542 research outputs found
Andrei Tsygankov: âThe US establishment, not the Kremlin, is undermining normalisation with Russiaâ
The release of an intelligence report on Russian interference in the US presidential election, alongside allegations of links between Donald Trump and the Kremlin, have strained US-Russia relations. Andrei P. Tsygankov argues that there remains a deep-rooted fear of Russia within the American establishment, but that Donald Trumpâs election provides an opportunity for the two countries to normalise their relations
Nobody loves Russia: how western media have perpetuated the myth of Putinâs âneo-Soviet autocracyâ
Russiaâs political system has frequently been criticised by Western politicians and commentators, with some observers drawing parallels between the rule of Vladimir Putin and the old Soviet regime during the communist-era. But how accurate are these criticisms? Andrei P. Tsygankov writes that a particular narrative which views Russia as a âneo-Soviet autocracyâ has built up in western media sources. He argues that this narrative ignores the reality of Putinâs regime and serves simply to legitimise the identity of the United States and the American-led âfree worldâ relative to that of an âoppressiveâ Russia
Why Russiaâs âstrong stateâ political system still remains a better option for the country than western-style democracy
Russiaâs political system has often been criticised by commentators and academics who advocate a transition to a more western-style of democracy. Andrei P. Tsygankov argues that while the Russian system under Vladimir Putin undoubtedly requires substantial reforms, the âstrong stateâ model adopted in the country also generates a number of benefits for Russian citizens that have largely been overlooked in the West. He writes that abandoning this model in favour of a western political system would be at odds with the prevailing conditions within the country and that the aim should instead be to reform the existing system so that it works more effectively for ordinary Russians
An upper limit on nickel overabundance in the supercritical accretion disk wind of SS 433 from X-ray spectroscopy
We take advantage of a long (with a total exposure time of 120 ks) X-ray
observation of the unique Galactic microquasar SS 433, carried out with the
XMM-Newton space observatory, to search for a fluorescent line of neutral (or
weakly ionized) nickel at the energy 7.5 keV. We consider two models of the
formation of fluorescent lines in the spectrum of SS 433: 1) due to reflection
of hard X-ray radiation from a putative central source on the optically thick
walls of the accretion disk "funnel"; and 2) due to scattering of the radiation
coming from the hottest parts of the jets in the optically thin wind of the
system. It is shown, that for these cases, the photon flux of Ni I K
fluorescent line is expected to be 0.45 of the flux of Fe I K
fluorescent line at 6.4 keV, for the relative nickel overabundance , as observed in the jets of SS 433. For the continuum model without the
absorption edge of neutral iron, we set a 90 per cent upper limit on the flux
of the narrow Ni I K line at the level of ph
s cm. For the continuum model with the absorption edge, the
corresponding upper limit is ph s cm. At the
same time, for the Fe I K line, we measure the flux of
ph s cm. Taken at the face
value, the results imply that the relative overabundance of nickel in the wind
of the accretion disc should be at least 1.5 times less than the corresponding
excess of nickel observed in the jets of SS 433.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, 4 tables, Astronomy Letters, in press, 2018,
Volume 44, Issue
Western civilizational biases, see Hoffmann
This article addresses the question of interaction between Western and ''non-Western'' international relations (IR) by analyzing liberal theory of IR that is emerging in contemporary Russia. We argue that, despite a growing diversity within Russian scholarship of liberal orientation, it remains largely a product of Western, particularly American, intellectual hegemony, and more so than any other theoretical perspective. As compared to two other existing traditions in Russian IR-realism and critical studies-liberalism remains the most dependent and therefore must be explored before any other traditions as a crucial case for understanding the dialectic of cultural dependence and hegemony in production of global knowledge. We argue that the greater dependence of Russian liberal IR results from its relatively weak indigenous tradition, perception of Russia's material weakness as opportunity, and greater availability of Western research funds. We also discuss an alternative, less dependent version of Russian liberal IR, and opportunities that its existence implies for development of a global, de-centered international relations theory. Scholars do not like to think about their intellectual dependence on the status of their country, and on ambitions of its political elites; it disturbs their sense of belonging to a cosmopolitan, free-floating community of science ⊠And yet, the link exists. And it is sometimes reinforced by institutional arrangements. Stanley Hoffmann (1995: 225) Western scholars can improve their understanding of the world by studying international relations (IR) as a discipline outside the West. For a long time, international relations have been developing as an excessively West-centric and pro-Western branch of research. As many scholars pointed out, IR all too often reflects political, ideological, and epistemological biases of Western, particularly American, civilization. 1 As a result, a perception has arisen throughout the world 1 For various analyses of international relations as a discipline that is ethnocentric and reflects American
Stable accretion from a cold disc in highly magnetized neutron stars
The aim of this paper is to investigate the transition of a strongly
magnetized neutron star into the accretion regime with very low accretion rate.
For this purpose we monitored the Be-transient X-ray pulsar GRO J1008-57
throughout a full orbital cycle. The current observational campaign was
performed with the Swift/XRT telescope in the soft X-ray band (0.5-10 keV)
between two subsequent Type I outbursts in January and September 2016. The
expected transition to the propeller regime was not observed. However, the
transitions between different regimes of accretion were detected. In
particular, after an outburst the source entered a stable accretion state
characterised by the accretion rate of ~10^14-10^15 g/s. We associate this
state with accretion from a cold (low-ionised) disc of temperature below ~6500
K. We argue that a transition to such accretion regime should be observed in
all X-ray pulsars with certain combination of the rotation frequency and
magnetic field strength. The proposed model of accretion from a cold disc is
able to explain several puzzling observational properties of X-ray pulsars.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, accepted by A&
Expanding hot flow in the black hole binary SWIFT J1753.5-0127: evidence from optical timing
We describe the evolution of optical and X-ray temporal characteristics
during the outburst decline of the black hole X-ray binary SWIFT J1753.5-0127.
The optical/X-ray cross-correlation function demonstrates a single positive
correlation at the outburst peak, then it has multiple dips and peaks during
the decline stage, which are then replaced by the precognition dip plus peak
structure in the outburst tail. Power spectral densities and phase lags show a
complex evolution, revealing the presence of intrinsically connected optical
and X-ray quasi-periodic oscillations. For the first time, we quantitatively
explain the evolution of these timing properties during the entire outburst
within one model, the essence of which is the expansion of the hot accretion
flow towards the tail of the outburst. The pivoting of the spectrum produced by
synchrotron Comptonization in the hot flow is responsible for the appearance of
the anti-correlation with the X-rays and for the optical quasi-periodic
oscillations. Our model reproduces well the cross-correlation and phase lag
spectrum during the decline stage, which could not be understood with any model
proposed before.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, MNRAS submitte
Spectral Formation in Accreting X-Ray Pulsars: Bimodal Variation of the Cyclotron Energy with Luminosity
Accretion-powered X-ray pulsars exhibit significant variability of the
Cyclotron Resonance Scattering Feature (CRSF) centroid energy on pulse-to-pulse
timescales, and also on much longer timescales. Two types of spectral
variability are observed. For sources in group 1, the CRSF energy is negatively
correlated with the variable source luminosity, and for sources in group 2, the
opposite behavior is observed. The physical basis for this bimodal behavior is
currently not understood. We explore the hypothesis that the accretion dynamics
in the group 1 sources is dominated by radiation pressure near the stellar
surface, and that Coulomb interactions decelerate the gas to rest in the group
2 sources. We derive a new expression for the critical luminosity such that
radiation pressure decelerates the matter to rest in the supercritical sources.
The formula for the critical luminosity is evaluated for 5 sources, using the
maximum value of the CRSF centroid energy to estimate the surface magnetic
field strength. The results confirm that the group 1 sources are supercritical
and the group 2 sources are subcritical, although the situation is less clear
for those highly variable sources that cross over the critical line. We also
explain the variation of the CRSF energy with luminosity as a consequence of
the variation of the characteristic emission height. The sign of the height
variation is opposite in the supercritical and subcritical cases, hence
creating the observed bimodal behavior.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic
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