Accretion Disks — New Aspects Proceedings of the EARA Workshop Held in Garching, Germany, 21–23 October 1996

The most luminous compact objects are powered by accretion of mass. Accretion disks are the one common and fundamental element of these sources on widely different scales, ranging from close stellar binaries, galactic black holes and X-ray pulsars to active galactic nuclei (AGN). Key new developments in theory and observations, reviewed by experts in the field, are presented in this book. The contributions to the workshop cover the puzzles presented by the X-UV spectra of AGN and their variability, the recent numerical simulations of magnetic fields in disks, the remarkable behavior of the superluminal source 1915+105 and the "bursting pulsar" 1744-28, to mention a few of the topics.

X-ray spectrum of low-mass X-ray binaries.- Black holes in X-ray binaries.- GX 339-4: Hard X-ray observations; possible mechanism for transient outbursts.- Spectral and temporal variations of the X-ray emission from black hole and neutron star binaries.- X-ray spectrum of a disk illuminated by ions.- Anisotropic illumination of accretion disc in Seyfert I galaxies.- Disc instabilities and binary evolution.- Dwarf nova outbursts: a unification theory.- Radiation transfer in disks of CVs.- Modelling magnetised accretion discs.- Causal viscosity in accretion disc boundary layers.- The nonlinear evolution of a single mode of the magnetic shearing instability.- The stability of magnetically threaded accretion disks.- The equilibrium and stability of a thin accretion disc containing a poloidal magnetic field.- Magneto-viscous accretion discs.- Precessing warped discs in close binary systems.- Super-eddington luminosity in the bursting pulsar GRO J1744-28. GRANAT/WATCH results.- On viscous disc flow around rotating black holes.- Comparison of different models for the UV-X emission of AGN.- Broad X-ray emission lines from accretion disks.- An advection-dominated flow in the nucleus of M87.- ROSAT observations of warm absorbers in AGN.- Can soft X-ray spectra of AGN be taken as emission from accretion disks?.- The galactic center — a laboratory for AGN.- A bright X-ray source inside a molecular cloud.- Radiative and advective accretion disks around black holes.- Observational progress on accretion disks: a turning point.- Magnetic fields and precession in accretion disks.