Observational Cosmology

The Symposium was held at the Great Wall Sheraton Hotel in Beijing, China in the period August 25-30, 1986. The decision to concentrate on the observational aspects of modern cosmology was taken in part because this conference has come in a period when there have been several international meetings on one aspect of modern cosmology, namely the early universe and its possible relationship to particle physics. While that approach is extremely exciting, it has the disadvantage that its connection with much of observational cosmology is very indirect. Thus there has been little opportunity to discuss critically the wealth of new data that are now becoming available which bear on the structure and evolution of the Universe but not always on its early history. This Symposium was planned to cover all aspects of observational cosmology, with only comparatively minor excursions into theory. Nearly 200 participants attended from 21 countries. A total of 26 invited papers and 73 contributed papers were given. This meant that everyone worked hard and long from 9 A.M. to about 5:30 P.M. for five of the six days of the conference. In addition to oral contributions, space was made available for poster papers and 56 of these were available for study for the duration of the conference.

Observational Cosmology 1920–1985: An Introduction to the Conference.- I. The Microwave Background Radiation.- The Cosmic Microwave Background.- High Sensitivity Observations of the Microwave Background Radiation.- Measurement of the Microwave Background Temperature from CN Absorption.- Measurement of the Dipole Moment of the Cosmic Background Radiation at mm and Sub-mm Wavelengths.- Rocket Experiment to Search for the Near-Infrared Extragalactic Background Light.- Large Distances, Hidden Mass, and Fluctuations of the RELIC Radiation.- The Sunyaev-Zel’Dovich Effect and H0.- II. The Origin and Abundances of the Light Elements.- On the Origin of the Light Elements (D, 3He, 4He, and 7Li).- Primordial Nucleosynthesis of 7Li.- III. The Classical Quantities of Cosmology.- The Status of the Hubble Diagram in 1986.- The Radio and Infrared Luminosities of 3CR Radio Galaxies - Are They Correlated?.- A Study of the Hubble Flow.- The Cosmic Distance Scale.- A Distance Scale from the IR Magnitude/HI Velocity Width Relation.- Local Calibrators and H0: The Distance to M31 Using RR Lyrae Stars.- Distance Moduli from the Tully-Fisher Relation.- Estimates of ? Based on Motions within the Local Supercluster.- A New Measurement of the Geometry of Space.- Non-Uniformities in the Hubble Flow: Results from a Survey of Elliptical Galaxies.- Distribution of Iras Galaxies.- Contributions to the Local Gravitational Field from Beyond the Virgo Supercluster.- The Angular Size - Redshift Relation as a Cosmological Tool.- Radio Bending at High Redshifts - A New Probe of Protogalaxies?.- IV. The Large Scale Distribution of Galaxies.- The Distribution of Bright Galaxies.- Large-Scale Structure: The Center for Astrophysics Redshift Survey.- The Galaxian Surface Density in the Nearby Universe.- Tracing Superclusters and Voids with Abell Clusters.- Simulations of Large-Scale Structure Compared to Abell Cluster Distribution.- Shape of Superclusters.- An Analysis of Fifty-Five Bright Southern Clusters of Galaxies.- Large-Scale Structure in the Universe: Spatial Distribution and Peculiar Velocities.- Spatial Distribution of Galaxies: Biased Galaxy Formation, Supercluster-Void Topology, and Isolated Galaxies.- The Void Probability Function as a Statistical Indicator.- Large-Scale Distribution of Galaxies with Different Luminosities.- The Distribution of Faint Galaxies.- Evolution of Very Faint Field Galaxies and Quasars.- V. The Theory of Galaxy Formation and Large-Scale Structure.- Galaxy Formation: Confrontation with Observations.- Towards Understanding the Large-Scale Structure?.- The Sponge-Like Topology of Large Scale Structure in the Universe.- Systematic Properties of Galaxies: Implications for Galaxy Formation.- Search for Proto-Clusters at Meter Wavelengths.- VI. Theories of Cosmology.- Alternative Cosmologies.- Topology of the Universe.- VII. The Non-Standard Approach.- Observations Requiring a Non-Standard Approach.- Is There an Alignmeat of Quasars Near NGC 520?.- Redshift Asymmetries and the Missing Mass.- A Possible Tired-Light Mechanism.- VIII. Galaxies and Clusters.- The Luminosities and Sizes of Disk Galaxies in Clusters.- Luminosity Segregation in Distant Galaxy Clusters.- Elemental Abundances and Temperature Distributions in the Intra-cluster Medium of the Perseus Cluster.- Tidal Triggering of Seyfert Galaxies and Quasars: Physical Sufficiency.- An Interesting Pair of Active Galaxies.- A Comment on the Seyfert Environment.- Search for Structural Changes in the Cores of “Nearby” Radio Galaxies.- IX. The Distribution of Radio Sources.- Radio Source Counts and Their Interpretation.- The 10 GHz Log N - Log S Curve Obtained at NRO.- Molonglo Deep Survey at 843 MHz.- Ultradeep Optical Identifications and Spectroscopy of Faint Radio Sources.- X. The Distribution of X-Ray Sources and the X-Ray Background.- The Distribution of X-Ray Emitting Quasars in Space.- X-Ray Surveys as Tools to Investigate the Cosmological Evolution of Quasars, BL Lac Objects and Clusters of Galaxies.- Log N - Log S Slope Determination in Imaging X-Ray Astronomy.- The EXOSAT High Galactic Latitude Survey.- Correlation of X-Ray and Infrared Emission of Radio-Quiet QSOs.- The Cosmic X-Ray Background.- XI. Quasi-Stellar Objects: Distribution and General Properties.- Cosmic Distribution of Optically Selected Quasars.- Spatial Distribution of Quasars.- The Cosmic Evolution of Quasars at High Redshifts.- The Clustering and Evolution of Optically-Selected QSOs.- On Cosmological Evolution of Quasars.- The Space Distribution of Faint CFHT Quasars.- Counts of Optically Selected Quasars in the Magnitude Range 19 < J < 22.- A Multi-Colour Survey for High-Redshift Quasars.- The Infrared Spectra of Quasars - A Luminosity Dependence.- Spectroscopy of QSOs from the Texas Radio Survey.- A Complete Sample of Flat-Spectrum Radio Sources from the Parkes 2.7 GHz Survey.- The Evolution of Quasars Selected by Slitless Technique.- An Exploration of Volume Test V/Vm Under Various Values of Deceleration Parameter qo.- The Application of the Study of Galaxies Associated With Quasars to Observational Cosmology.- Complete Samples of Variable Quasars.- Quasars, Disks and Cosmology.- XII. Dark Matter.- Dark Matter.- Axions in the Universe.- The Neutrino Mass and the Cellular Large Scale Structure of the Universe.- Determination of “inos” Masses Composing Galactic Halos.- XIII. Gravitational Lenses.- Gravitational Lenses as Tools in Observatonal Cosmology.- A VLA Gravitational Lens Survey.- 3C324 : A Probable New Gravitational Lens.- 1146+111B, C: A Giant Gravitational Lens?.- The “Gravitational Lens” 3C 321: A Remarkable Impostor.- Astrophysical Applications of Gravitational Micro-Lensing.- Gravitational Lens Effects of the Dark Matter of the Milky Way.- XIV. Absorption in Quasi-Stellar Objects.- QSO Absorption Lines and Cosmology.- Absorption Lines in QSOs.- Absorption Line Systems at z > 3 in the QSO 2000–330.- Clustering of Ly? Absorbing Clouds at High Redshift.- XV. Clustering of Quasi-Stellar Objects.- Clustering of Quasars from the ROE/ESO Large-Scale AQD Survey for Quasars.- Quasar Clustering.- Summary.- Observational Cosmology 1986.- Poster Papers.- Author Index.