Observational Evidence for Black Holes in the Universe

A conference on "Observational Evidence for Black Holes in the Universe" was held in Calcutta during January 10-17, 1998. Experts gathered to debate and discuss topics such as: Should black holes exist?; If so, how to detect them?; And have we found them? This book is the essence of this gathering.

Preface. Accretion Disk Theory: From the Standard Model until Advection; G.S. Bisnovatyi-Kogan. Accretion Disks around Black Holes: Twenty-Five Years Later; S.K. Chakrabarti. Viscosity in Accretion Disks; P.J. Wiita. Shock Formation in Adiabatic Accretion Flows around a Kerr Black Hole; J.-F. Lu. Rotating Accretion Flows near a Black Hole: A Numerical Study; D. Ryu. Simulations of Shocks with Smoothed Particles Hydrodynamics Method; D. Molteni, et al. Nucleosynthesis in Advective Accretion Disks around Galactic and Extra-Galactic Black Holes; B. Mukhopadhyay. Computation of Mass-Outflow Rates from Advective Accretion Disks around Black Holes; T.K. Das. Black Hole Solutions of Einstein''s Equations: An Overview; T. Zannias. Water Mega Masers in NGC4258; M. Miyoshi. Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei - Observational Evidence and Some Astrophysical Consequences; L.C. Ho. Tidal Disruption of a Star by a Massive Black Hole; H.M. Lee. Multifrequency Monitoring of Blazers; L.O. Takalo. The OJ287 Supermassive Binary Black Hole Model and the New Unified Scheme for the AGNs; A.K. Sillanpää. High Energy Gamma-Ray Emission from Blazars: Egret Observations; R. Mukherjee. Strong Gravity and X-Ray Spectroscopy; A. Maciolek-Niedzwiecki, P. Magdziarz. My Involvement in the Early Years of Radio Astronomy; M.K. Das Gupta. Radio Observations of Active Galactic Nuclei: Evidence for Disks and Black Holes; D.J. Saikia. High Proper Motion Stars in the Vicinity of Sgr A*: Evidence for a Supermassive Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy; A.M. Ghez, et al. Black Holes in Our Galaxy: Dynamical Evidence; P. Charles. Outbursts in Black Hole X-Ray Transients: Clues from Multiwavelength Observations; C.A. Haswell. The High-Energy Spectra of AccretingBlack Holes: Viewing the Matter As It Disappears down the Schwarzschild Drain; L.G. Titarchuk, et al. X-Ray Spectral Variability of Black Hole Binaries; M. Gilfanov, et al. Quasi-Periodic Oscillations in the X-Ray Flux from the Black Hole Candidates; T. Dotani. X-Ray Properties of GRS 1915+105; B. Paul. X-Ray Observations of Black Hole Novae; S. Kitamoto. A Transition Disk Model Fit to Cygnus X-1; R. Misra. Are the X-Rays Coming from the Inside of the Accretion Disk of the Black Hole? H. Negoro. List of Participants. Author Index.