‘Who? Me. A Memoir’ Donald Leslie Shaw (1930–2017)

No abstract available

El otro Larra: Luis Mariano de Larra y Wetoret, dramaturgo ‘desconocido’ de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX (con apéndice de títulos)

Este artículo comenta la vida y obra de Luis Mariano de Larra y Wetoret (1830-1901), uno de los dramaturgos más populares de su día (segunda mitad del XIX), pero que ha sido olvidado por la crítica moderna. Larra estrenó y publicó más de cien obras teatrales, algunas de las cuales llegaron a publicarse en múltiples ediciones. Autor de la conocidísima zarzuela El barberillo de Lavapiés, también es autor de obras como Una virgen de Murillo (1854) y La oración de la tarde (1858), dos de sus obras más aplaudidas.This article discusses the life and work of Luis Mariano de Larra y Wetoret (1830-1901), one of the most popular playwrights of his time (the second half of the 19th century) who has however been forgotten by modern critics. Larra staged and published over one hundred plays, some of which had several editions. He is the author of the well known zarzuela El barberillo de Lavapiés, as well as, Una virgen de Murillo (1854) and La oración de la tarde (1858), which are two of his most famous plays

The Canary in the Mind: Quintana, \u3ci\u3ePelayo\u3c/i\u3e (1805) and the Play of War

They saw it coming. Writers. The Revolution. Not in any prescient way nor with any real accuracy, and certainly not with any predictability (they were playwrights and poets, after all, not futurologists), but they sensed disquiet, heard the nearly inaudible harp strings of discord playing on the horizon, and picked up on what Bécquer would later so beautifully refer to as “los átomos del aire” (208). When the invasion finally came and the war broke out in 1808, that subtle disquiet turned into a maelstrom of noise, a chorus of voices singing out a harsh reality, mocking an untenable situation that they could not control—or rather, could only hope to control through the power of their words—, and seeking to shape a better future. And then, as suddenly as their voices were heard, they were silenced again, consigned to the basement of history (or to the footnotes of unread scholarship)

Ultraviolet observations of the X-ray photoionized wind of Cygnus X-1 during X-ray soft/high state

(Shortened) Ultraviolet observations of the black hole X-ray binary Cygnus X-1 were obtained using the STIS on HSTubble. We detect P Cygni line features show strong, broad absorption components when the X-ray source is behind the companion star and noticeably weaker absorption when the X-ray source is between us and the companion star. We fit the P Cygni profiles using the SEI method applied to a spherically symmetric stellar wind subject to X-ray photoionization from the black hole. The Si IV doublet provides the most reliable estimates of the parameters of the wind and X-ray illumination. The velocity $v$ increases with radius $r$ according to $v=v_\infty(1-r_\star/r)^\beta$, with$\beta\approx0.75$ and $v_\infty\approx1420$ km s$^{-1}$.The microturbulent velocity was $\approx160$ km s$^{-1}$. Our fit implies a ratio of X-ray luminosity to wind mass-loss rate of L$_{X,38}/\dot M_{-6} \approx 0.33$, measured at $\dot M_{-6}$ = 4.8. Our models determine parameters that may be used to estimate the accretion rate onto the black hole and independently predict the X-ray luminosity. Our predicted L$_x$ matches that determined by contemporaneous RXTE ASM remarkably well, but is a factor of 3 lower than the rate according to Bondi-Hoyle-Littleton spherical wind accretion. We suggest that some of the energy of accretion may go into powering a jet.Comment: 34 pages, 21 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in Ap

Geothermal Casimir Phenomena

We present first worldline analytical and numerical results for the nontrivial interplay between geometry and temperature dependencies of the Casimir effect. We show that the temperature dependence of the Casimir force can be significantly larger for open geometries (e.g., perpendicular plates) than for closed geometries (e.g., parallel plates). For surface separations in the experimentally relevant range, the thermal correction for the perpendicular-plates configuration exhibits a stronger parameter dependence and exceeds that for parallel plates by an order of magnitude at room temperature. This effect can be attributed to the fact that the fluctuation spectrum for closed geometries is gapped, inhibiting the thermal excitation of modes at low temperatures. By contrast, open geometries support a thermal excitation of the low-lying modes in the gapless spectrum already at low temperatures.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, contribution to QFEXT07 proceedings, v2: discussion switched from Casimir energy to Casimir force, new analytical results included, matches JPhysA versio

Do Instantons Like a Colorful Background?

We investigate chiral symmetry breaking and color symmetry breaking in QCD. The effective potential of the corresponding scalar condensates is discussed in the presence of non-perturbative contributions from the semiclassical one-instanton sector. We concentrate on a color singlet scalar background which can describe chiral condensation, as well as a color octet scalar background which can generate mass for the gluons. Whereas a non-vanishing singlet chiral field is favored by the instantons, we have found no indication for a preference of color octet backgrounds.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figure