Gemini/GMOS search of massive binaries in the ionizing cluster of 30 Dor

If binaries are common among massive stars, it will have important consequences for the derivation of fundamental properties like the cluster age, IMF and dynamical mass. Making use of the multiplexing facilities of Gemini Multi Object Spectrograph (GMOS) we were able to investigate the presence of binary stars within the ionising cluster of 30 Doradus. From a seven epochs observing campaign at Gemini South we detect a binary candidate rate of about 50%, which is consistent with an intrinsic 100% binary rate among massive stars. We find that single epoch determinations of the velocity dispersion give values around 30 km/s . After correcting the global velocity dispersion for the binary orbital motions, the true cluster velocity dispersion is 8.3 km/s. This value implies a virial mass of about 4.5E5 Msun or 8 percent of the mass calculated using the single epoch value. The binary corrected virial mass estimate is consistent with photometric mass determinations thus suggesting that NGC 2070 is a firm candidate for a future globular cluster.Comment: 9 pages, accepted at Astronomical Journa

Knowledge, love, power

Eph 3:14-21

The Christ of the Ignatian Exercises

Reviewed Book: Segundo, Juan Luis. The Christ of the Ignatian Exercises. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987

Clumpy stellar winds and high-energy emission in high-mass binaries hosting a young pulsar

High-mass binaries hosting young pulsars can be powerful gamma-ray emitters. The stellar wind of the massive star in the system is expected to be clumpy. Since the high-energy emission comes from the pulsar-star wind interaction, the presence of clumps can affect the spectrum and variability of this radiation. We look for the main effects of the clumps on the two-wind interaction region and on the non-thermal radiation. A simple analytical model for the two-wind interaction dynamics was developed accounting for the lifetime of clumps under the pulsar-wind impact. This time plays a very important role with regard to the evolution of the clump, the magnetic field in the clump-pulsar wind interaction region, and the non-radiative and radiative cooling of the non-thermal particles. We also computed the high-energy emission produced at the interaction of long-living clumps with the pulsar wind. For reasonable parameters, the clumps will induce small variability on the X-ray and gamma-ray radiation. Sporadically, large clumps can reach closer to the pulsar increasing the magnetic field, triggering synchrotron X-ray flares and weakening other emission components like inverse Compton. The reduction of the emitter size induced by clumps also makes non-radiative losses faster. Stellar wind clumps can also enhance instability development and matter entrainment in the shocked pulsar wind when it leaves the binary. Growth limitations of the clumps from the wind acceleration region may imply that a different origin for the largest clumps is required. The large-scale wind structures behind the observed discrete absorption components in the UV may be the source of these large clumps. The presence of structure in the stellar wind can produce substantial energy-dependent variability and should not be neglected when studying the broadband emission from high-mass binaries hosting young pulsars.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics (minor corrections after proofs

Desingularization of quasi-excellent schemes in characteristic zero

Grothendieck proved in EGA IV that if any integral scheme of finite type over a locally noetherian scheme X admits a desingularization, then X is quasi-excellent, and conjectured that the converse is probably true. We prove this conjecture for noetherian schemes of characteristic zero. Namely, starting with the resolution of singularities for algebraic varieties of characteristic zero, we prove the resolution of singularities for noetherian quasi-excellent Q-schemes.Comment: 35 pages, revised versio

Factorization and Sudakov Resummation in B -> gamma l nu

We apply Soft-Collinear Effective Theory to prove at leading power in Lambda_QCD/m_b a factorization formula for the radiative leptonic decay B -> gamma l nu. Large logarithms entering the hard-scattering kernel are systematically resummed by a two-step perturbative matching procedure.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure; contribution to proceedings of "International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics" EPS (July 17th-23rd 2003) in Aachen; to appear in European Physical Journal C direc

Compatibility and stability of hyoscine n-butyl bromide and furosemide admixtures for use in palliative care

In order to avoid separate injections, admixtures of drugs are frequently used in palliative care settings. There are different factors that can influence the compatibility and stability of the mixture: drug type, concentration, solvent, container, temperature and light. There are some mixtures of drugs with proven stability, but there is lack of evidence about the stability and compatibility of the combination of hyoscine N-butyl bromide and furosemide.Universidad de Málaga,Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Secondary emission behind the radio outflows in gamma-ray binaries?

Several binary systems consisting of a massive star and a compact object have been detected above 100 GeV in the Galaxy. In most of these sources, gamma-rays show a modulation associated to the orbital motion, which means that the emitter should not be too far from the bright primary star. This implies that gamma-ray absorption will be non negligible, and large amounts of secondary electron-positron pairs will be created in the stellar surroundings. In this work, we show that the radio emission from these pairs should be accounted for when interpreting the radio spectrum, variability, and morphology found in gamma-ray binaries. Relevant features of the secondary radio emission are the relatively hard spectrum, the orbital motion of the radio peak center, and the extended radio structure following a spiral-like trajectory. The impact of the stellar wind free-free absorption should not be neglected.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures / presented as a contributed talk in HEPRO II, Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 26-30 2009 / accepted for publication in Int. Jour. Mod. Phys.