Special Relativity and Radiation

• motivation: special relativity in astrophysics
  • relativistic jets and superluminal(?) motion
  • cosmic rays
• Lorentz transformations
• velocity addition and beaming
• transformation properties of electromagnetic fields
• radiation from a relativistic accelerated charge

Cosmic Rays

Basic Properties

• What are cosmic rays?
  • solar energetic particles
  • Galactic
  • extragalactic
• in real time: data from ACE
• spectra: ions, electrons
• composition
• energetics
• experiments:
  • balloon-borne: JACEE, CREAM, CAPRICE-2
  • space-based: Ulysses, ACE
  • ground-based (atm Cerenkov): H.E.S.S., VERITAS
  • ground-based (air shower): AGASA, HiRes, Auger