Related papers: Solid-phase C_60 in the peculiar binary XX Oph?
Optical spectra of the well-known infrared source CPM~19, which exhibited a strong decline in brightness during the period from 1984--1987 to 2000--2005, have been obtained for the first time. A strong and broad H$\alpha$ emission line has…
The presence of the color-flavor locked (CFL) phase strongly suppresses the neutrino emission processes and the quark specific heat. As a result the cooling of the strange stars in the CFL phase is dominated by deconfinement heating and…
We present recent results of our program of deep optical and near-infrared observations of AXPs. We find that the counterpart to AXP 4U 0142+61 has a peculiar spectral energy distribution. The counterpart is remarkably bright in the…
There exists a number of astronomical spectral phenomena that have remained unidentified after decades of extensive observations. The diffuse interstellar bands, the 220 nm feature, unidentified infrared emission bands, extended red…
We have observed the eclipsing, post-common envelope white dwarf-brown dwarf binary, SDSS141126.20+200911.1, in the near-IR with the HAWK-I imager, and present here the first direct detection of the dark side of an irradiated brown dwarf in…
It is surprising to find dust around B type stars, as in the case of B[e] stars. These stars exhibit a dense, dusty environment witnessed by their infrared-excess and many emission lines from permitted and forbidden transitions. Given the…
Recent studies of the stellar population in the solar neighborhood (<20 pc) suggest that there are undetected white dwarfs (WDs) in multiple systems with main sequence companions. Detecting these hidden stars and obtaining a more complete…
We present UKIRT infrared images of the X-ray binary Cygnus X-3. We address the possibility of extended infrared emission and show that it could be either warm circumstellar material or a star near the binary's line of sight.
Context: The INTEGRAL hard X-ray observatory has revealed an emerging population of highly obscured X-ray binary systems through multi-wavelength observations. Previous studies have shown that many of these sources are high-mass X-ray…
Using a set of high-resolution spectra, we studied the physical and orbital properties of the O-type binary CPD-41 7733, located in the core of \ngc. We report the unambiguous detection of the secondary spectral signature and we derive the…
We present here the 7.0-8.7 micron spectrum of the bright reflection nebula NGC 7023. Our observations are made with the Short Wavelength Spectrometer (SWS) on the European satellite Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). The vibrational bands…
We present observations of the starburst galaxy NGC 7714 with the Infrared Spectrograph IRS on board the Spitzer Space Telescope. The spectra yield a wealth of ionic and molecular features that allow a detailed characterization of its…
Gas phase spectroscopic laboratory experiments for the buckminsterfullerene cation C60+ resulted in accurate rest wavelengths for five C60+ transitions that have been compared with diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) in the near infra-red.…
Infrared spectroscopic observations have established the presence of hydrocarbon ices on Pluto and other TNOs, but the abundances of such molecules cannot be deduced without accurate optical constants (n, k) and reference spectra. In this…
We present our prediction for the local 21 cm differential brightness temperature ($\delta T_{b}$) from a set of strongly clustered sources of Population III (Pop III) and II (Pop II) objects in the early Universe, by a numerical simulation…
The fullerene C$_{60}$ has four infrared-active vibrational transitions at 7.0, 8.5, 17.4 and 18.9 $\mu$m. We have previously observed emission features at 17.4 and 18.9 $\mu$m in the reflection nebula NGC 7023 and demonstrated spatial…
We have examined high accuracy radial velocities of Cepheids to determine the binary frequency. The data are largely from the CORAVEL spectrophotometer and the Moscow version, with a typical uncertainty of $\leq1$~km~s$^{-1}$, and a time…
We aim at characterising the structure of the gas and dust around the high mass X-ray binary GX 301-2, a highly obscured X-ray binary hosting a hypergiant star and a neutron star, in order to better constrain its evolution. We used Herschel…
The bright X-ray source, 2XMMi J180438.7-145647 is fortunate to have long baseline observations in INTEGRAL that compliment observations taken by other missions. Optical spectroscopy of this object has suggested a distance of ~7 kpc and an…
We present long slit spectral (375-725 nm) observations of the proposed identification of the transient 66s X-ray pulsar Cep X-4=GS2138+56. Spectra show features typical of Be/X-ray binaries. Superimposed on a weak emission from the IC 1396…