Gravitational wave recoils in non-axisymmetric Robinson-Trautman spacetimes

We examine the gravitational wave recoil waves and the associated net kick velocities in non-axisymmetric Robinson-Trautman spacetimes. We use characteristic initial data for the dynamics corresponding to non-head-on collisions of black holes. We make a parameter study of the kick distributions, corresponding to an extended range of the incidence angle $\rho_0$ in the initial data. For the range of $\rho_0$ examined ($3^{\circ} \leq \rho_0 \leq 110^{\circ}$) the kick distributions as a function of the symmetric mass parameter $\eta$ satisfy a law obtained from an empirical modification of the Fitchett law, with a parameter $C$ that accounts for the non-zero net gravitational momentum wave fluxes for the equal mass case. The law fits accurately the kick distributions for the range of $\rho_0$ examined, with a rms normalized error of the order of $5 \%$. For the equal mass case the nonzero net gravitational wave momentum flux increases as $\rho_0$ increases, up to $\rho_0 \simeq 55^{\circ}$ beyond which it decreases. The maximum net kick velocity is about $190 {\rm km/s}$ for for the boost parameter considered. For $\rho_0 \geq 50^{\circ}$ the distribution is a monotonous function of $\eta$. The angular patterns of the gravitational waves emitted are examined. Our analysis includes the two polarization modes present in wave zone curvature.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1403.4581, arXiv:1202.1271, arXiv:1111.122

“Les meilleures Causes embarassent les Juges, si elles manquent de bonnes preuves": Père Norbert’s Militant Historiography on the Malabar Rites Controversy

Norbert Bar-Le-Duc (1697- 1769), also known as Abbé Jacques Platel, Pierre Parisot, Pierre Curel, traversed identities and continents, making a career out of controversy, becoming knowns as “le fameux Père Norbert”. He worked in South India as a missionary in 1736-1739 and thereafter played a pivotal role in the Malabar Rites controversy. Back to Europe, Norbert developed a literary offensive against the Jesuits, using historical memoires that accompanied Benedict XIV's ban of the Malabar Rites (1744), while being condemned by the Holy Office in 1745 and 1751. Norbert's life took an adventurous turn, the condemnation leading him to seek refuge in Holland and England where, ever the eclectic, he also established a tapestry factory. He later moved to Portugal as the protegé of the Marquis of Pombal. A major author against the Jesuits, he engaged with Jansenism, freemason networks, English early industrial entrepreneurship and Pombalism, changing his identity to assert himself in opposition to the Society of Jesus. This chapter considers the peculiar form of historiography that he developed in order to carry out his anti-Jesuit polemic. His own polemical “history of the present” was based on the use and abuse of the archives of Propaganda Fide in order to wage a successful war against the Society of Jesus. His works were often written in a careless and repetitive style but were always supported by a rich, if not pletoric, set of documentary evidence. He was a historian with the mind of a lawyer: he knew that “the best causes embarass the Judges if they are deprived of good evidence”

«Glocal» conflicts: Missionary controversies on the Coromandel Coast between the XVII and XVIII centuries

At the beginning of the Eighteenth century the Holy See was called to solve the controversy on the Malabar Rites. The Jesuits that were working in the missions of Madurai, Mysore and «Carnate» were blamed for their tolerance of pagan practices and caste discriminations against the pariahs. This article proposes a category of «glocal», synthesis of «global» and «local», as a tool to interpret the conflict over the Malabar Rites beyond a narrow Romanocentric perspective.The Jesuit accommodatio appears therefore as a particular case of a more generaI trend towards adaptation shared by all the Catholic missionaries operating in South India. The article shows then that the denunciation made by the Capuchin François-Marie de Tours, considered until now as the very origin of a theological conflict on global scale, was in fact just an expression of an anti-Jesuitic front developed along the Coromandel coast and that included also the Venetian traveler Nicolao Manucci or the obscure Calabrian missionary Ignazio Placente. Finally, the article shows how the category of «glocal» may be useful not only to interpret the origin of the Malabar Rites controversy but also to contextualize the project, never accomplished, of an Italian East India Company to be established under the aegis of the congregation of Propaganda Fide

Reduci dalle Indie Orientali: Carlo Horatii da Castorano e Norbert Bar-le-Duc a confronto

This article compares two figures that were involved in the 18th century Rites controversies, namely the Franciscan Carlo Horatii da Castorano and the Capuchin Norbert Bar-le-Duc, who respectively fought against the Chinese and the Malabar Rites. While both religious are considered crucial actors in the process that led to the issue of the Papal Bulls "Ex quo singulari" and "Omnium Sollicitudinum", I argue that this was not the case

Gerarchie razziali e adattamento culturale: La «Ipotesi Valignano»

The Jesuit missionary Alessandro Valignano, praised for adapting Christianity to the cultures of Japan and China, did not support a similar strategy for India and Africa. He theorized racial hierarchies in which a darker skin was associated with ignorance and vice, whereas the similarity to European physical features implied a higher degree of civilisation. Numerous and sincere conversions could be expected in East Asia, whereas the Indian and African neophytes were allegedly led only by terrestrial concerns. A tabula rasa policy was wished so as to transform the "black" new Christians into Europeans. The “Valignano hypothesis” suggests that the close association of accommodatio with racial hierarchies was due to concrete political and economic contexts. The Africans and Indians that converted to Christianity were mostly colonial subjects or tributaries, whereas in the East Asian polities the conversions were not accompanied by any effective Portuguese coercion. As the Thomas Christians of South India were neither subjects or commodities of the Portuguese, Valignano evaluated them in a way closer to the East Asians than to the Indians in general. In 1606, when Valignano died, Roberto Nobili started an accommodationist mission in Madurai, outside the reach of the Portuguese and in a vibrant cultural center ruled by a powerful local dynasty. A clear continuity linked Valignano and Nobili. While they had different evaluations of which society were civilised, they agreed on the racial, political and economic justification of accomodatio. The Badaga caste, to which the local rulers belonged, was differentiated from “the other dark people” and perceived as not inferior to the Japanese, hence it deserved accommodatio together with the Brahmanical elites. Through the ‘Valignano hypothesis’ we realize the anachronism affecting all analogies between the early modern hierarchical accommodatio and post-Vatican II Catholic efforts towards inculturation