Activity In The Central Parts Of Interacting Galaxies

How gas flows and starbursts light up active galaxies.

From the reviews: "Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts has appeared in semi-annual volumes since 1969 and it has already become one of the fundamental publications in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics and neighbouring sciences. It is the most important English-language abstracting journal in the mentioned branches. ...The abstracts are classified under more than a hundred subject categories, thus permitting a quick survey of the whole extended material. The AAA is a valuable and important publication for all students and scientists working in the fields of astronomy and related sciences. As such it represents a necessary ingredient of any astronomical library all over the world." Space Science Reviews#1 "Dividing the whole field plus related subjects into 108 categories, each work is numbered and most are accompanied by brief abstracts. Fairly comprehensive cross-referencing links relevant papers to more than one category, and exhaustive author and subject indices are to be found at the back, making the catalogues easy to use. The series appears to be so complete in its coverage and always less than a year out of date that I shall certainly have to make a little more space on those shelves for future volumes." The Observatory Magazine#2

Progress towards an understanding of the dynamics and interactions of galaxies has been spurred on more than ever by a wealth of new observations and numerical experiments. The Heidelberg Conference 1989, the papers of which are collected in this volume, was extremely successful in presenting a synoptic view of the field in all its aspects: galaxy interactions in the early universe and in recent times, interactions of our galaxy and its neighbours, dynamical problems of elliptical and disk galaxies, groups and clusters, starburst and nuclear activity triggered by interactions, merger scenarios, and numerical experiments. Researchers and graduate students, specialists or not, will find here a complete overview of a rapidly growing field of astronomy.

Reports on the current status of some of the major problems in astrophysics, such as solar and solar-system physics, the physics of different scales of astronomical objects, the evolution of the universe, and the search for extraterrestrial life. The 22 reviews also include reminiscences on the history of the discipline in the Soviet Union, and speculations on its course over the next century. Translated from the Russian. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR