Proceedings of the Fourth Compton Symposium (2 Parts)

Part One: The Compton Observatory in Review Here is a work that must instantly be considered the essential reference on the scientific achievements of the Observatory's first six years. This comprehensive and authoritative work was written by the foremost experts in gamma-ray astronomy, including Neil Gehrels, Carl Fichtel, Robert Hartman, and Charles Meegan. With today's funding uncertainties and with scientists moving from one project to the next, the editors have taken advantage of a rare opportunity to distill the expertise of these central figures and record it in a single volume. Part Two: Papers and Presentations This work documents the Fourth Symposium with papers that explore the most violent events and energetic processes in nature. It takes an in- depth look at topics including pulsars, nova and supernova explosions, accreting black holes, quasar emissions, and interactions of cosmic rays with the interstellar medium. The book presents results from the latest high-energy missions, and recent theoretical studies and numerical simulations designed to explain many of the outstanding questions in high-energy astrophysics.