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This book began as a series of lecture notes for an introductory
astronomy course I have been teaching at the University of Bonn since
2001. This annual lecture course is aimed at students in the first
phase of their studies. Most are enrolled in physics degrees and
choose astronomy as one of their subjects. This series of lectures
forms the second part of the introductory course, and since the majority of
students have previously attended the first part, I therefore assume
that they have acquired a basic knowledge of astronomical
nomenclature and conventions, as well as on the basic properties of
stars. Thus, in this part of the course, I concentrate mainly on
extragalactic astronomy and cosmology, beginning with a discussion of
our Milky Way as a typical (spiral) galaxy. To extend the potential
readership of this book to a larger audience, the basics of astronomy
and relevant facts about radiation fields and stars are summarized in
the appendix.
The goal of the lecture course, and thus also of this book, is to confront physics students with astronomy early in their studies. Since their knowledge of physics is limited in their first year, many aspects of the material covered here need to be explained with simplified arguments. However, it is surprising to what extent modern extragalactic astronomy can be treated with such arguments. All the material in this book is covered in the lecture course, though not all details written up here. I believe that only by covering this wide range of topics can the students be guided to the forefront of our present astrophysical knowledge. Hence, they learn a lot about issues which are currently unsettled and under intense discussion. It is also this aspect which I consider of great importance for the role of astronomy in the framework of a physics program, since in most other subdisciplines of physics the limits of our current knowledge are approached only at a later stage in the education. In particular, the topic of cosmology is usually met with interest by the students. Despite the large amount of material, most of them are able to digest and understand what they are taught, as evidenced from the oral examinations following this course - and this is not small-number statistics: my colleague Klaas de Boer and I together grade about 100 oral examinations per year, covering both parts of the introductory course. Some critical comments coming from students concern the extent of the material as well as its level. However, I do not see a rational reason why the level of an astronomy lecture should be lower than that of one in physics or mathematics. Why did I turn this into a book? When preparing the concept for my lecture course, I soon noticed that there is no book which I can (or want to) follow. In particular, there are only a few astronomy textbooks in German, and they do not treat extragalactic astronomy and cosmology nearly to the extent and depth as I wanted for this course. Also, the choice of books on these topics in English is fairly limited - whereas a number of excellent introductory textbooks exist, most shy away from technical treatments of issues. However, many aspects can be explained better if a technical argument is also given. Thus I hope that this text presents a field of modern astrophysics at a level suitable for the aforementioned group of people. A further goal is to cover extragalactic astronomy to a level such that the reader should feel comfortable turning to more professional literature. When being introduced to astronomy, students face two different problems simultaneously. On the one hand, they should learn to understand astrophysical arguments - such as those leading to the conclusion that the central engine in AGNs is a black hole. On the other hand, they are confronted with a multitude of new terms, concepts and classifications, many of which can only be considered as historical burdens. Examples here are the classification of supernovae which, although based on observational criteria, do not agree with our current understanding of the supernova phenomenon, and the classification of the various types of AGN. In the lecture, I have tried to separate these two issues, clearly indicating when facts are presented where the students should `just take note', or when astrophysical connections are uncovered which help to understand the properties of cosmic objects. The latter aspects are discussed in considerably more detail. I hope this distinction can still be clearly seen in this written version. |
The order of the material in the course and in this book accounts for
the fact that
students in their first year of physics studies have a steeply rising
learning curve; hence, I have tried to order the material partly
according to its difficulty. For example, homogeneous world models are
described first, whereas only later are the processes of structure
formation discussed, motivated in the meantime by the treatment of
galaxy clusters.
The topic and size of this book imply the necessity of a selection of topics. I want to apologize here to all of those colleagues whose favorite subject is not covered at the depth that they feel it deserves. I also took the freedom to elaborate on my own research topic - gravitational lensing - somewhat disproportionately. If it requires a justification: the basic equations of gravitational lensing are sufficiently simple that they and their consequences can be explained at an early stage in the astronomy education. With a field developing as quickly as the subject of this book, it is unavoidable that parts of the text will become somewhat out-of-date quickly. I have attempted to include some of the most recent results of the respective topics, but there are obvious limits. For example, just three weeks before the first half of the manuscript was sent to the publisher the three-year results from WMAP were published. Since these results are compatible with the earlier one-year data, I decided not to include them in this text. Many students are not only interested in the physical aspects of astronomy, they are also passionate observational astronomers. Many of them have been active in astronomy for years and are fascinated by phenomena occurring beyond the Earth. I have tried to provide a glimpse of this fascination at some points in the lecture course, for instance through some historical details, by discussing specific observations or instruments, or by highlighting some of the great achievements of modern cosmology. At such points, the text may deviate from the more traditional `scholarly' style. Producing the lecture notes, and their extension to a textbook, would have been impossible without the active help of several students and colleagues, whom I want to thank here. Jan Hartlap, Elisabeth Krause and Anja von der Linden made numerous suggestions for improving the text, produced graphics or searched for figures, and TEXed tables - deep thanks go to them. Oliver Czoske, Thomas Erben and Patrick Simon read the whole German version of the text in detail and made numerous constructive comments which led to a clear improvement of the text. Klaas de Boer and Thomas Reiprich read and commented on parts of this text. Searching for the sources of the figures, Leonardo Castaneda, Martin Kilbinger, Jasmin Pierloz and Peter Watts provided valuable help. A first version of the English translation of the book was produced by Ole Markgraf, and I thank him for this heroic task. Furthermore, Kathleen Schrüfer, Catherine Vlahakis and Peter Watts read the English version and made zillions of suggestions and corrections - I am very grateful to their invaluable help. Thomas Erben, Mischa Schirmer and Tim Schrabback produced the cover image very quickly after our HST data of the cluster RXJ 1347-1145 were taken. Finally, I thank all my colleagues and students who provided encouragement and support for finishing this book. The collaboration with Springer-Verlag was very fruitful. Thanks to Wolf Beiglböck and Ramon Khanna for their encouragement and constructive collaboration. Bea Laier offered to contact authors and publishers to get the copyrights for reproducing figures - without her invaluable help, the publication of the book would have been delayed substantially. The interaction with LE-TEX, where the book was produced, and in particular with Uwe Matrisch, was constructive as well. Furthermore, I thank all those colleagues who granted permission to reproduce their figures here, as well as the public relations departments of astronomical organizations and institutes who, through their excellent work in communicating astronomical knowledge to the general public, play an invaluable role in our profession. In addition, they provide a rich source of pictorial material of which I made ample use for this book. Representative of those, I would like to mention the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the NASA/SAO/CXC archive for Chandra data and the Legacy Archive for Microwave Background Data Analysis (LAMBDA). |