VII Mexican School on Gravitation and Mathematical Physics

Abstract

The present collection of papers was presented during the VII Mexican School on Gravitation and Mathematical Physics, which was held in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, México, from 26 November to 2 December 2006. The Mexican School on Gravitation and Mathematical Physics, sponsored by the Mexican Physical Society, started in 1994 with the purpose of discussing and exchanging current ideas in gravitational physics. Each school has been devoted to a particular subject, and on previous occasions these subjects have covered topics such as supergravity, branes, black holes, the early Universe, observational cosmology, and quantum gravity.At the dawn of the XXI Century, General Relativity has finally become a standard tool in our understanding of numerous astrophysical phenomena. At the same time, the new generation of large interferometric gravitational wave detectors that are just beginning operation holds the promise of finally allowing the detection of gravitational waves and opening a new window on the Universe. However, because of the complexity of the Einstein field equations, the modelling of realistic astrophysical systems and gravitational wave sources can only be done using numerical simulations. Because of this, we have dedicated our VII School to the topic of relativistic astrophysics and numerical relativity. As in all our previous Schools, international leaders in the field were invited to give courses and plenary lectures. The school was complemented with more specialized talks presented in parallel sessions, some of which are included in these proceedings.All the contributions in this volume have been refereed, and they represent a sample of the courses, invited talks and contributed talks presented during our VII School. Our deep gratitude goes to all those who contributed to these proceedings, and to making our VII Mexican School a great success. Miguel Alcubierre Moya, Héctor Hugo García Compeán and Luis Arturo Ureña López Editors