This book investigates the propagation of waves in the presence of black holes. Astrophysical black holes may eventually be probed by these techniques. The authors emphasise intuitive physical thinking in their treatment of the techniques of analysis of scattering, but alternate this with chapters on the rigourous mathematical development of the subject. High and low energy limiting cases are treated extensively and semi-classical results are also obtained. The analogy between Newtonian gravitational scattering and Coulomb quantum mechanical scattering is fully exploited. The book introduces the concepts of scattering by considering the simplest, scalar wave case of scattering by a spherical black hole. It then develops the formalism of spin-weighted spheroidal harmonics and of plane wave representations for neutrino, electromagnetic and gravitational scattering. Research workers and graduate and advanced undergraduate students in scattering theory, wave propagation and relativity will find this a comprehensive treatment of the topic.

Beginning with Einstein's special and general theories of relativity, the authors give a detailed mathematical description of fundamental astrophysical radiation processes, including Compton scattering of electrons and photons, synchrotron radiation of particles in magnetic fields, and much more.

Scattering resonances generalize bound states/eigenvalues for systems in which energy can scatter to infinity. A typical resonance has a rate of oscillation (just as a bound state does) and a rate of decay. Although the notion is intrinsically dynamical, an elegant mathematical formulation comes from considering meromorphic continuations of Green's functions. The poles of these meromorphic continuations capture physical information by identifying the rate of oscillation with the real part of a pole and the rate of decay with its imaginary part. An example from mathematics is given by the zeros of the Riemann zeta function: they are, essentially, the resonances of the Laplacian on the modular surface. The Riemann hypothesis then states that the decay rates for the modular surface are all either or . An example from physics is given by quasi-normal modes of black holes which appear in long-time asymptotics of gravitational waves. This book concentrates mostly on the simplest case of scattering by compactly supported potentials but provides pointers to modern literature where more general cases are studied. It also presents a recent approach to the study of resonances on asymptotically hyperbolic manifolds. The last two chapters are devoted to semiclassical methods in the study of resonances.

The first book devoted to black holes in more than four dimensions, for graduate students and researchers.

Scattering is the collision of two objects that results in a change of trajectory and energy. For example, in particle physics, such as electrons, photons, or neutrons are "scattered off" of a target specimen, resulting in a different energy and direction. In the field of electromagnetism, scattering is the random diffusion of electromagnetic radiation from air masses is an aid in the long-range sending of radio signals over geographic obstacles such as mountains. This type of scattering, applied to the field of acoustics, is the spreading of sound in many directions due to irregularities in the transmission medium. Volume I of Scattering will be devoted to basic theoretical ideas, approximation methods, numerical techniques and mathematical modeling. Volume II will be concerned with basic experimental techniques, technological practices, and comparisons with relevant theoretical work including seismology, medical applications, meteorological phenomena and astronomy. This reference will be used by researchers and graduate students in physics, applied physics, biophysics, chemical physics, medical physics, acoustics, geosciences, optics, mathematics, and engineering. This is the first encyclopedic-range work on the topic of scattering theory in quantum mechanics, elastodynamics, acoustics, and electromagnetics. It serves as a comprehensive interdisciplinary presentation of scattering and inverse scattering theory and applications in a wide range of scientific fields, with an emphasis, and details, up-to-date developments. Scattering also places an emphasis on the problems that are still in active current research. The first interdisciplinary reference source on scattering to gather all world expertise in this technique Covers the major aspects of scattering in a common language, helping to widening the knowledge of researchers across disciplines The list of editors, associate editors and contributors reads like an international Who's Who in the interdisciplinary field of scattering

Part of the reissued Oxford Classic Texts in the Physical Sciences series, this book was first published in 1983, and has swiftly become one of the great modern classics of relativity theory. It represents a personal testament to the work of the author, who spent several years writing and working-out the entire subject matter. The theory of black holes is the most simple and beautiful consequence of Einstein's relativity theory. At the time of writing there was no physical evidence for the existence of these objects, therefore all that Professor Chandrasekhar used for their construction were modern mathematical concepts of space and time. Since that time a growing body of evidence has pointed to the truth of Professor Chandrasekhar's findings, and the wisdom contained in this book has become fully evident.

It is not an exaggeration to say that one of the most exciting predictions of Einstein's theory of gravitation is that there may exist "black holes": putative objects whose gravitational fields are so strong that no physical bodies or signals can break free of their pull and escape. The proof that black holes do exist, and an analysis of their properties, would have a significance going far beyond astrophysics. Indeed, what is involved is not just the discovery of yet another even if extremely remarkable, astro physical object, but a test of the correctness of our understanding of the properties of space and time in extremely strong gravitational fields. Theoretical research into the properties of black holes, and into the possible corol laries of the hypothesis that they exist, has been carried out with special vigor since the beginning of the 1970's. In addition to those specific features of black holes that are important for the interpretation of their possible astrophysical manifestations, the theory has revealed a number of unexpected characteristics of physical interactions involving black holes. By the middle of the 1980's a fairly detailed understanding had been achieved of the properties of the black holes, their possible astrophysical manifestations, and the specifics of the various physical processes involved. Even though a completely reliable detection of a black hole had not yet been made at that time, several objects among those scrutinized by astrophysicists were considered as strong candidates to be confirmed as being black holes.