Overview

Relativistic kinetic theory has widespread application in astrophysics and cosmology. The interest has grown in recent years as experimentalists are now able to make reliable measurements on physical systems where relativistic effects are no longer negligible. This ambitious monograph is divided into three parts. It presents the basic ideas and concepts of this theory, equations and methods, including derivation of kinetic equations from the relativistic BBGKY hierarchy and discussion of the relation between kinetic and hydrodynamic levels of description. The second part introduces elements of computational physics with special emphasis on numerical integration of Boltzmann equations and related approaches, as well as multi-component hydrodynamics. The third part presents an overview of applications ranging from covariant theory of plasma response, thermalization of relativistic plasma, comptonization in static and moving media to kinetics of self-gravitating systems, cosmological structure formation and neutrino emission during the gravitational collapse.

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9781107048225

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Gregory V. Vereshchagin is Professor at the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Network (ICRANet), Pescara, Italy. He graduated from Belarusian State University and received a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the National Academy of Sciences, Belarus. He also holds a PhD degree in Relativistic Astrophysics from Sapienza University, Rome, and was awarded the NATO-CNR fellowship. Author of more than 30 refereed papers, his research interests include cosmological singularity and inflation, loop quantum cosmology, the role of neutrino in cosmology, thermalization of relativistic plasma, and photospheric emission from relativistic outflows. Alexey G. Aksenov is senior researcher at the Institute for Computer-Aided Design, Russian Academy of Sciences (ICAD RAS), Moscow. He graduated from the Moscow State Engineering Physics Institute (Technical University) and holds a PhD in Astrophysics from the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is author of more than 30 refereed publications in different topics in astrophysics and plasma physics, gravitational collapse, neutrino transport, inertial confinement fusion, numerical solution of kinetic Boltzmann equations, and hydrodynamic simulations.

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