The Multicolored Landscape of Compact Objects and Their Explosive Origins -Week 1 & 2: CEFALU 2006

Information published in these Proceedings books will be useful for researcher working in Astronomy and Astrophysics, mainly in the field of observational and theoretical studies of compact objects (such as super-massive and stellar mass black holes, highly and weakly magnetized neutron stars, and white dwarfs, isolated or in binary systems, Galactic or extra-galactic) and their progenitors or end points (such as Supernovae and Gamma-ray Bursts).

All papers have been peer-reviewed. These two Proceedings books contain the scientific discussions that more than one hundred scientists from all over the world have had during a two-weeks conference held in Cefalù (in the beautiful island of Sicily, Italy) from 11 to 24 June 2006. Oral contributions and posters were presented at the conference dealing with the astrophysics of compact objects, such as super-massive and stellar mass black holes, highly and weakly magnetized neutron stars, and white dwarfs, both isolated and in binary systems, and of their progenitors or end-points, such as Supernovae and Gamma Ray Bursts. In particular the meeting (and the following Proceedings books) are focused on several scientific areas that are briefly described in the following.

The first volume starts with the discussion of the so-called GAMMA RAY BURSTS (GRBs), which are among the most violent explosions in the Universe, most probably related to the final stages of the life of a massive star and the formation of a black hole, or to the coalescence of two neutron stars in a close binary system. In particular we discuss the globalproperties of long and short GRBs and of their Afterglows, the relation between GRBs and Cosmology, the connection to particular types of Supernovae, as well as present and future instrumentation. Then we discuss the so-called MAGNETAR CANDIDATES, which are neutron stars with very large magnetic fields (above 10^13 Gauss) showing coherent X-ray pulsations. These are usually observed as Anomalous X-ray Pulsars or Soft Gamma Repeaters. This last class of objects show sometimes very powerful soft gamma-ray outbursts from which a connection to the GRBs phenomenon has been proposed. The first volume ends with the discussion of the properties of SUPERNOVAE, which are connected tothe GRBs and are often the progenitors of collapsed objects.

In the second volume of the Proceedings we discuss the properties of PULSARS and millisecond pulsars. In particular, an update of the recently discovered double neutron star system is presented, were it is shown that with this system the theory of General Relativity has been tested with a precision of 0.05%, becoming the most precise physical theory to date. The discussion continues with the observational and theoretical properties of INTERACTING BINARIES containing white dwarfs, neutron stars or black hole candidates.