Astrophysics
We analyze mechanisms of the excitation of Alfv\'{e}n wave in pulsar magnetospheres as a possible source of pulsar radio emission generation. We find that Cherenkov excitation of obliquely propagating Alfv\'{e}n waves is inefficient, while…
The problem of (non)random distribution of points on the sphere is investigated. Published procedures for obtaining preferred direction and preferred plane for points on the sphere (in the sky) are discussed. It is shown that the published…
In this paper we analyze the line-strength indices in the Lick-system measured by Longhetti et al. (1998a, b) for a sample of 51 early-type galaxies located in low density environments (LDE) and showing signatures of fine structures and/or…
We report on the analysis of archival ASCA, ROSAT and BeppoSAX data of PSR B1055-52, PSR B0656+14 and Geminga, performed in order to investigate the reality of the putative ~10-20 arcmin wide X-ray pulsar-wind nebulae recently proposed to…
We have extended the evolutionary synthesis models by Leitherer et al. (1999b) by including a new library of B stars generated from the IUE high-dispersion spectra archive. We present the library and show how the stellar spectral properties…
The process of cosmic ray acceleration up to energies in excess of $10^{20}$ eV at relativistic shock waves with large Lorentz factors, $\Gamma \gg 1$ requires $\sim \Gamma^2$ particle energy gains at single reflections from the shock (cf.…
A remarkable structure is observed in the innermost regions of the barred galaxy NGC 1415 : a small stellar bar, bright circumnuclear ionized gas seen in Halpha, two bright ionized gas sources, seen in Halpha, just beyond the ends of the…
The X-ray pulsar GX 1+4 was observed with the RXTE satellite for a total of 51ks between 1996 July 19 - 21. During this period the flux decreased smoothly from an initial mean level of ~ 6 X 10^36 erg/s to a minimum of ~ 4 X 10^35 erg/s…
We consider a hypothetical possibility of the variability of light velocity with time and position in space which is derived from two natural postulates. For the consistent consideration of such variability we generalize translational…
As a study of peculiar velocities of nonlinear structure, we analyze the model of a relativistic thin-shell void in the expanding universe. (1) Adopting McVittie (MV) spacetime as a background universe, we investigate the dynamics of an…
It has been suggested that the frequency in the co-rotating innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) about a compact stellar remnant can be determined through X-ray observations of low-mass X-ray binaries, and that its value can be used to…
With the aim of constraining the structural properties of neutron stars and the equation of state of dense matter, we study sudden spin-ups, glitches, occurring in the Vela pulsar and in six other pulsars. We present evidence that glitches…
Motivated by new sounding-rocket wide-field polarimetric images of the Large Magellanic Cloud, we have used a three-dimensional Monte Carlo radiation transfer code to investigate the escape of near-ultraviolet photons from young stellar…
A correlation between the surface density of foreground galaxies tracing the Large Scale Structure and the position of distant galaxies and quasars is expected from the magnification bias effect (Canizares 1981). We show that this…
We have carried out simulations of the nonlinear evolution of the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability for compressible fluids in $2\frac{1}{2}$-dimensions, extending our previous work by Frank et al (1996) and Jones…
We describe a new system for multiple object spectroscopy and integral field spectroscopy at near-infrared wavelengths using optical fibers. Both modes of the SMIRFS instrument have been tested at the UK Infrared Telescope with the CGS4…
We investigate the weak gravitational lensing effect due to the large-scale structure of the universe on two-point correlations of local maxima ({\em hotspots}) in the 2D sky map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy.…
We consider a model for quasar formation in which massive black holes are formed and fuelled largely by the accretion of hot gas during the process of galaxy formation. In standard hierarchical collapse models, objects about the size of…
We obtained medium-resolution spectra of the bona-fide brown dwarf Cha H$\alpha$ 1, the five brown dwarf candidates Cha H$\alpha$ 2 to 6, two additional late M-type brown dwarf candidates, all originally selected by H$\alpha$ emission, and…
We use the separation of variables and T-matrix methods to calculate the optical properties of homogeneous spheroids with refractive indices from m = 1.3+0.0i up to 3+4i. It is found that the extinction cross-sections for highly absorbing…