Stellar Astrophysics : Proceedings of the Pacific Rim Conference held in Hong Kong, 1999

The Pacific Rim Conference originally started with one research concentration only - binary star research. The first Conference was held in Beijing, China, 1985, the second one in Seoul and Taejon, South Korea, 1990 and the third one in Chiang Mai, Thailand, 1995. In recent years, the conference series evolved into a much broader area of stellar astrophysics. The first such conference was held in Hong Kong in 1997. Kwong-Sang Cheng, a. k. a. one of the three Musketeers, documented the "accidental" development in writing in the Proceedings of the 1997 Pacific Rim Conference on Stellar Astrophysics (Volume 138 of the ASP Conference Series)! The meeting at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology covered three major topics: binary stars, compact stars and solar type stars. The conference was extremely successful. There was a general feeling among the participants that the conference on stellar astrophysics provided a good means to share ideas between such closely related disciplines. Unfortunately after the very successful meeting at HKST, Kwing L. Chan (another Musketeer) thought that he had already served and would not like to chair for another LOC for at least five years! After a few drinks at one of the watering holes in Wan Chai district of Hong Kong, Kwong-Sang Cheng was in very hiRh spirit and volunteered to taking on the responsibility of hosting the 51 Pacific Rim Conference at Hong Kong University in 1999. Front Matter....Pages i-xvii The Dynamo Effect in Stars....Pages 1-8 Differential Rotation, Meridional Flow and a High-Prandtl Number Solar/Stellar Dynamo....Pages 9-16 Generation of the Angular Velocity Shear Near the Solar Surface....Pages 17-24 2D Numerical Simulation of Stellar Convection....Pages 25-36 The Atmospheric Dynamics in 2D and 3D Simulations of Stellar Surface Convection....Pages 37-44 Rotating Turbulent Compressible Convection in a Shell....Pages 45-50 Nuclear Astrophysics with Radioactive Beams....Pages 51-60 Pulsars at Parkes....Pages 61-70 Spark Model for Drifting Subpulses in Pulsars....Pages 71-80 The Observation of Pulsars at Urumqi Astronomical Observatory....Pages 81-88 Thermal X-Ray Pulses Resulting From Pulsar Glitches....Pages 89-94 Starquake-Induced Glitches in Pulsars....Pages 95-104 Thermal Evolution of Neutron Stars....Pages 105-116 Probing the Neutron Star Interior with Glitches....Pages 117-126 Physics of Neutron Star Kicks....Pages 127-136 Collapsing Strange Quark Matter in Vaidya Geometry-A Possible Source of Gamma Ray Bursts....Pages 137-142 Conversion of Neutron Stars Into Strange Stars....Pages 143-148 Do Strange Stars Exist in the Universe?....Pages 149-160 Oscillations of Quark Stars....Pages 161-168 A New Indicator for the Spectral States and State Transitions in Cygnus X-1....Pages 169-174 Does Rotation Alone Determine Whether an A-type Star’s Spectrum is Abnormal or Normal?....Pages 175-180 The Distribution of Separations of Binaries....Pages 181-190 Coronal Activity of Near-Contact Binaries....Pages 191-196 ISO-Sws Studies of Wolf-Rayet Stars: Neon Abundances....Pages 197-210 Short Time Scale Variation of a Near-Contact Binary System, GR Tauri....Pages 211-220 General Relativistic Hydrodynamic Equation in Multiple System....Pages 221-228 Explanation of the O’connell Effect of a Close Binary....Pages 229-242 Effects of the Blandford-Znajek Process on Evolution of Radial Structure of Black Hole Accretion Disks....Pages 243-248 Theory of Accretion Disks and Applications in Astrophysics....Pages 249-256 A Cellular Automaton Model for the Power Law Noise of an Accretion Disc....Pages 257-266 X-Ray Spectral Variations of X-Ray Nova XTE J1550-564 During the Rising Phase of the 1998 Outburst....Pages 267-274 A New Parameter in Accretion Disk Model....Pages 275-280 Photometric Project for Zero-Age Contact and Near Contact Binary Systems....Pages 281-282 Balmer Decrement and the Structure of Be-Star Envelopes....Pages 283-290 Symbiotic Stars with Highly Resolved Emission Line Profiles....Pages 291-296 Long-Term X-Ray Variability in X-Ray Binaries: RXTE/ASM and BATSE Data....Pages 297-304 X-Rays From Millisecond Pulsars....Pages 305-318 Long-Term Variability Properties and Periodicity Analysis for Blazars....Pages 319-324 The Optical, X-Ray and Gamma-Ray Light Curves and Spectra of PSR B0540-69 and PSR B1509-58....Pages 325-338 Analytical Studies on the Structure and Emission of the SS 433 Jets....Pages 339-348 Magnetically Driven Warping, Precession and Resonances in Accretion Disks....Pages 349-354 What Do γ-Ray Bursts Look Like?....Pages 355-368 Energy and Radiation Mechanisms of Gamma-Ray Bursts....Pages 369-378 On the Inverse Compton Scattering Model of Radio Pulsars....Pages 379-384 The Effect of ICS on GRB Afterglows....Pages 385-392 A Possible Mechanism for the Metallicity of the First Generation Star....Pages 393-398 The Influence of the Stellar Mass Ratio on Spiral Shocks in Accretion Disks Around Compact Objects....Pages 399-404 Rotating Neutron Stars for a New Microscopic Equation of State....Pages 405-410 The Radial, Vertical and Azimuthal Instability of an Isothermal Disk with Three-Dimensional Magnetic Field....Pages 411-416 Orbital Period of the Low-Inclination SW Sextantis Star V442 Ophiuchi....Pages 417-422 A New Mass Function of a Symbiotic Star, HBV475....Pages 423-428 New Cataclysmic Variables from Rass....Pages 429-432 Oxygen Abundance Evolution in the Solar Neighborhood....Pages 433-438 Three Very Metal-Poor, Extremely Wide Binaries....Pages 439-444 Lithium in G Dwarfs....Pages 445-450 Optical Observations of the X-Ray Transients X1658-298 and X1608-522....Pages 451-456 Study of Reddening in the Young Open Cluster NGC 6913....Pages 457-462 Luminosity of Type IA Supernovae and Hubble Constant....Pages 463-474 The Explanation for the Strange Shape of Mean Pulse of Pulsar PSRJ2019+2425....Pages 475-480 A Explanation of the Change in the Ortital Period of the Contact Binary V781 Tauri....Pages 481-490 The Circumstellar Envelope of The Post-AGB Star....Pages 491-494 The Statistics of X-Ray Emission From Galactic Young Pulsars....Pages 495-500 A Poly-Component Model for Galactic Halo....Pages 501-504 Back Matter....Pages 505-506 This volume consists of sixty-two papers contributed by one hundred and twenty authors/co-authors working in the field of stellar research. The conference was the fifth of the Pacific Rim Stellar Conference series and was the second time that Hong Kong hosted the series. These conferences started in 1985, concentrating on binary star research. Over the years, the series has grown wider in scope. During this conference, three topics were covered: binary stars, compact stars, and solar-type stars. Though a `Pacific Rim' conference, many of the ninety participants were from far regions of the world. The contributions to this proceeding are categorized according to the expertise of the participants into the following six groups: solar/stellar evolution and observational constraints, physics of compact stars and pulsars, observational constraints, physics of binary stars, binary stars with an accretion disk, and observations and theory of high-energy phenomena. The volume contains many updated reviews in these research areas and is a very useful reference for graduate students and researchers.