The orientation within the Galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud of nebulae ejected by massive stars

The orientation of nebulae ejected by massive stars (Luminous Blue Variables, WR stars, SN1987A) is investigated with respect to the structure of the galaxy to which they belong. In the Galaxy, we find that the projected long axes of the nebulae most often align with the galactic plane, and then also with the galactic magnetic field. This alignment is statistically significant. In addition, a few nebulae are apparently oriented perpendicular to the galactic plane. In the Large Magellanic Cloud, the nebular axes are found to closely follow the spiral magnetic field. With different inclinations, the Galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud probably offer complementary views of the same phenomenon. Although the sample studied thus far is small and the statistics limited, these results suggest that the orientation of massive star ejecta depends on galactic magnetic fields. Since the nebular axes are apparently correlated to the symmetry axes of the stars themselves, and since, in the early evolutionary stages, alignments of accretion disk axes with the interstellar magnetic field have been reported, it is argued that the observed alignment effect results from the star formation process. Based in part on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory (ESO, La Silla

VLT Observations of Two Unusual BAL Quasars

Among the unusual broad absorption line quasars being found by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) are objects with much stronger absorption in Fe III than Fe II. These unusual line ratios require a high density in the outflow (n_H >= 3 x 10^{10} cm^{-3}). They should also appear for only a limited range of outflow column densities, which explains their rarity. Previously we suggested that the Fe III line ratios were also affected by a resonance; we now believe this is an artifact of structure in the underlying Fe II + Fe III pseudocontinuum. The SDSS is also discovering objects with absorption in rarely seen transitions such as He I. VLT+UVES high-resolution spectra of one such object, the mini-BAL quasar SDSS 1453+0029, show that it has two He I absorption systems with considerably different properties separated by only 350 km/s.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; to appear in "Active Galactic Nuclei, from Central Engine to Host Galaxy", eds. Collin, Combes & Shlosman, PASP Conference Series, in pres

The optical polarization of radio-loud and radio-intermediate broad absorption line quasi-stellar objects

On the basis of a sample of approximately 50 broad absorption line quasi-stellar objects (BAL QSOs), we investigate possible correlations between BAL QSO radio properties and other spectral characteristics, including polarization. For this purpose new polarization data have been obtained. The main result of our statistical study is the absence of significant correlations between the radio-to-optical flux ratio R[SUP]star [/SUP] and all other quantities: the polarization p_0 of the continuum, the slope of the continuum, the balnicity and detachment indices which characterize the BAL profiles, and the terminal velocity of the flow v_max. The claimed anticorrelation between R[SUP]star [/SUP] and v_max is therefore not confirmed, as well as the correlation between R[SUP]star [/SUP] and p_0 predicted by some models. Although marginally significant, the only possible correlations occur for the BAL QSOs with low-ionization troughs. Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory (ESO, La Silla

Large scale correlations of quasar polarisation vectors: Hints of extreme scale structures?

A survey measuring quasar polarization vectors has been started in two regions towards the North and South Galactic Poles. Here, We review the discovery of significant correlations of orientations of polarization vectors over huge angular distances. We report new results including a larger sample of the quasars confirming the existence of coherent orientations at redshifts z>1.Comment: Proc. of Astronomical Polarimetry - Current Status and Future Directions March 15-19, 2004. Waikoloa Beach Marriott, Hawaii. 5 pages, 3 figure

An MHD-driven Disk Wind Outflow in SDSS J0300+0048?

The outflow in SDSS J030000.56+004828.0 has the highest low-ionization metal-line column density yet reported for a broad absorption line quasar. The absorption from different ions is also segregated as a function of velocity in a way that can only be explained by a disk wind outflow. Furthermore, the presence of the such large column densities of gas at the high observed outflow velocities may be incompatible with purely radiative acceleration. MHD contributions to the acceleration should be considered seriously.Comment: to appear in AGN Physics with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, ed. G. T. Richards and P. B. Hal

Probing the quasar broad line region with microlensing

editorial reviewe

Can axionlike particles explain the alignments of the polarizations of light from quasars?

peer reviewedThe standard axion-like particle explanation of the observed large-scale coherent orientations of quasar polarisation vectors is ruled out by the recent measurements of vanishing of circular polarisation. We introduce a more general wave-packet formalism and show that, although decoherence effects between waves of different frequencies can reduce significantly the amount of circular polarisation, the axion-like particle hypothesis is disfavoured given the bandwidth with which part of the observations were performed. Finally, we show that a more sophisticated model of extragalactic fields does not lead to an alignment of polarisations

Study of the forbidden oxygen lines in a dozen comets observed at the VLT (ESO)

The forbidden lines are difficult to analyse because their detection requires high spectral and spatial resolutions. Their analysis is however interesting because it allows the determination of the spatial distribution and the production rate of the parent molecules, supposedly H2O which doesn't have any feature in the optical range. But as shown by Cochran [2] [3], some issues remain about the nature of the parents of the oxygen atoms. Moreover the width of the green line was found larger than that of the red lines. One of the goals of this study is to determine the parent species that photo-dissociate to produce oxygen atoms and see how this process depends on the heliocentric distance. We present here the results of the analysis of a homogeneous set of high quality spectra of 13 different comets observed with UVES at the ESO VLT since 2002 [4] [5]

Study of the forbidden oxygen lines in comets at different heliocentric and nucleocentric distances

Oxygen is an important element in the chemistry of the Solar System objects given its abundance and its presence in many molecules including H2O, which constitutes 80% of cometary ices. The analysis of oxygen atoms in comets can provide information not only on the comets themselves but also on our Solar System. These atoms have been analyzed using the three forbidden oxygen lines [OI] observed in emission in the optical region at 5577 Å (the green line), 6300 Å and 6364 Å (the red lines) [1]. These lines are difficult to analyze because their detection requires high spectral and spatial resolutions. The oxygen analysis is interesting because it allows the determination of its parent molecules