About the Book

This reference work gathers all of the latest research in the supernova field areas to create a definitive source book on supernovae, their remnants and related topics. It includes each distinct subdiscipline, including stellar types, progenitors, stellar evolution, nucleosynthesis of elements, supernova types, neutron stars and pulsars, black holes, swept up interstellar matter, cosmic rays, neutrinos from supernovae, supernova observations in different wavelengths, interstellar molecules and dust. While there is a great deal of primary and specialist literature on supernovae, with a great many scientific groups around the world focusing on the phenomenon and related subdisciplines, nothing else presents an overall survey. This handbook closes that gap at last. As a comprehensive and balanced collection that presents the current state of knowledge in the broad field of supernovae, this is to be used as a basis for further work and study by graduate students, astronomers and astrophysicists working in close/related disciplines, and established groups.

Editorial Board

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

• Athem W. Alsabti University College London Observatory, University College London, London, UK

Sections: Supernovae and Supernova Remnants Supernovae and the Environment of the Solar System

• Paul Murdin Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Section: Supernovae and Supernova Remnants

SECTION EDITORS

• David Arnett Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

Section: Nucleosynthesis in Supernovae

• Phil Charles University of Southampton, School of Physics and Astronomy, Southampton, UK

Section: Stellar Remnants - Neutron Stars and Black Holes

• Robert A. Fesen Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

Section: Evolution of Supernovae and the Interstellar Medium

• David A. Green Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Section: Historical Supernovae

• Mario Hamuy Astronomy Department, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile; Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, Santiago, Chile

Section: Cosmology from Supernovae

• Peter Hoeflich Department of Physics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

Section: Explosion Mechanisms of Supernovae

• Ken'ichi Nomoto Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan

Section: Supernovae and Stellar Evolution

• Stephen Smart Astrophysics Research Centre, Queen's University, Belfast; Northern Ireland, UK

Section: Light Curves and Spectra of Supernovae

• Mark Sullivan School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, UK

Section: Types of Supernovae

• Friedrich-Karl Thielemann Department of Physics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
  

Sections: Neutrinos, Gravitational Waves and Cosmic Rays Nucleosynthesis in Supernovae

• Chengmin M. Zhang National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Key Laboratory of Radio Astronomy, CAS, Beijing, China; School of Physical Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Section: Stellar Remnants - Neutron Stars and Black Holes
About the Author: Born in Iraq in 1945, Dr. Alsabti moved to the UK on a scholarship to the University of Manchester. He obtained his BSc in Mathematical Physics in 1967, his MSc in 1968 (Astrophysics, Supernovae) and his PhD in 1970 ("Investigating very faint nebulosities associated with non-thermal galactic radio sources"). He now works at University College London, in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Dr. Alsabti's research interests are in the origin and evolution of supernovae and interstellar matter. Dr. Alsabti was also a Professor of Physics at Baghdad University and founded the Baghdad Planetarium and Iraqi National Observatory.
He has been an active member of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) since 1973, and is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). In the IAU, he is a member of the Advanced Development Projects Group. Dr. Alsabti is also a member of the World Space Observatory Committee, and a consultant to the Cornwall Observatory and Planetarium Project.

Educated at the Universities of Oxford and Rochester, NY, Paul Murdin has worked as an astronomer in the USA, Australia, England, Scotland and in Spain, where he led the operation of the Anglo-Dutch Isaac Newton Group of telescopes in the Canary Islands. He has been a research scientist (studying supernovae, neutron stars and black holes - in 1972 Paul discovered the nature of the first black hole known in our galaxy, Cygnus X-1) and a science administrator for the UK Government and the Royal Astronomical Society. He works at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, England, and is Visiting Professor at John Moores University, Liverpool.

He has a secondary career as a broadcaster and commentator for the BBC and CNN, as well as a lecturer and writer on astronomy, including repeat appearances on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time and at a number of literary and science festivals, like those at Hay-on-Wye and Edinburgh, and on the Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth 2. His most recent books include Secrets of the Universe: How We Discovered the Universe (Thames and Hudson, 2009), Mapping the Universe (Carlton, 2011), and Are We Being Watched? The Search for Life in the Cosmos (Thames and Hudson, 2013).