Preface
1 Introduction
1.1 "The Last Electromagnetic Window"
1.2 Energy Domains of Gamma Ray Astronomy
1.3 Gamma Ray Astronomy： A Discipline in Its Own Right
2 Status of the Field
2.1 Low Energy Gamma Ray Sources
2.1.1 The COMPTEL source catalog
2.2 High Energy Gamma Ray Sources
2.2.1 GeV blazars
2.2.2 GeV pulsars
2.2.3 Unidentified EGRET sources
2.3 The Status of Ground-Based Gamma Ray Astronomy
2.3.1 Brief historical review
2.3.2 Reported TeV sources
2.3.2.1 The Crab Nebula
2.3.2.2 Other plerions
2.3.2.3 Gamma ray pulsars
2.3.2.4 Gamma rays from supernova remnants
2.3.2.5 Other galactic sources
2.3.2.6 TeV blazars
2.3.2.7 Other extragalactic objects
2.3.3 Next generation of I ACT arrays
2.3.3.1 Atmospheric Cherenkov radiation
2.3.3.2 Stereoscopic detection of Cherenkov images
2.3.3.3 IACT arrays
2.3.3.4 Sub-10 GeV ground based detectors?
2.3.3.5 Large field-of-view detectors
2.3.3.6 IACT arrays for probing PeV y-rays
3.Gamma Ray Production and Absorption Mechanisms
3.1 Interactions with Matter
3.1.1 Electron bremsstrahlung and pair-production
3.1.2 Electron-positron annihilation
3.1.3 Gamma rays produced by relativistic protons
3.1.3.1 7rO-decay gamma rays
3.1.3.2 Nuclear gamma ray line emission
3.2 Interactions with Photon Fields
3.2.1 Inverse Compton scattering
3.2.2 Photon-photon pair production
3.2.3 Interactions of hadrons with radiation fields
3.3 Interactions with Magnetic Fields
3.3.1 Synchrotron radiation and pair-production
3.3.2 Synchrotron radiation of protons Relativistic Electron-Photon Cascades
4.Gamma Rays and Origin of Galactic Cosmic Rays
4.1 0rigin of Galactic Cosmic Rays： General Remarks
4.1.1 What do we know about Cosmic Rays?
4.1.2 What we do not know about Cosmic Rays?
4.1.3 Common beliefs and "nasty" problems
4.1.4 Searching for sites of production of GCR,s
4.2 Giant Molecular Clouds as Tracers of Cosmic Ray
4.2.1 Proton fluxes in the ISM near the accelerator
4.2.1.1 Impulsive source
4.2.1.2 Continuous source
4.2.1.3 The case of dense gas regions
4.2.2 Gamma rays from a cloud near the accelerator
4.2.3 Accelerator inside the cloud
……
5.Gamma Ray Visibility of Supernova Remnants
6.PuLsars, Pulsar Winds, Plerions
7.Gamma Rays Expected from Microquasars
8.Large Scale Jets of Radio Galaxies and Quasars
9.Nonthermal Phenomena in Clusters of Galaxies
10.TeV Blazars and Cosmic Background Radiation
11.High Energy Gamma Rays - Carriers of Unique Cosmological Information
Appendix A Spherically symmetric diffusion from a single source
Appendix B Evolution of relativistic electrons in an expanding magnetised medium
Bibliography
Index