Physics of Fluids

Roberto A. Capuzzo Dolcetta has been working for 40 years in the field of Physics and Theoretical Astrophysics.  Presently, he is a professor at Sapienza, University of Roma, where he currently teaches Fluid Dynamics for Astrophysics and Theoretical Astrophysics. He also has long experience in teaching Gravitational Physics and Theoretical Mechanics at both undergraduate and graduate levels. In addition, he has taught in the USA, delivering, for instance, the undergraduate course on Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology at the University of Washington and Seattle and presenting lectures for graduate students at Boston University. He has several scientific and didactic collaborations with, among the others,  the Universities of Heidelberg (DE), of Leiden (NL), and of Prague (CZ). Since May 2010, he has been a scientific reviewer for ISCRA (Italian Super Computing Research Allocation) at CINECA and leader of the panel of Universe Science of the Access Committee of PRACE (the European infrastructure for supercomputing). His research activity is mainly theoretical, in the field of stellar clusters, both galactic and extragalactic. He is an expert in sophisticated numerical methods to deal with large self-gravitating N-body systems also embedded in gaseous cluds. He has obtained important results concerning the evolution and dynamics of the globular cluster systems in galaxies and proposed a new explanation for mass accretion and activity of galactic nuclei, including interpretation of the peculiar dynamics of stars around the Galactic supermassive black hole. He is the author of more than 240 scientific papers in international journals.

• Introduction.- Chapter 1 Fluids and their fundamental aspects.- Chapter 2 The basic equations.- Chapter 3. Fluid flows in different environments.- 3.1. Fluids in terrestrial and astrophysical context.- Chapter 4. Discontinuities in fluid flows.- Chapter 5. Blast waves.- Chapter 6. Peculiar Fluid Dynamics.- Appendix Useful mathematical tools.