Baryonic Dark Matter: Limits from HST and ISO

Recent HST and ISO observations provide very severe limits on any compact baryonic contributions to galactic (dark) halos. When combined with Milky Way Galaxy microlensing results, almost the entire plausible range of massive compact baryonic objects is excluded by direct observation. Deep direct imaging at 7mu and 15mu with ISOCAM on the ISO spacecraft directly excludes hydrogen-burning stars of any mass above the hydrogen-burning limit, and of any chemical abundance, from being the predominant explanation of the dark halos of external spiral galaxies. In the Milky Way Galaxy, HST has provided luminosity functions to the hydrogen-burning limit in several globular clusters. The resulting mass functions do not provide any support for dominance by very low-mass stars. This is consistent with field surveys for sub-stellar mass brown dwarfs, which show such objects to be relatively rare. These results are complemented by very deep HST luminosity functions in the Large Magellanic Cloud, providing strong support for the (near)-universality of the stellar mass function. Very recent HST results are available for the nearby dSph galaxy UMi. This galaxy, the most dark-matter dominated object known on kpc scales, has a normal stellar mass function at low masses. The prospects are bright for dark elementary particles.Comment: 12 pp, 6 figures, uses ws-p8-50x6-00.cls (included), Review at Dark Matter 98, ed N Spooner (World Scientific, in press

Updated Summation Model: An Improved Agreement with the Daya Bay Antineutrino Fluxes

A new summation method model of the reactor antineutrino energy spectrum is presented. It is updated with the most recent evaluated decay databases and with our Total Absorption Gamma-ray Spectroscopy measurements performed during the last decade. For the first time the spectral measurements from the Daya Bay experiment are compared with the detected antineutrino energy spectrum computed with the updated summation method without any renormalisation. The results exhibit a better agreement than is obtained with the Huber-Mueller model in the 2 to 5 MeV range, the region which dominates the detected flux. An unexpected systematic trend is found that the detected antineutrino flux computed with the summation model decreases with the inclusion of more Pandemonium free data. The detected flux obtained now lies only 1.9% above that detected in the Daya Bay experiment, a value that may be reduced with forthcoming new Pandemonium free data leaving less and less room to the reactor anomaly. Eventually, the new predictions of individual antineutrino spectra for the $^{235}$U, $^{239}$Pu, $^{241}$Pu and $^{238}$U are used to compute the dependence of the reactor antineutrino spectral shape on the fission fractions.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

A floating flower

Poem within an anthology containing the work of 33 Liverpudlian poets

Look back in wonder : how the endings of short stories can be their most powerful and effective distinguishing features

Drawing on her experiences as a writer and teacher of short fiction, the author offers an interrogation of the defining qualities of short stories, with a particular focus on how the ending of a narrative can be one of the most useful ways of teasing out generic differences between short fic-tion and other prose forms. A survey of critical and writerly opinion leads into a practical demon-stration of how endings work, with detailed reference to James Joyce’s Dubliners. The essay concludes by suggesting ways in which Dubliners prefigures the composite novels and story cy-cles that are prominent features of contemporary practice

Hurling up (that wall)

Poem within an anthology containing the work of 33 Liverpudlian poets

Walking in the world of ruins : explorations in the processes and products of autobiographical fiction

I continue his [Sebald's] walks in the world of ruins, of what is dead. I continue his contact with a stimulating tendency of the contemporary novel, a tendency that opens new ground in between essay, fiction and autobiography... So writes Enrique Vila-Matas in his innovative text, Montano. In attempting to map this new ground, the processes and products of autobiographical fictions will be scrutinised with particular reference to questions of authenticity and voice, drawing examples from texts including James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, which problematise genre boundaries, question the relationship between reader and author, and demonstrate how life experience now, literally, has a price. The paper will conclude by proposing the first steps towards a reading and writing practice where, in the words of Goldberg, ‘every page trembles, vulnerable to manifold incursions - of prior texts, of future accidents, of reading and writing’

Two poems : 'In her sunporch' and 'Her garden, my lure'

Selected for publication in the Shearsman poetry anthology themed around painters and St Ives

Teaching the changing story

This paper begins with a brief survey of the state of contemporary short fiction practice, with particular reference to McSweeneys Quarterly Concern, leading into a reflective account of pedagogical approaches to short fiction on Creative Writing degree programmes; an examination of expectations of Creative Writing courses from the point of view of students, teachers and the publishing industry; and consideration of how teaching methods can accommodate or respond to potentially conflicting aspirations. An account of delivering a short fiction module, and an evaluation of personal teaching practice, lessons learned and principles extrapolated concludes