A search for the presence of magnetic fields in the two Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients IGR J08408-4503 and IGR J11215-5952

A significant fraction of high-mass X-ray binaries are supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs). The prime model for the physics governing their X-ray behaviour suggests that the winds of donor OB supergiants are magnetized. To investigate if magnetic fields are indeed present in the optical counterparts of such systems, we acquired low-resolution spectropolarimetric observations of the two optically brightest SFXTs, IGR J08408-4503 and IGR J11215-5952 with the ESO FORS2 instrument during two different observing runs. No field detection at a significance level of 3sigma was achieved for IGR J08408-4503. For IGR J11215-5952, we obtain 3.2sigma and 3.8sigma detections (_hydr = -978+-308G and _hydr = 416+-110G) on two different nights in 2016. These results indicate that the model involving the interaction of a magnetized stellar wind with the neutron star magnetosphere can indeed be considered to characterize the behaviour of SFXTs. We detected long-term spectral variability in IGR J11215-5952, while for IGR J08408-4503 we find an indication of the presence of short-term variability on a time scale of minutes.Comment: 5 pages, 1 table, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

The Chinese Enigma in Anglo-American Popular Literature, 1900-1939

i ... introduction Implicit within the pages of our ephemeral popular literature are certain themes which reach out and receive an unquestioning unity of perfect understanding. These are the universals, the Everymen of popular art, reflecting in bold blacks and whites the tenets of the culture they serve. Passion and honor, the challenge and conquest of evil, are some of the motifs - familiar verities striking an immediate response - around which our popular fiction has been built. Another such theme concerns the Chinese. For over four decades the vast audiences for what may be termed America\u27s popular arts have unhesitatingly accepted as axiomatic a portrait of the Chinese involving, at its worst, malevolence and the sinister, dark raptures and the diabolic occult. The appearance of such stereotypes in our popular literature, their waning and transformations, and the enigma of their relationship to our culture, will be the subjects of this study