Orbital, precessional and flaring variability of Cygnus X-1

We present the results of a 2.5-year multiwavelength monitoring programme of Cygnus X-1, making use of hard and soft X-ray data, optical spectroscopy, UBVJHK photometry and radio data. In particular we confirm that the 5.6-day orbital period is apparent in all wavebands and note the existence of a wavelength-dependence to the modulation, in the sense that higher energies reach minimum first. We also find a strong modulation at a period of 142 +/- 7 days, which we suggest is due to precession and/or radiative warping of the accretion disc. Strong modulation of the hard and soft X-ray flux at this long period may not be compatible with simple models of an optically thin accretion flow and corona in the low state. We present the basic components required for more detailed future modelling of the system - including a partially optically thick jet, quasi-continuous in the low state, the base of which acts as the Comptonising corona. In addition, we find that there are a number of flares which appear to be correlated in at least two wavebands and generally in more. We choose two of these flares to study in further detail and find that the hard and soft X-rays are well-correlated in the first and that the soft X-rays and radio are correlated in the second. In general, the optical and infrared show similar behaviour to each other but are not correlated with the X-rays or radio.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 2 figures in colou

Structure and Properties of Graphite-Molybdenum Brazed Joints

The paper presents the results of X-ray microspectral studies of dissimilar brazed joints of molybdenum with graphite. It is shown that during active brazing of graphite with molybdenum, mutual diffusion processes occur, and the adhesion-active brazing filler metals penetrates into graphite, and interacts with it, which leads to the formation of carbide phases. When using the Ti-Cr-V and Cu-Ti-Ni systems brazing filler metals, titanium carbides are formed. The zirconium carbides are formed, when using the brazing filler metals based on the Zr-Pd(Mo) systems and the CxMey(Mo, Cr) carbides  are formed using the brazing filler metals of the Pd-Ni-Cr-Ge system. The results of tests for three-point bending showed that the using of Pd-Ni-Cr-Ge brazing filler metals provides stable strength at the level of 34-37 MPa, destruction occurs along graphite

Breathing mode in an improved transport approach

The nuclear breathing-mode giant monopole resonance is studied within an improved relativistic Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (BUU) transport approach. As a new feature, the numerical treatment of ground state nuclei and their phase-space evolution is realized with the same semiclassical energy density functional. With this new method a very good stability of ground state nuclei in BUU simulations is achieved. This is important in extracting clear breathing-mode signals for the excitation energy and, in particular, for the lifetime from transport theoretical studies including mean-field and collisional effects.Comment: 33 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.