Great Mysteries in Astrophysics: A guide to what we don’t know

Description

This book explores the biggest gaps in our understanding of the universe. It describes how astronomers see and gather information and covers topics where knowledge is incomplete. Topics include dark matter, the Hubble constant/tension, deaths of massive stars, mysteries associated with black holes, neutron stars and binary/multiple systems. PRELIMS.pdf Preface Acknowledgement Author biography Nicole M Lloyd-Ronning CH001.pdf Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Solving Scientific Problems 1.1.1 The Covid-19 Vaccine 1.1.2 The Higgs Boson 1.1.3 The Handedness of Dolphins 1.2 Solving Astrophysical Mysteries—Deep Space Forensics 1.2.1 The Afterglow of the Big Bang—Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation 1.2.2 Solar Neutrinos 1.2.3 Pulsars 1.2.4 Exoplanets 1.2.5 Mysteries Throughout History 1.3 Further Reading References CH002.pdf Chapter 2 How We See the Universe 2.1 Light 2.1.1 Spectral Lines 2.1.2 Continuum Light 2.2 Particles 2.2.1 Cosmic Rays 2.2.2 Neutrinos 2.3 Gravitational Waves 2.4 Looking Back in Time 2.5 Further Reading References CH003.pdf Chapter 3 Inventory of the Universe—Something Is Missing! 3.1 A Note about Distance and Scale 3.2 Baryonic Matter 3.2.1 Matter Anti-matter Asymmetry 3.2.2 The Lithium Problem 3.2.3 Missing Baryons 3.3 Dark Matter 3.3.1 Rotation Curves 3.3.2 Galaxy Clusters 3.3.3 Gravitational Lensing 3.3.4 But Maybe We Just Don’t Understand Gravity 3.3.5 Are You Sure We Aren’t Just Missing a Bunch of Black Holes or Maybe Faint Gas or Something that Doesn’t Emit (much) Light? 3.3.6 So What’s Going On? 3.4 Dark Energy 3.4.1 Wha…? 3.5 Further Reading References CH004.pdf Chapter 4 The Expansion of the Universe and the Hubble Tension 4.1 Standard Cosmological Model 4.2 Hubble’s Law 4.2.1 The Roller Coaster that Is the Hubble Constant Debate 4.2.2 Hubble Constant from the CMB 4.2.3 Hubble Constant from Type Ia SNe 4.2.4 Other Observations 4.2.5 Systematics 4.2.6 New Physics 4.3 Where to Go from Here 4.4 Further Reading References CH005.pdf Chapter 5 The First Stars and Galaxies 5.1 The First Stars 5.1.1 A Clue: Reionization 5.1.2 Star Formation Efficiency Problem 5.1.3 Initial Mass Function 5.2 The First Galaxies 5.3 Further Reading References CH006.pdf Chapter 6 Couples+ 6.1 Bound or Interacting Stars 6.2 Binary Formation 6.2.1 Born Together 6.2.2 Mates—Coupling Up Later in Life 6.2.3 Evolving in a Binary System 6.2.4 Black Hole Binary Masses 6.3 Bound or Interacting Galaxies 6.3.1 Missing (or Too Many!) Satellites Problem 6.4 Further Reading References CH007.pdf Chapter 7 How Massive Stars Die 7.1 Supernovae 7.1.1 Other Types of Supernovae 7.2 Gamma-ray Bursts 7.3 Further Reading References CH008.pdf Chapter 8 Matter at Extreme Densities—Neutron Stars 8.1 Superdense Matter—The Neutron Star Equation of State 8.2 Mysteries Associated with ‘Ordinary’ Pulsars 8.2.1 Magnetars 8.3 Fast Radio Bursts 8.4 Neutron Star Mergers and Heavy Element Production 8.5 Further Reading References CH009.pdf Chapter 9 And Then What? … Black Holes! 9.1 Stellar Mass Black Holes 9.1.1 The Mass Gaps 9.2 Intermediate Mass Black Holes—Where Are They? 9.3 Supermassive Black Holes 9.3.1 Early Universe Giants 9.4 Black Hole–Disk Phenomena Jets Tidal Disruption Events 9.5 Primordial Black Holes 9.6 Further Reading References CH010.pdf Chapter 10 Looking Forward 10.1 Looking to the Future 10.1.1 The Future of Space Exploration 10.1.2 The Future of Instrumentation 10.2 Final Thoughts 10.3 Further Reading References