High energy astrophysics and modern physics and astronomy

The revolution in astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology since the end of the Second World War in 1945 has been driven by the opening up of the whole of the electromagnetic spectrum for astronomical observations. This revolution would not have been possible without the development of new techniques and technologies for making astronomical observations from the ground and from space. Hand in hand with these developments have been major advances in laboratory physics and the development of high speed computers. It is the combination of all these factors which has led to dramatic advances in the astrophysical and cosmological sciences.

Among the most important of the new disciplines is high energy astrophysics. I take this term to mean the astrophysics of high energy processes and their application in astrophysical and cosmological contexts. These processes, their application in astrophysics and how they lead to some of the most challenging problems of contemporary physics, are the subjects of this book. For example, we need to explain how the massive black holes present in the nuclei of active galaxies can be studied, how charged particles are accelerated to extremely high energies in astronomical environments, the origins of enormous fluxes of high energy particles and magnetic fields in active galaxies, the physical processes in the interiors and environments of neutron stars, the nature of the dark matter, the expected fluxes of gravitational waves in extreme astronomical environments, and so on.