Nuclear and High-energy Astrophysics

There has never been a more exciting time in the overlapping areas of nuclear physics, particle physics and relativistic astrophysics than today. Orbiting observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope, Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), Chandra X-ray satellite, and the X-ray Multi Mirror Mission (XMM) have extended our vision tremendously, allowing us to see vistas with an unprecedented clarity and angular resolution that previously were only imagined, enabling astrophysicists for the first time ever to perform detailed studies of large samples of galactic and extragalactic objects. On the Earth, radio telescopes (e.g., Arecibo, Green Bank, Parkes, VLA) and instruments using adaptive optics and other revolutionary techniques have exceeded previous expectations of what can be accomplished from the ground. The gravitational wave detectors LIGO, LISA VIRGO, and Geo-600 are opening up a window for the detection of gravitational waves emitted from compact stellar objects such as neutron stars and black holes. Together with new experimental forefront facilities like ISAC, ORLaND and RIA, these detectors provide direct, quantitative physical insight into nucleosynthesis, supernova dynamics, accreting compact objects, cosmic-ray acceleration, and pairproduction in high energy sources which reinforce the urgent need for a strong and continuous feedback from nuclear and particle theory and theoretical astrophysics. In my lectures, I shall concentrate on three selected topics, which range from the behavior of superdense stellar matter, to general relativistic stellar models, to strange quark stars and possible signals of quark matter in neutron stars.