In gesprek met Iris Kensmil: Cultuurkritiek in kunst, theorie en praktijk

This article is focused on Professor Buikema’s intellectual oeuvre and the relation between art and politics as it materialised in MOED (Museum of Equality and Difference). Astrid Kerchman and Rosa Wevers, MOED’s former project coordinators, reflect on their collaboration with Buikema through an interview with artist Iris Kensmil on the important role of art in complex social issues relating to emancipation, representation, and resistance. Drawing on the interview with Kensmil and Buikema’s Revolts in Cultural Critique (2020), Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken reflects on the meaning of feminist leadership within an institutional context

Delayed X-ray brightening accompanied by variable ionized absorption following a tidal disruption event

Supermassive black holes can experience super-Eddington peak mass fallback rates following the tidal disruption of a star. The theoretical expectation is that part of the infalling material is expelled by means of an accretion disk wind, whose observational signature includes blueshifted absorption lines of highly ionized species in X-ray spectra. To date, however, only one such ultra-fast outflow (UFO) has been reported in the tidal disruption event (TDE) ASASSN-14li. Here we report on the discovery of transient absorption-like signatures in X-ray spectra of the TDE AT2020ksf/Gaia20cjk (at a redshift of $z$=0.092), following an X-ray brightening $\sim 230$ days after UV/optical peak. We find that while no statistically significant absorption features are present initially, they appear on a timescale of several days, and remain detected up to 770 days after peak. Simple thermal continuum models, combined with a power-law or neutral absorber, do not describe these features well. Adding a partial covering, low velocity ionized absorber improves the fit at early times, but fails at late times. A high velocity (v$_w$ $\sim$ 42000 km s$^{-1}$, or -0.15c), ionized absorber (ultra-fast outflow) provides a good fit to all data. The few day timescale of variability is consistent with expectations for a clumpy wind. We discuss several scenarios that could explain the X-ray delay, as well as the potential for larger scale wind feedback. The serendipitous nature of the discovery could suggest a high incidence of UFOs in TDEs, alleviating some of the tension with theoretical expectations.Comment: 14 pages + appendices, accepted for publication in Ap

A HST study of the stellar populations in the cometary dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 2366

We present V and I photometry of the resolved stars in the cometary dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 2366, using Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 images obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope. The resulting color-magnitude diagram reaches down to I~26.0 mag. It reveals not only a young population of blue main-sequence stars (age <30 Myr) but also an intermediate-age population of blue and red supergiants (20 Myr<age<100 Myr), and an older evolved populations of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars (age >100 Myr) and red giant branch (RGB) stars (age >1 Gyr). The measured magnitude I=23.65+/-0.10 mag of the RGB tip results in a distance modulus m-M=27.67+/-0.10, which corresponds to a distance of 3.42+/-0.15 Mpc, in agreement with previous distance determinations. The youngest stars are associated with the bright complex of HII regions NGC 2363=Mrk 71 in the southwest extremity of the galaxy. As a consequence of the diffusion and relaxation processes of stellar ensembles, the older the stellar population is, the smoother and more extended is its spatial distribution. An underlying population of older stars is found throughout the body of NGC 2366. The most notable feature of this older population is the presence of numerous relatively bright AGB stars. The number ratio of AGB to RGB stars and the average absolute brightness of AGB stars in NGC 2366 are appreciably higher than in the BCD VII Zw 403, indicating a younger age of the AGB stars in NGC 2366. In addition to the present burst of age <100 Myr, there has been strong star formation activity in the past of NGC 2366, from ~100 Myr to <3 Gyr ago.Comment: 32 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

The Compression of Dark Matter Halos by Baryonic Infall

The initial radial density profiles of dark matter halos are laid down by gravitational collapse in hierarchical structure formation scenarios and are subject to further compression as baryons cool and settle to the halo centers. We here describe an explicit implementation of the algorithm, originally developed by Young, to calculate changes to the density profile as the result of adiabatic infall in a spherical halo model. Halos with random motion are more resistant to compression than are those in which random motions are neglected, which is a key weakness of the simple method widely employed. Young's algorithm results in density profiles in excellent agreement with those from N-body simulations. We show how the algorithm may be applied to determine the original uncompressed halos of real galaxies, a step which must be computed with care in order to enable a confrontation with theoretical predictions from theories such as LCDM.Comment: Revised version for ApJ. 8 pages, 8 figures, latex uses emulateap

Episodic X-ray Outflows from the Tidal Disruption Event ASASSN-14li

ASASSN-14li is a low-redshift ($z= 0.0206$) tidal disruption event (TDE) that has been studied extensively across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and has provided one of the most sensitive measurements of a TDE to-date. Its X-ray spectrum is soft and thermal (kT$\sim$ 0.05 keV) and shows a residual broad absorption-like feature between 0.6-0.8 keV, which can be associated with a blue-shifted O VII (rest-frame energy 0.57 keV) resulting from an ultrafast outflow (UFO) at early times (within 40 days of optical discovery). By carefully accounting for pile-up and using precise XSTAR photo-ionization table models, we analyze the entire archival X-ray data from XMM-Newton and track the evolution of this absorption feature for $\sim$4.5 years post disruption. Our main finding is that, contrary to the previous literature, the absorption feature is transient and intermittent. Assuming the same underlying physical basis (i.e. outflows) for the recurring absorption feature in ASASSN-14li, the outflow is seen to disappear and reappear multiple times during the first $\sim$2 years of its evolution. No observable spectral imprint is detected thereafter. While theoretical studies suggest the launch of outflows in the early phases of the outburst during the super-Eddington regime, the outflow's intermittent behavior for multiple years after disruption is unusual. We discuss this peculiar behavior within the context of varying inner disk truncation, radiation pressure, and magnetically-driven outflow scenarios.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures (Main text) + Appendix; Under review in ApJ Letter

Discovery of a high state AM CVn binary in the Galactic Bulge Survey

We report on the discovery of a hydrogen-deficient compact binary (CXOGBS J175107.6-294037) belonging to the AM CVn class in the Galactic Bulge Survey. Deep archival X-ray observations constrain the X-ray positional uncertainty of the source to 0.57 arcsec, and allow us to uniquely identify the optical and UV counterpart. Optical spectroscopic observations reveal the presence of broad, shallow He i absorption lines while no sign of hydrogen is present, consistent with a high state system. We present the optical lightcurve from Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment monitoring, spanning 15 years. It shows no evidence for outbursts; variability is present at the 0.2 mag level on timescales ranging from hours to weeks. A modulation on a timescale of years is also observed. A Lomb-Scargle analysis of the optical lightcurves shows two significant periodicities at 22.90 and 23.22 min. Although the physical interpretation is uncertain, such timescales are in line with expectations for the orbital and superhump periods. We estimate the distance to the source to be between 0.5 - 1.1 kpc. Spectroscopic follow-up observations are required to establish the orbital period, and to determine whether this source can serve as a verification binary for the eLISA gravitational wave mission.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter

Early life adversity and serotonin transporter gene variation interact at the level of the adrenal gland to affect the adult hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis

The short allelic variant of the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) promoter-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) has been associated with the etiology of major depression by interaction with early life stress (ELS). Furthermore, 5-HTTLPR has been associated with abnormal functioning of the stress-responsive hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Here, we examined if, and at what level, the HPA-axis is affected in an animal model for ELS × 5-HTTLPR interactions. Heterozygous and homozygous 5-HTT knockout rats and their wild-type littermates were exposed daily at postnatal days 2–14 to 3 h of maternal separation. When grown to adulthood, plasma levels of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), and the major rat glucocorticoid, corticosterone (CORT), were measured. Furthermore, the gene expression of key HPA-axis players at the level of the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal glands was assessed. No 5-HTT genotype × ELS interaction effects on gene expression were observed at the level of the hypothalamus or pituitary. However, we found significant 5-HTT genotype × ELS interaction effects for plasma CORT levels and adrenal mRNA levels of the ACTH receptor, such that 5-HTT deficiency was associated under control conditions with increased, but after ELS with decreased basal HPA-axis activity. With the use of an in vitro adrenal assay, naïve 5-HTT knockout rats were furthermore shown to display increased adrenal ACTH sensitivity. Therefore, we conclude that basal HPA-axis activity is affected by the interaction of 5- HTT genotype and ELS, and is programmed, within the axis itself, predominantly at the level of the adrenal gland. This study therefore emphasizes the importance of the adrenal gland for HPA-related psychiatric disorders

The Tully-Fisher Relation and H_not

The use of the Tully-Fisher (TF) relation for the determination of the Hubble Constant relies on the availability of an adequate template TF relation and of reliable primary distances. Here we use a TF template relation with the best available kinematical zero-point, obtained from a sample of 24 clusters of galaxies extending to cz ~ 9,000 km/s, and the most recent set of Cepheid distances for galaxies fit for TF use. The combination of these two ingredients yields H_not = 69+/-5 km/(s Mpc). The approach is significantly more accurate than the more common application with single cluster (e.g. Virgo, Coma) samples.Comment: 10 pages, including 2 figures and 1 table; uses AAS LaTex. Submitted to ApJ Letter