Physics and Chemistry of the Interstellar Medium
This book is a graduate-level text covering the fundamental physics and chemistry required for a modern understanding of the interstellar medium. Radiation mechanisms are comprehensively presented, and extensive examples are drawn from observations in the X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, infrared, mm/sub mm, and radio observations.
Summary
This book is a graduate-level text covering the fundamental physics and chemistry required for a modern understanding of the interstellar medium. Radiation mechanisms are comprehensively presented, and extensive examples are drawn from observations in the X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, infrared, mm/sub mm, and radio observations. This book goes beyond a phenomenological study of the interstellar medium to give a detailed quantitative treatment of the radiative and dynamical interactions between stars and the interstellar medium. With an emphasis on a physical understanding of these processes, the mathematical derivations are clean, elegant and easily understandable by anyone with an undergraduate background in physics.
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Reviews
“This book is one of the few modern texts on the interstellar medium. It is particularly excellent for microphysical processes and particularly those that are not easily accessible—physically oriented discussions of atomic and molecular excitation and radiation, molecular binding and astrochemical processes, and important detailed aspects of interstellar grains such as the observational manifestations and formation/destruction mechanisms.
-Carl Heiles, UC Berkeley
“I would recommend that this book be adopted by faculty for their courses. Students will learn a great deal from it, and it will be useful as a reference for researchers in this field.”
-Mark Wolfire, University of Maryland
