Astrophysical Flows

Description

Almost all conventional matter in the Universe is fluid, and fluid dynamics plays a crucial role in astrophysics. This graduate textbook, first published in 2007, provides a basic understanding of the fluid dynamical processes relevant to astrophysics. The mathematics used to describe these processes is simplified to bring out the underlying physics. The authors cover many topics, including wave propagation, shocks, spherical flows, stellar oscillations, the instabilities caused by effects such as magnetic fields, thermal driving, gravity, shear flows, and the basic concepts of compressible fluid dynamics and magnetohydrodynamics. The authors are Directors of the UK Astrophysical Fluids Facility (UKAFF) at the University of Leicester, and editors of the Cambridge Astrophysics Series. This book has been developed from a course in astrophysical fluid dynamics taught at the University of Cambridge. It is suitable for graduate students in astrophysics, physics and applied mathematics, and requires only a basic familiarity with fluid dynamics.

Jim Pringle is Professor of Theoretical Astronomy and a Fellow of Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge, and Senior Visitor at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore. Andrew King is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Leicester and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holder. He is co-author of Accretion Power in Astrophysics, 3rd edition (Cambridge University Press, 2002).

'[the book] emphasizes the essential physics behind the mathematical results. ... the authors ... give a flavour of all [the] problems without getting into all the mathematical complexities of a full treatment. ... in each case [they] give a physical discussion of the problem, to explain what result one expects to emerge from the mathematics ... Most chapters contain references for further in-depth reading on the topics outlined in the text, and some more detailed material is also present in the end-of-chapter problems ... this is a very useful book for new graduate students and it also gives new insights to those of us with more experience; I wish it had been available when I was learning the subject.' The Observatory