Related papers: Does Transparent Hidden Matter Generate Optical Sc…
The cold dark matter picture predicts an abundance of substructure within the Galactic halo. However, most substructures host no stars and can only be detected indirectly. Stellar streams present a promising probe of this dark substructure.…
Ultralight dark matter is an interesting dark matter candidate describing the lightest end of the mass parameter space. This model produces an oscillating granular pattern in halo densities. These fluctuations have the potential to produce…
We show that the disruption of a star by a 10^6 solar mass black hole in a galactic nucleus could under favorable circumstances produce an optically-thick envelope that radiates with a thermal spectrum at the Eddington limit, 10^{44} erg/s,…
We study three quasar radio sources (B1257-326, B1519-273, and J1819+385) that show large amplitude intraday and annual scintillation variability produced by the Earth's motion relative to turbulent-scattering screens located within a few…
Extreme scattering events (ESEs) are distinctive fluctuations in the brightness of astronomical radio sources caused by occulting plasma lenses in the interstellar medium. The inferred plasma pressures of the lenses are $\sim 10^3$ times…
Quasars shine brightly due to the liberation of gravitational energy as matter falls onto a supermassive black hole in the centre of a galaxy. Variations in the radiation received from active galactic nuclei (AGN) are studied at all…
If the Galaxy contains ~10^{11}M_sol in cold gas clouds of ~Jovian mass and \~AU size, these clouds will act as converging lenses for optical light, magnifying background stars at a detectable rate. The resulting light curves can resemble…
We present observations of the 22 GHz water vapor megamasers in the Circinus galaxy made with the Tidbinbilla 70m telescope. These observations confirm the rapid variability seen earlier by Greenhill et al (1997). We show that this rapid…
Interstellar turbulence has implications for the dispersal and mixing of the elements, cloud chemistry, cosmic ray scattering, and radio wave propagation through the ionized medium. This review discusses the observations and theory of these…
Scintillation noise due to the Earth's turbulent atmosphere can be a dominant noise source in high-precision astronomical photometry when observing bright targets from the ground. Here we describe the phenomenon of scintillation from its…
Matter and dark matter in galaxies represent two main components linked by the gravitational interaction. Collisions of galaxies may create an offset between the centers of mass of these components. Ignoring internal dynamics of particles…
If stars at the lower end of the main sequence are responsible for the microlensing events observed in the Galactic bulge, then light from the lensing star contributes to the observed brightness. The background and lensing stars generally…
In the surface layers of late-type stars, stellar convection is manifested with its typical granulation pattern due to the presence of convective motions. The resulting photospheric up- and downflows leave imprints in the observed spectral…
The interaction of light with objects and media moving at relativistic and superluminal speeds enables unconventional phenomena such as Fresnel drag, Hawking radiation, and light amplification. Synthetic motion, facilitated by modulated…
We use hydrodynamic simulations of minor mergers of galaxies to investigate the nature of surface brightness excesses at large radii observed in some spiral galaxies: antitruncated stellar disks. We find that this process can produce the…
A photon of wavelength lambda ~1 micron interacting with a dust grain of radius a_p ~ 1 mm (a "pebble") undergoes scattering in the forward direction, largely within a small characteristic diffraction angle theta_s ~ lambda/a_p ~ 100".…
Convection and turbulence in stellar atmospheres have a significant effect on the emergent flux from A-type stars. The recent theoretical advancements in convection modelling have proved a challenge to the observers to obtain measurements…
Dust emission at sub-millimetre wavelengths allows us to trace the early phases of star formation in the Universe. In order to understand the physical processes involved in this mode of star formation, it is essential to gain knowledge…
We measure the optical spectrum of the Diffuse Galactic Light (DGL) -- the local Milky Way in reflection -- using 92,000 blank-sky spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We correlate the SDSS optical intensity in regions of blank…
I show that interstellar films of material thinner than a micron, drift away from the Galactic plane as a result of stellar radiation pressure. Such films, whether produced naturally by dust coagulation in proto-planetary disks or…