Gravitino production by primordial black hole evaporation and constraints on the inhomogeneity of the early Universe

In supergravity models, the evaporation of light Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) should be a source of gravitinos. By considering this process, new stringent limits are derived on the abundance of small black holes with initial masses less than 10^9 g. In minimal supergravity, the subsequent decay of evaporated gravitinos into cascades of non-equilibrium particles leads to the formation of elements whose abundance is constrained by observations. In gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking models, their density is required not to overclose the Universe. As a result, cosmological models with substantial inhomogeneities on small scales are excluded.Comment: Published version. Minor changes, references adde

Peasant settlers and the ‘civilizing mission’ in Russian Turkestan, 1865-1917

This article provides an introduction to one of the lesser-known examples of European settler colonialism, the settlement of European (mainly Russian and Ukrainian) peasants in Southern Central Asia (Turkestan) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It establishes the legal background and demographic impact of peasant settlement, and the role played by the state in organising and encouraging it. It explores official attitudes towards the settlers (which were often very negative), and their relations with the local Kazakh and Kyrgyz population. The article adopts a comparative framework, looking at Turkestan alongside Algeria and Southern Africa, and seeking to establish whether paradigms developed in the study of other settler societies (such as the ‘poor white’) are of any relevance in understanding Slavic peasant settlement in Turkestan. It concludes that there are many close parallels with European settlement in other regions with large indigenous populations, but that racial ideology played a much less important role in the Russian case compared to religious divisions and fears of cultural backsliding. This did not prevent relations between settlers and the ‘native’ population deteriorating markedly in the years before the First World War, resulting in large-scale rebellion in 1916

Vasilij Kalika : l'histoire et la légende

Sedel'nikov A. D. Vasilij Kalika : l'histoire et la légende. In: Revue des études slaves, tome 7, fascicule 3-4, 1927. pp. 224-240

Le pèlerinage de l'archimandrite Gréfène : une copie nouvelle

Sedel'nikov A. D. Le pèlerinage de l'archimandrite Gréfène : une copie nouvelle. In: Revue des études slaves, tome 9, fascicule 1-2, 1929. pp. 39-47