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This thesis addresses the feasibility of the production of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays in starburst galaxies and active galactic nuclei. These astrophysical objects were theoretically proposed as candidate sources a long time ago. Nevertheless, the interest in them has been recently renewed due to the observational data collected by the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array. In this work, a comprehensive review of the current status of the research on cosmic rays accelerators is provided, along with a summary of the principal concepts needed to connect these relativistic particles with electromagnetic and neutrino observations in the multi-messenger era. On one hand, the hypothesis of accelerating particles with energies above 1018 eV in starburst superwinds is carefully revisited, taking into account the constraints imposed by the most recent electromagnetic observations. On the other hand, an alternative new model for the gamma emission of the nearby active galaxy NGC 1068 is presented. The implications of the results of these studies are discussed in terms of the contemporary observatories and prospects for future experiments are offered.

The polarization of light is the key to obtaining a wealth of essential information that lies encoded in the electromagnetic radiation from cosmic objects. Spectropolarimetry and imaging polarimetry provide powerful diagnostics of the physical conditions in astrophysical plasmas, which cannot be obtained via conventional spectroscopy. Whilst its application to other fields of astrophysics is still at an early stage of development, spectropolarimetry is being used with great success in solar physics. The book contains the lectures delivered at the XII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics. Written by eight prestigious astrophysics researchers, it covers the physics of polarization, polarized radiation diagnostics of solar magnetic fields, stellar magnetic fields, polarization insights for active galactic nuclei, compact objects and accretion disks, astronomical masers and their polarization, infrared-submillimeter spectropolarimetry, and instrumentation for astrophysical spectropolarimetry. This timely volume will provide graduate students and researchers with an unprecedented introduction to the field of Astrophysical Spectropolarimetry.

The first comprehensive and up-to-date review of our new understanding of accretion disks around black holes - with chapters from experts from around the world.

The Fourth HEIDELBERG International Conference on Dark Matter in Astro and Particle Physics, DARK2002, was held in Cape Town, South Africa, in the period 4-9 February 2002. This majestic natural area was the site of the first conference of this series (hosted since 1996 in Heidelberg) to be held outside of Germany. Dark Matter has become one of the most exciting and central fields of as trophysics, particle physics and cosmology. The conference covered, as usual for this series, a large range of topics, theoretical and experimental. Topics included Astronomical Evidence for Dark Matter, the Cosmic Microwave Background, Supersymmetry, Inflation and Dark Energy, Structure Formation, Hot and Cold Dark Matter, and Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays all of which were represented by experts in the field. It was very nice to see again many of our 'old' friends in Dark Matter here in South Africa. The organizers were very glad to see, in addition to world experts, the new generation here. Many young participants gave very nice professional talks during the conference. We are grateful to John Ellis for doing an incredible job preparing his excellent summary talk during the sessions. Some special interest and intensive discussions were naturally raised by the first announcement of terrestrial evidence for hot dark matter, obtained from neutrino less double beta decay. This now adds to the evidence for cold dark matter which we have from DAM A for several years already, and which remained unchallenged up to now by other experiments.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, 3-5 November 2003