and Stetson, P. (1989). Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific, 99, 739.Google Scholar
Hirata, K.S., Inoue, K., Katija, T.,Kifune, T., Kihara, M., Nakahata, M., Nakamura, K., Ohara, S., Sato, N., Suzuki, Y., Totsuka, Y., Yaginumi, Y., Mori, M., Oyama, Y., Suzuki, A., Takahashi, K., Yamada, M., Koshiba, M., Suda, T., Tajima, T., Miyano, K., Miyata, H., Takei, H., Fukuda, Y., Kodera, E., Nagashima, Y., Takita, M., Kaneyuki, K., Tanimori, T., Beier, E.W., Feldscher, L.R., Frank, E.D., Frati, W., Kim, S.B., Mann, A.K., Newcomer, F.M., Van Berg, R. and Zhang, W. (1990). Phys. Rev. Letts, 65, 1297.Google Scholar
Kippenhahn, R, Thomas, H.-C. and Weigert, A. (1965). Z. Astrophys., 61, 241.Google Scholar
Kippenhahn, R. and Weigert, A. (1990). SteJiar Structure and Evolution. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Lilly, S.J. (1988). Astrophys. J., 333, 161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lilly, S.J. and Cowie, L.L. (1990). In Infrared Astronomy with Arrays, eds. Wynn-Williams, C.G. and Becklin, E.E., 473. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, Institute of Astronomy Publications.Google Scholar
Lilly, S.J. and Longair, M.S. (1984). Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc., 211, 833.Google Scholar
Maeder, A. (1981). Astron Astrophys., 102, 405.Google Scholar
Michalas, D. and Binney, J. (1981). Galactic Astronomy: Structure and Kinematics. New York: W.H. Freeman and Co. Google Scholar
Morrison, D.R.O. (1992). Particle World, 3, 30.Google Scholar
Pagel, B. (1991). Nature, 354, 267.Google Scholar
Rees, M.J. (1989). Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc., 239, 1P.Google Scholar
Rigler, M.A., Lilly, S.J., Stockton, A., Hammer, F. and Le Fèvre, O. (1992). Astrophys. J., 385, 61.Google Scholar
Shu, F.H., Adams, F.C. and Lizano, S. (1987). Ann. Rev. Astron. Astrophys., 25, 23.Google Scholar
Turck-Chièze, S., Cahen, S., Cassé, M. and Doom, C. (1988). Astrophys. J., 335, 415.Google Scholar
White, S.D.M. (1989) The Epoch of Galaxy Formation, (eds. Frenk, C.S., Ellis, R.S., Shanks, T., Heavens, A.F. and Peacock, J.A.), 15. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar