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High Resolution Infrared Spectroscopy in Astronomy ; Proceedings of an ESO Workshop Held at Garching, Germany, 18-21 November 2003
Two specialized new instruments for ESO's VLT, VISIR and CRIRES, spawned the idea for this workshop. CRIRES is a dedicated very high resolution infrared spectrograph; VISIR features a high resolution spectroscopic mode. Together, the instruments combine the sensitivity of an 8m-telescope with the now well-established reliability of VLT-facility instruments. High resolution here means that lines in cool stellar atmospheres and HII-regions can be resolved. The astrophysical topics discussed in this rather specialized workshop range from the inner solar system to active galactic nuclei. There are many possibilities for new discoveries with these instruments, but the unique capability, which becomes available through high-resolution infrared spectroscopy, is the observation of molecular rotational-vibrational transitions in many astrophysical environments. Particularly interesting and surprising in this context, many papers on modeling and laboratory spectroscopy at the workshop appear to indicate that astronomical observations are lagging a bit behind in this field. The papers are an interesting mix of reports from existing high resolution facilities, reports on modeling efforts of synthetic spectra and reports on laboratory spectra. In this sense, a fruitful exchange between molecular physics and astronomy was again accomplished and is documented in this volume.
Galaxy Formation
This second edition of Galaxy Formation is an up-to-date text on astrophysical cosmology, expounding the structure of the classical cosmological models from a contemporary viewpoint. This forms the background to a detailed study of the origin of structure and galaxies in the Universe. The derivations of many of the most important results are derived by simple physical arguments which illuminate the results of more advanced treatments. A very wide range of observational data is brought to bear upon these problems, including the most recent results from WMAP, the Hubble Space Telescope, galaxy surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, studies of Type 1a supernovae, and many other observations.
