Part III. Panel Discussion and Symposium Summary

Section A. Panel Discussion on Common Physical Processes and Mechanisms for High-Energy Emission from Astrophysical Plasmas



Title: Solar Flares, the Solar Corona, and Solar Physics
Author: E. N. Parker
Affil: Laboratory for Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 933 E 56th St, Chicago, IL 60637, U.S.A.
Abstract: The Sun serves as the local physics laboratory for studying the suprathermal activity phenomena of stars. Scrutiny of the Sun has led to the discovery of a host of previously unknown physical effects, largely within the classical physics of Newton and Maxwell, but including quantum mechanics and lepton physics as well.


Title: Astrophysics in the New Millennium
Author: C. R. Canizares
Affil: Center for Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307, U.S.A.
Abstract: N/A


Title: Neutron Star Powered Accelerators
Author: M. Ruderman
Affil: Dept. of Physics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, U.S.A.
Abstract: N/A


Title: Does the Magnetodynamic Model for the Formation of AGN Jets Survive New Findings of High-energy Phenomena near the Central Objects?
Author: Y. Uchida
Affil: Department of Physics, Science University of Tokyo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8601, Japan
Abstract: Here, we argue that, despite all-new findings of phenomena with very large Lorentz factors, the importance of the magnetodynamic process accelerating and collimating AGN jets should not be affected because there exists evidence in the features of the jets and tails at large distances indicating that the wiggles of the jet structure are likely to be due to a magnetic, helical kink instability. These systematic features require too much energy and coherence of the driving process to be produced locally and are most naturally produced by a magnetic effect coming from the powerful central engine. This indicates that the major effect producing the jets, and the lobes with hotspots at the tips of the jets, is likely to be the Poynting flux carried by torsional Alfven wave trains plus the re-accelerated high-energy particles in them. The very large Lorentz-factor phenomena should not hinder the transfer of these magnetic effects and are likely to be byproducts of the basic magnetodynamic process, and not the reverse.