5,131 research outputs found
A study of the place of the eucharist in ecumenical discussion
Christian disunity, as has been shown by Rouse and Neill, has been a major problem in the Church from the time of its inception. In Apostolic times Paul had to face serious dissension at Corinth and elsewhere. The great councils of the 4th and 5th centuries were convened to settle doctrinal disputes. The schism between Eastern and Western Christianity, which finally became permanent at about the end of the 12th century, was the result of thoroughgoing doctrinal as well as cultural differences. At the Reformation, Christianity was again drastically divided and between the 16th and 19th centuries,divisions were greatly multiplied. Chap. 1, p. 1
On the orbital period of the magnetic Cataclysmic Variable HS 0922+1333
Context: The object HS 0922+1333 was visited briefly in 2002 in a mini survey
of low accretion rate polars (LARPs) in order to test if they undergo high
luminosity states similar to ordinary polars. On the basis of that short
observation the suspicion arose that the object might be an asynchronous polar
(Tovmassian et al. 2004). The disparity between the presumed orbital and spin
period appeared to be quite unusual. Aims: We performed follow-up observations
of the object to resolve the problem. Methods: New simultaneous spectroscopic
and photometric observations spanning several years allowed measurements of
radial velocities of emission and absorption lines from the secondary star and
brightness variations due to synchrotron emission from the primary. Results:
New observations show that the object is actually synchronous and its orbital
and spin period are equal to 4.04 hours. Conclusions: We identify the source of
confusion of previous observations to be a high velocity component of emission
line arousing from the stream of matter leaving L1 point.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
A New Version of Reimers' law of Mass Loss Based on a Physical Approach
We present a new semi-empirical relation for the mass loss of cool stellar
winds, which so far has frequently been described by "Reimers' law".
Originally, this relation was based solely on dimensional scaling arguments
without any physical interpretation. In our approach, the wind is assumed to
result from the spill-over of the extended chromosphere, possibly associated
with the action of waves, especially Alfven waves, which are used as guidance
in the derivation of the new formula. We obtain a relation akin to the original
Reimers law, but which includes two new factors. They reflect how the
chromospheric height depends on gravity and how the mechanical energy flux
depends, mainly, on effective temperature. The new relation is tested and
sensitively calibrated by modelling the blue end of the Horizontal Branch of
globular clusters. The most significant difference from mass loss rates
predicted by the Reimers relation is an increase by up to a factor of 3 for
luminous late-type (super-)giants, in good agreement with observations.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, accepted by ApJ Letter
Soft X-ray Absorption by High-Redshift Intergalactic Helium
The Lyman alpha absorption from intergalactic, once-ionized helium (HeII) has
been measured with HST in four quasars over the last few years, over the
redshift range 2.4 < z < 3.2. These observations have indicated that the HeII
reionization may not have been completed until z\simeq 2.8, and that large
fluctuations in the intensity of the HeII-ionizing background were present
before this epoch. The detailed history of HeII reionization at higher
redshifts is, however, model-dependent and difficult to determine from these
observations, because the IGM can be completely optically thick to Lya photons
when only a small fraction of the helium remains as HeII. In addition, finding
quasars in which the HeII Lya absorption can be observed becomes increasingly
difficult at higher redshift, owing to the large abundance of hydrogen Lyman
limit systems.
It is pointed out here that HeII in the IGM should also cause detectable
continuum absorption in the soft X-rays. The spectrum of a high-redshift source
seen behind the IGM when most of the helium was HeII should recover from the
HeII Lyman continuum absorption at an observed energy \sim 0.1 keV. Galactic
absorption will generally be stronger, but not by a large factor; the
intergalactic HeII absorption can be detected as an excess over the expected
Galactic absorption from the 21cm HI column density. In principle, this method
allows a direct determination of the fraction of helium that was singly ionized
as a function of redshift, if the measurement is done on a large sample of
high-redshift sources over a range of redshift.Comment: accepted to The Astrophysical Journal Letter
Methanol as a tracer of fundamental constants
The methanol molecule CH3OH has a complex microwave spectrum with a large
number of very strong lines. This spectrum includes purely rotational
transitions as well as transitions with contributions of the internal degree of
freedom associated with the hindered rotation of the OH group. The latter takes
place due to the tunneling of hydrogen through the potential barriers between
three equivalent potential minima. Such transitions are highly sensitive to
changes in the electron-to-proton mass ratio, mu = m_e/m_p, and have different
responses to mu-variations. The highest sensitivity is found for the mixed
rotation-tunneling transitions at low frequencies. Observing methanol lines
provides more stringent limits on the hypothetical variation of mu than ammonia
observation with the same velocity resolution. We show that the best quality
radio astronomical data on methanol maser lines constrain the variability of mu
in the Milky Way at the level of |Delta mu/mu| < 28x10^{-9} (1sigma) which is
in line with the previously obtained ammonia result, |Delta mu/mu| < 29x10^{-9}
(1\sigma). This estimate can be further improved if the rest frequencies of the
CH3OH microwave lines will be measured more accurately.Comment: 7 pages, 1 table, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in Ap
Contribution of White Dwarfs to Cluster Masses
I present a literature search through 31 July 1997 of white dwarfs (WDs) in
open and globular clusters. There are 36 single WDs and 5 WDs in binaries known
among 13 open clusters, and 340 single WDs and 11 WDs in binaries known among
11 globular clusters. From these data I have calculated WD mass fractions for
four open clusters (the Pleiades, NGC 2168, NGC 3532, and the Hyades) and one
globular cluster (NGC 6121). I develop a simple model of cluster evolution that
incorporates stellar evolution but not dynamical evolution to interpret the WD
mass fractions. I augment the results of my simple model with N-body
simulations incorporating stellar evolution (Terlevich 1987; de la Feunte
Marcos 1996; Vesperini & Heggie 1997). I find that even though these clusters
undergo moderate to strong kinematical evolution the WD mass fraction is
relatively insensitive to kinematical evolution. By comparing the cluster mass
functions to that of the Galactic disk, and incorporating plausibility
arguments for the mass function of the Galactic halo, I estimate the WD mass
fraction in these two populations. I assume the Galactic disk is ~10 Gyrs old
(Winget et al. 1987; Liebert, Dahn, & Monet 1988; Oswalt et al. 1996) and that
the Galactic halo is ~12 Gyrs old (Reid 1997b; Gratton et al. 1997; Chaboyer et
al. 1998), although the WD mass fraction is insensitive to age in this range. I
find that the Galactic halo should contain 8 to 9% (alpha = -2.35) or perhaps
as much as 15 to 17% (alpha = -2.0) of its stellar mass in the form of WDs. The
Galactic disk WD mass fraction should be 6 to 7% (alpha = -2.35), consistent
with the empirical estimates of 3 to 7% (Liebert, Dahn, & Monet 1988; Oswalt et
al. 1996). (abridged)Comment: 20 pages, uuencoded gunzip'ed latex + 3 postscrip figures, to be
published in AJ, April, 199
Close binary EHB stars from SPY
We present the results of a radial velocity (RV) survey of 46 subdwarf B
(sdB) and 23 helium-rich subdwarf O (He-sdO) stars. We detected 18 (39%) new
sdB binary systems, but only one (4%) He-sdO binary. Orbital parameters of nine
sdB and sdO binaries, derived from follow-up spectroscopy, are presented. Our
results are compared with evolutionary scenarios and previous observational
investigations.Comment: To appear in "Extreme Horizontal Branch Stars and Related Objects",
Astrophysics and Space Science, Kluver Academic Publishers, edited by P.F.L.
Maxte
The Thermal Memory of Reionization History
The recent measurement by WMAP of a large electron scattering optical depth
tau_e = 0.17 +- 0.04 is consistent with a simple model of reionization in which
the intergalactic medium (IGM) is ionized at redshift z ~ 15, and remains
highly ionized thereafter. Here, we show that existing measurements of the IGM
temperature from the Lyman-alpha forest at z ~ 2 - 4 rule out this ``vanilla''
model. Under reasonable assumptions about the ionizing spectrum, as long as the
universe is reionized before z = 10, and remains highly ionized thereafter, the
IGM reaches an asymptotic thermal state which is too cold compared to
observations. To simultaneously satisfy the CMB and forest constraints, the
reionization history must be complex: reionization begins early at z >~ 15, but
there must have been significant (order unity) changes in fractions of neutral
hydrogen and/or helium at 6 < z < 10, and/or singly ionized helium at 4 < z <
10. We describe a physically motivated reionization model that satisfies all
current observations. We also explore the impact of a stochastic reionization
history and show that a late epoch of (HeII --> HeIII) reionization induces a
significant scatter in the IGM temperature, but the scatter diminishes with
time quickly. Finally, we provide an analytic formula for the thermal
asymptote, and discuss possible additional heating mechanisms that might evade
our constraints.Comment: 10 pages, submitted to ApJ, new references, additional discussion on
earlier work and partial HeII reionizatio
WIYN Open Cluster Study XI: WIYN 3.5m Deep Photometry of M35 (NGC 2168)
We present deep BVI observations of the core of M35 and a nearby comparison
field obtained at the WIYN 3.5m telescope under excellent seeing. These
observations display the lower main sequence in BV and VI CMDs down to V = 23.3
and 24.6, respectively. At these faint magnitudes background field stars are
far more numerous than the cluster stars, yet by using a smoothing technique
and CMD density distribution subtraction we recover the cluster fiducial main
sequence and luminosity function to V = 24.6. We find the location of the main
sequence in these CMDs to be consistent with earlier work on other open
clusters, specifically NGC 188, NGC 2420, and NGC 2477. We compare these open
cluster fiducial sequences to stellar models by Baraffe et al. (1998), Siess et
al. (2000), Girardi et al. (2000), and Yi et al. (2001) and find that the
models are too blue in both B-V and V-I for stars below ~0.4 Mo. M35 contains
stars to the limit of the extracted main sequence, at M ~ 0.10-0.15 Mo,
suggesting that M35 may harbor a large number of brown dwarfs, which should be
easy targets for near-IR instrumentation on 8-10m telescopes. We also identify
a new candidate white dwarf in M35 at V = 21.36 +- 0.01. Depending on which WD
models are used to interpret this cluster candidate, it is either a very high
mass WD (1.05 +- 0.05 Mo) somewhat older (0.19-0.26 Gyr, 3-4 sigma) than our
best isochrone age (150 Myr), or it is a modestly massive WD (0.67-0.78 Mo)
much too old (0.42-0.83 Gyr) to belong to the cluster.Comment: 28 pages + 24 figures; to be published in the Sept, 2002 A
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