Joachim E. Trümper - Böcker

In the last 45 years, X-ray astronomy has become an integral part of modern astrophysics and cosmology. There is a wide range of astrophysical objects and phenomena, where X-rays provide crucial diagnostics. In particular they are well suited to study hot plasmas and matter under extreme physical conditions in compact objects. This book summarizes the present status of X-ray astronomy in terms of observational results and their astrophysical interpretation. It is written for students, astrophysicists as well a growing community of physicists interested in the field. An introduction including historical material is followed by chapters on X-ray astronomical instrumentation. The next two parts summarize in 17 chapters the present knowledge on various classes of X-ray sources in the galactic and extragalactic realm. While the X-ray astronomical highlights discussed in this book are mainly based on results from ROSAT, ASCA, RXTE, BeppoSAX, Chandra and XMM-Newton, a final chapter provides an outlook on observational capabilities and projects discussed for the future.

The last few decades have been called the “Golden Age of Astronomy”. The rapid increase of knowledge in the field necessitates publishing a new edition of the Astronomy and Astrophysics volumes of the Landolt-Börnstein. The title is now “Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Cosmology”. Cosmology has been added in order to make allowances for the increasing role of extragalactic astrophysics and cosmology. The present volume VI/4A on “Instruments and Methods” is the second to be published of the new series, following Volume VI/4B on the “Solar System”. Additional volumes on “Stars”, the “Galaxy”, “Galaxies, Large Scale Structure and Cosmology” are in the planning stage. The previous sections or volumes covering “Instruments and Methods” appeared in 1965, 1981 and 1993. Since then the astronomical instrumentation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum has evolved rapidly. This volume presents a description of the state of the art of the field. Another important new aspect is the inclusion ofastronomical instrumentation outside the electromagnetic spectrum, with chapters on cosmic ray detectors, neutrino detectors, and gravitational wave detectors. The present volume is completed by a chapter on astronomical reference systems.

The use of units for physical quantities in the present volume follows largely the rules given by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), c.f. However, the centimetre-gram-second (CGS) system is used in some sections of the present volume, since it is still dominating in certain areas of astrophysics.