天体物理学
The discovery of the planet around the solar-type star 51 Pegasi marked a watershed in the search for extrasolar planets. Since then seven other solar-type stars have been discovered, of which several have surprisingly short orbital…
We show that the Coulomb barrier at the quark surface of a hot strange star may be a powerful source of $e^+e^-$ pairs which are created in an extremely strong electric field of the barrier and flow away from the star. The luminosity in the…
We present a new method designed for optimal subtraction of two images with different seeing. Using image subtraction appears to be essential for the full analysis of the microlensing survey images, however a perfect subtraction of two…
We report on optical searches in the error circles of 93 ROSAT survey sources located at low galactic latitudes (|b| < 20 deg). These sources were extracted from the ROSAT Galactic Plane Survey using various selection criteria on hardness…
Hipparcos geometrical parallaxes allowed us to calibrate the Cepheid Period-Luminosity relation and to compute the true distance moduli of 17 galaxies. Among these 17 galaxies, we selected those which generated type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia).…
An equation is derived to calculate the dynamics of relativistic magnetized plasma which decelerates by sweeping up matter from the ISM. Reduction to the non-radiative and radiative regimes is demonstrated. The evolving electron momentum…
Relying on the assumption that the interchange convection of magnetic flux tubes is the physical cause for the existence of sunspot penumbrae, we propose a model in which the dynamical evolution of a thin magnetic flux tube reproduces the…
Isentropic and isocurvature axion inflationary perturbations are studied in detail. If isocurvature perturbations are present, COBE requires the inflationary Hubble constant to be rather small, $H_{I} \stackrel{<}{\sim} 10^{12}$GeV,…
We present an ISO SWS and ISOPHOT-S, mid-infrared spectroscopic survey of 15 ultra-luminous IRAS galaxies. We combine the survey results with a detailed case study, based on near-IR and mm imaging spectroscopy, of one of the sample galaxies…
Recent determination of the outer rotation curve of the Galaxy suggests that the total Galactic mass is likely to concentrate into a region of radius $\sim2R_0$. If this finding is correct, the previously estimated optical depth of…
We discuss the possibility that the sources for gamma ray bursts are hot neutron stars at cosmological distance scales. The temperature of such stars would be $T \sim 1 \MeV$. Such hot stars can produce an electromagnetic blast wave…
We present the results of a high resolution (0.27 arcsec/px) near-infrared H band (1.65 micron) imaging survey of a complete sample of 20 flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQ) extracted from the 2Jy catalogue of radio sources. The observed…
This paper presents the results of spectral observations for the largest complete sample of very luminous IRAS galaxies obtained to date. The sample consists of those 73 objects for which log (L_IR/L_sun) => 11.5 (H0=50 km/s/Mpc, q0=0.5)…
We propose that the gravitational collapse of supermassive objects ($ M\ga 10^4 M_\odot$), either as relativistic star clusters or as single supermassive stars (which may result from stellar mergers in dense star clusters), could be a…
The formation and evolution of binaries which contain two neutron stars or a neutron star with a black hole are discussed in detail. The evolution of the distributions in orbital period and eccentricity for neutron star binaries are studied…
We explore the effective UV-optical albedos of a variety of types of broad emission line clouds, as well as their possible effects on the observed spectra of AGN. An important albedo source in moderately ionized ionization-bounded clouds is…
We present a review of the present state of knowledge regarding the relative ages of Galactic globular clusters. First, we discuss the relevant galaxy formation models and describe the detailed predictions they make with respect to the…
The radial scale length of the exponential component of the disc of the Milky Way has been determined in the near infrared. We have used the TMGS (Two Micron Galactic Survey) database which contains positions and K-magnitudes of about…
In paper I, we obtained an equation for the evolution of density inhomogeneities in a radiation dominated universe when they are affected by magnetic fields. In this second paper we apply this equation to the case in which the subjacent…
Investigations of the origin of cosmic rays are presented. Different methods are discussed: studies of cosmic gamma rays of energy from 30 MeV to about 10^15 eV (since photons point to their places of origin), studies of the mass…