天体物理学
We consider directly the equations by which matter imposes anisotropies on freely propagating background radiation, leading to a new way of using anisotropy measurements to limit the deviations of the Universe from a…
The distribution of galaxies up to a distance of 200 Mpc (650 million light-years) is flat and shows a structure like a shell roughly centered on the Local Supercluster (Virgo cluster). This result clearly confirms the existence of the…
Using IRAM 30m, SEST 15m, and Nancay radiotelescopes, we have gathered the 1mm continuum emission, spectra of the J=1--0 CO line and of the HI line at 21cm for two samples of IRAS galaxies. Using these data, we have estimated the HI masses,…
We use a representative sample of 65 galaxy clusters observed with the Einstein IPC to constrain the range of cluster X-ray morphologies. We develop and apply quantitative and reproducible measures to constrain the intrinsic distributions…
A time dependent two-point correlation-function analysis of the BATSE 2B catalog finds no evidence of burst repetition. As part of this analysis, we discuss the effects of sky exposure on the observability of burst repetition and present…
Quasars are the earliest objects known to exist. We examine their origin in the context of popular models for structure formation in the universe. We show that seeds for quasar black holes could have originated from the initial cosmological…
The search for the origin of cosmic rays is a quest of almost a hundred years. A recent theoretical proposal gives quantitative predictions, which can be tested with data. Specifically, it has been suggested, that all cosmic rays can be…
We have systematically analyzed a sample of 13 new and archival ROSAT PSPC observations of compact groups of galaxies: 12 Hickson Compact Groups plus the NCG 2300 group. We find that approximately two-thirds of the groups have extended…
We propose that cosmic rays originate mainly in three sites, a) normal supernova explosions into the interstellar medium, b) supernova explosions into stellar winds, and c) hot spots of powerful radio galaxies. The proposal depends on an…
Astrophysical observations indicate that the ``Local Universe" has a relatively lower matter density ($\Omega_0$) than the predictions of the standard inflation cosmology and the large-scale motions of galaxies which provide a mean mass…
We start by pedagigically reviewing the problem of large scale magnetic fields. We explain the acquisition of angular momentum in the general context of Dark Matter models and we use this result to derive a dynamical mechanism for magnetic…
We examine the width of the gamma-ray burst luminosity function through the distribution of GRB peak fluxes as detected by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter (PVO) and the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE). The strength of the analysis…
The recent development of unified theories of active galactic nuclei (AGN) has indicated that there are two physically distinct classes of these objects - radio-loud and radio-quiet. The primary observational distinctions between the two…
We investigate the cosmic variance of the skewness of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies in an inflationary model which leads to the baryon isocurvature scenario for the cosmic structure formation. In this model, the baryon…
Recently, Owen(1993) and Owen and Ledlow (1994) have shown that the dividing line between Fanaroff-Riley class~I and class~II Radio Sources is very sharp when the sources are represented as points in the radio-optical luminosity plane. It…
I review various aspects of the pre-big-bang scenario and of its main open problems, with emphasis on the role played by the dilaton. Since the dilaton is a compelling consequence of string theory, tests of this scenario are direct tests of…
The deflection angle $\Delta\phi$ of light rays by the gravitational field of a spherical system $M(r)$ is calculated using the MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). It is shown that $\Delta\phi$ with an impact parameter $r_0$ can be…
We place empirical constraints on the physical properties of $\gamma-$ray burst events at cosmological distances. In particular we derive probability distributions for the radiation energy $E_\gamma$, the minimum Lorentz factor $\gamma_{\rm…
COBE has provided us with a whole-sky map of the CBR anisotropies. However, even if the noise level is negligible when the four year COBE data are available, the cosmic variance will prevent us from obtaining information about the Gaussian…
We evaluate the large scale polarization of the cosmic microwave background induced, via Thomson scattering prior to decoupling, by nearly scale-invariant spectra of scalar and tensor metric perturbations, such as those predicted by most…