Amplitudes for astrophysicists: known knowns

The use of quantum field theory to understand astrophysical phenomena is not new. However, for the most part, the methods used are those that have been developed decades ago. The intervening years have seen some remarkable developments in computational quantum field theoretic tools. In particle physics, this technology has facilitated calculations that, even ten years ago would have seemed laughably difficult. It is remarkable, then, that most of these new techniques have remained firmly within the domain of high energy physics. We would like to change this. As alluded to in the title, this paper is aimed at showcasing the use of modern on-shell methods in the context of astrophysics and cosmology. In this article, we use the old problem of the bending of light by a compact object as an anchor to pedagogically develop these new computational tools. Once developed, we then illustrate their power and utility with an application to the scattering of gravitational waves.     

强激光天体物理学研究

用激光等离子体相互作用对天体物理过程进行模拟研究已成为当前世界物理和天文学家深感兴趣的重要前沿领域.文章比较了强激光作用下产生的等离子体与天体物理条件下的等离子体之间在内部物理过程的相似性,论述了由前者模拟后者的物理依据,即相似性原则和定标规律.在此基础上,回顾和评述了当前已经在高离化态光谱学、类天体等离子体状态方程和辐射不透明度以及流体动力学不稳定性等方面开展的强激光天体物理学的研究,这些研究对于理解超新星、白矮星、中子星以及巨行星、褐矮星等领域的天体物理过程起到了极大的作用,并正在成为联系天体物理理论模拟和观测的中间桥梁.     

强激光天体物理学研究——在强激光实验室中模拟某些天体物理过程(Ⅰ)

用激光等离子体相互作用对天体物理过程进行模拟研究已成为当前世界物理和天文学家深感兴趣的重要前沿领域 .文章比较了强激光作用下产生的等离子体与天体物理条件下的等离子体之间在内部物理过程的相似性 ,论述了由前者模拟后者的物理依据 ,即相似性原则和定标规律 .在此基础上 ,回顾和评述了当前已经在高离化态光谱学、类天体等离子体状态方程和辐射不透明度以及流体动力学不稳定性等方面开展的强激光天体物理学的研究 ,这些研究对于理解超新星、白矮星、中子星以及巨行星、褐矮星等领域的天体物理过程起到了极大的作用 ,并正在成为联系天体物理理论模拟和观测的中间桥梁     

我国核天体物理前沿研究进展

核天体物理是研究微观世界的核物理与研究宏观世界的天体物理融合形成的交叉学科,其主要研究目标是:宇宙中各种化学元素核合成的过程、时间、物理环境、天体场所及丰度分布;核反应（包括带电粒子、中子、光子及中微子引起的反应、β衰变及电子俘获）如何控制恒星的演化过程和结局。近十多年来获得的大量实验和理论研究使核天体物理研究进入了一个蓬勃发展的新阶段。文章总结了以兰州重离子加速器、北京串列加速器和国家天文台为基础,结合国际合作,在核天体物理研究领域对直接测量、间接测量、衰变测量、质量测量、理论计算、网络计算、天文观测等关键科学问题进行的研究进展。也展望了核天体物理的关键科学问题,这些关键问题包括:（1）在地面实验室、尤其是地下实验室开展天体物理能区重要热核反应截面的直接测量;（2）高能区带电粒子反应截面向天体物理能区的合理外推;（3）恒星平稳核燃烧阶段和爆发性天体事件中关键核反应截面的间接测量;（4）爆发性天体事件中所涉及的大量远离稳定线核素的质量、衰变特性和共振态性质的研究;（5）建立并不断完善核天体物理数据库,发展网络模拟程序,系统研究元素核合成的天体场所、丰度分布;（6）宇宙中铁以上元素的来源之谜。Nuclear astrophysics is an interdisciplinary research field. It composes of nuclear physics, which studies micro phenomena, and astrophysics which studies macroscopic phenomena in our world. The main research goals of nuclear astrophysics are:(1) how, when and where chemical elements are synthesized and what is their final abundance distribution in the universe; (2) how nuclear processes (reactions induced by charged particles, neutrons, photons and neutrinos, beta decays and electron capture processes) determine the evolution and the ultimate fate of stars. At present, nuclear astrophysics has been developed into a new prosperous stage with a huge number of experimental and theoretical progresses. This paper summarized the current progress of nuclear astrophysics in China, in the subfiels of direct and indirect measurement of key reactions, measurement of mass and decay, as well as the theoretical calculation and network simulation. In present paper, the prospects to solve the key scientific nuclear astrophysics problems are represented. These key problems include (1) direct measurement of important reactions at astrophysical energies in the laboratory on the earth surface and in the underground laboratory; (2)extrapolation of cross sections at higher energies for the reactions induced by charged particles; (3) indirect measurement of key reactions in the hydrostatic and explosive nuclear processes; (4) study of the mass, the properties of decay and resonant states for the nuclides far from the stability line in explosive astrophysical events; (5) establish and improve the database for nuclear astrophysics, and develop network simulation codes, and systematically study astrophysical sites and abundance distribution of nucleosynthesis; (6) origin of the elements heavier than iron in the universe.     

Gamma-ray astrophysics

Because of the very nature of the production processes. γ-ray astrophysics provides an excellent new opportunity to gain insight into the nature of the Universe. Gamma-ray astronomy permits a very direct study of the largest transfers of energy occurring in astrophysical processes, including rapid expansion processes explosions, high-energy particle acceleration, gravitational accretion onto superdense objects, the fundamental process of the building of the elements through nucleosynthesis, and even possibly particle-antiparticle annihilation.This review article give a summary of the current status and physical interpretation of γ-ray astronomy. The subject matter is divided into five topics solar observations, solar system bodies, stellar objects, the Galaxy, and other galaxies and cosmology. Since the whole of γ-ray astrophysics is too large a subject to be treated in depth in an article of this size, two topics have been selected from the several possible ones to be described more fully. These are remote γ-ray and X-ray sensing of planetary surfaces and diffuse galactic γ-radiation.     

强激光实验室天体物理介绍

实验室天体物理是交叉于高能量密度等离子体物理学与天体物理学之间的一个新的学科生长点。利用强激光装置可以在实验室创造与某些天体或天体周围相似的极端物理环境,这样的实验条件前所未有,且与天体物理中诸多重要的物理现象直接对应。通过近距、主动、参数可控的研究,实验室天体物理有助于解决目前天体物理和等离子体物理中的一些关键的、共性的问题,并有望取得突破性成果。针对近年来国内外在该领域取得的最新研究进展进行介绍,并就将来可能开展的研究方向进行展望。     

强激光产生的强磁场及其对弓激波的影响

强激光照射金属线圈后,会在打靶点附近的背景等离子体中诱发冷电子的回流,在金属丝内形成强电流源,从而产生强磁场.本文利用神光II高功率激光器产生的强激光照射金属丝靶,产生了围绕金属丝的环形强磁场.利用B-dot对局域磁感应强度进行了测量,根据测量结果,结合三维模拟程序,反演得到磁场的空间分布.再利用强激光与CH平面靶相互作用产生的超音速等离子体撞击该金属丝,产生了弓激波.通过光学成像手段研究了磁场对冲击波的影响,发现磁场使得弓激波的轮廓变得不明显并且张角变大.同时,通过实验室天体物理定标率,将金属丝表面等离子参数变换到相应的天体参数中,结果证明利用该实验方法可以在实验室中产生类似太阳风的磁化等离子体.     

Laser electron acceleration beyond 100 GeV

Nowadays there is great progress on laser-driven plasma-based accelerators by exploiting petawatt-class lasers, where for one aspect electron beams can be accelerated to multi-GeV energy in a centimeter-scale plasma due to laser wakefield acceleration mechanism. While to date, worldwide researches on laser-plasma accelerators are focused to create compact particle and radiation sources for applications in a wide range of sciences, including basic, medical and industrial sciences, there are great interests in applications for high energy physics and astrophysics that explore unprecedented high-energy frontier phenomena, for which laser plasma accelerator concepts provide us with promising tools. Here, our endeavors toward “extreme light” in the IZEST are envisaged for the next 30 years perspective and issues on laser plasma electron acceleration beyond 100 GeV and furthermore toward the TeV regime, aiming at high energy physics applications.     

On the physics of massive neutrinos

Massive neutrinos open up the possibility for a variety of new physical phenomena. Among them are oscillations and double beta decay. Furthermore, they influence several fields from particle physics to cosmology. In this article the concept of massive neutrinos is given and the present state of experimental research is extensively reviewed. This includes astrophysical studies of solar, supernova and very high energy neutrinos. Future perspectives are also outlined.     

High-energy astrophysics with neutrino telescopes

Neutrino astrophysics offers new perspectives on the Universe investigation: high-energy neutrinos, produced by the most energetic phenomena in our Galaxy and in the Universe, carry complementary (if not exclusive) information about the cosmos with respect to photons. While the small interaction cross section of neutrinos allows them to come from the core of astrophysical objects, it is also a drawback, as their detection requires a large target mass. This is why it is convenient to put huge cosmic neutrino detectors in natural locations, like deep underwater or under-ice sites. In order to supply for such extremely hostile environmental conditions, new frontier technologies are under development. The aim of this work is to review the motivations for high-energy neutrino astrophysics, the present status of experimental results and the technologies used in underwater/ice Cherenkov experiments, with a special focus on the efforts for the construction of a km³-scale detector in the Mediterranean Sea.     

The physics of fast radio bursts

In 2007, a very bright radio pulse was identified in the archival data of the Parkes Telescope in Australia, marking the beginning of a new research branch in astrophysics. In 2013, this kind of millisecond bursts with extremely high brightness temperature takes a unified name, fast radio burst(FRB). Over the first few years, FRBs seemed very mysterious because the sample of known events was limited. With the improvement of instruments over the last five years, hundreds of new FRBs have been discovered.The field is now undergoing a revolution and understanding of FRB has rapidly increased as new observational data increasingly accumulate. In this review, we will summarize the basic physics of FRBs and discuss the current research progress in this area.We have tried to cover a wide range of FRB topics, including the observational property, propagation effect, population study,radiation mechanism, source model, and application in cosmology. A framework based on the latest observational facts is now under construction. In the near future, this exciting field is expected to make significant breakthroughs.     

Relativistic laser-matter interaction and relativistic laboratory astrophysics

The paper is devoted to the prospects of using the laser radiation interaction with plasmas in the laboratory relativistic astrophysics context. We discuss the dimensionless parameters characterizing the processes in the laser and astrophysical plasmas and emphisize a similarity between the laser and astrophysical plasmas in the ultrarelativistic energy limit. In particular, we address basic mechanisms of the charged particle acceleration, the collisionless shock wave and magnetic reconnection and vortex dynamics properties relevant to the problem of ultrarelativistic particle acceleration.     

激光聚变内爆流体不稳定性基础问题研究进展

激光聚变有望一劳永逸地解决人类的能源问题,因而受到国际社会的普遍重视,一直是国际研究的前沿热点。目前实现激光惯性约束聚变所面临的最大科学障碍（属于内禀困难）是对内爆过程中高能量密度流体力学不稳定性引起的非线性流动的有效控制,对其研究涵盖高能量密度物理、等离子体物理、流体力学、计算科学、强冲击物理和高压原子物理等多个学科,同时还要具备大规模多物理多尺度多介质流动的数值模拟能力和高功率大型激光装置等研究条件。作为新兴研究课题,高能量密度非线性流动问题充满了各种新奇的现象亟待探索。此外,流体力学不稳定性及其引起的湍流混合,还是天体物理现象（如星系碰撞与合并、恒星演化、原始恒星的形成以及超新星爆炸）中的重要过程,涉及天体物理的一些核心研究内容。本文首先综述了高能量密度非线性流动研究的现状和进展,梳理了其中的挑战和机遇。然后介绍了传统中心点火激光聚变内爆过程发生的主要流体力学不稳定性,在大量分解和综合物理研究基础上,凝练出了目前制约美国国家点火装置（NIF）内爆性能的主要流体不稳定性问题。接下来,总结了国外激光聚变流体不稳定性实验物理的研究概况。最后,展示了内爆物理团队近些年在激光聚变内爆流体不稳定性基础性问题方面的主要研究进展。该团队一直从事激光聚变内爆非线性流动研究与控制,以及聚变靶物理研究与设计,注重理论探索和实验研究相结合,近年来在内爆重要流体力学不稳定性问题的解析理论、数值模拟和激光装置实验设计与数据分析等方面取得了一系列重要成果,有力地推动了该研究方向在国内的发展。     

超新星

超新星爆炸是发生在宇宙空间中极为壮观、丰富多彩和引人入胜的重要现象，涉及许多有趣的、尚待探索的物理学研究领域和天体物理学及宇宙学若干相关分支的重要应用．本文试图描述超新星现象研究在各方面的重要意义，提供基本观测事实和理论框架信息以及介绍我们正在从事的部分相关研究工作．     

Galactic searches for dark matter

For nearly a century, more mass has been measured in galaxies than is contained in the luminous stars and gas. Through continual advances in observations and theory, it has become clear that the dark matter in galaxies is not comprised of known astronomical objects or baryonic matter, and that identification of it is certain to reveal a profound connection between astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics. The best explanation for dark matter is that it is in the form of a yet undiscovered particle of nature, with experiments now gaining sensitivity to the most well-motivated particle dark matter candidates. In this article, I review measurements of dark matter in the Milky Way and its satellite galaxies and the status of Galactic searches for particle dark matter using a combination of terrestrial and space-based astroparticle detectors, and large scale astronomical surveys. I review the limits on the dark matter annihilation and scattering cross sections that can be extracted from both astroparticle experiments and astronomical observations, and explore the theoretical implications of these limits. I discuss methods to measure the properties of particle dark matter using future experiments, and conclude by highlighting the exciting potential for dark matter searches during the next decade, and beyond.     

Dark matter: Theory

The particle physics interpretation of the dark matter problem, which is intimately of cosmological and astrophysical nature, is going to be posed under deep scrutiny in the next years. From the particle physics side, accelerators like the LHC will deeply test theoretical ideas of new physics beyond the Standard Model, where particle candidates of dark matter are predicted to exist. From the astrophysical side, many probes are already providing a great deal of independent information on the foreseen signals which can be produced by the galactic or extra-galactic dark matter. In all this, cosmology plays a central role in determining the relevance and the basic properties of the particle dark matter candidate. The ultimate hope is the emergence of dark matter signals and the rise of a coherent picture of new physics from and at the crossing of particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology. A very ambitious and farreaching project, which will bring to a deeper level our understanding of the fundamental laws which rule the Universe.     

Lorentz violation at high energy: Concepts, phenomena, and astrophysical constraints

We consider here the possibility of quantum gravity induced violation of Lorentz symmetry (LV). Even if suppressed by the inverse Planck mass such LV can be tested by current experiments and astrophysical observations. We review the effective field theory approach to describing LV, the issue of naturalness, and many phenomena characteristic of LV. We discuss some of the current observational bounds on LV, focusing mostly on those from high energy astrophysics in the QED sector at order E/M_Planck. In this context, we present a number of new results which include the explicit computation of rates of the most relevant LV processes, the derivation of a new photon decay constraint, and modification of previous constraints taking proper account of the helicity dependence of the LV parameters implied by effective field theory.     

非重子冷暗物质粒子的研究进展

暗物质问题目前已受到物理学界的高度关注，因为这一课题的研究和进展，将直接影响到粒子物理、天体物理和宇宙学的发展方向。当前世界上已有一些大的实验组正在开展这方面的研究工作，并已取得了一定的结果；文章重点介绍两个重要的探测实验，即中意合作DAMA组（Dark Matter Group)100kg Nal（Tl）探测器阵列实验和美国的CDMS（Cold Dark Matter Search）实验组的低温探测器实验。详细介绍了DAMA实验的物理分析方法及其实验结果，并同CDMS实验结果进行了相应的比较。     

Birthrates and delay times of Type Ia supernovae

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) play an important role in diverse areas of astrophysics, from the chemical evolution of galaxies to observational cosmology. However, the nature of the progenitors of SNe Ia is still unclear. In this paper, according to a detailed binary population synthesis study, we obtained SN Ia birthrates and delay times from different progenitor models, and compared them with observations. We find that the Galactic SN Ia birthrate from the double-degenerate (DD) model is close to those infe...     

A survey of dark matter and related topics in cosmology

This article presents an extensive review of the status of the search of the dark matter. The first eight sections are devoted to topics in dark matter and its experimental searches, and the rest to selected topics in astrophysics and cosmology, which are intended to supply some of the needed background for students in particle physics. Sections 9 and 13 are introductory cosmology. The three astrophysical topics, Big Bang nucleosynthesis Section 10, Boltzmann transport equation and freeze out of massive particles Section 11, and CMB anisotropy Section 12 can all be studied in analytical approaches when reasonable approximations are made. Their original analytically forms, to which this article follows very closely, were given by particle physicists. Dark matter is an evolving subject requiring timely update to stay current. Hence a review of such a subject matter would undoubtedly have something wanting when it appears in print. It is hoped that this review can form a humble basis for those graduate students who would like to pursue the subject of dark matter. The reader can use the extensive table of contents to see in some details the materials covered in the article.