V751 Cyg and V Sge as transient supersoft X-ray sources

I review the observational evidence for luminous, soft X-ray emission during optical low-states in the two cataclysmic variables V751 Cyg and V Sge, and discuss the possible link to the canonical supersoft X-ray sources.Comment: 6 pages with newarcrc.sty; inv. talk given at the 60th birthday Symp. in honour of Brian Warner, Oxford, April 1999, to appear in New Astronomy Reviews (Elsevier), eds. P. Charles, A. King, D. O'Donoghue; also available from http://www.aip.de/~jcg/publis.htm

Gamma-ray bursts with ROSAT

I review the use of ROSAT over the last years for the investigation of well localized gamma-ray burst (GRB) error boxes. In particular, I cover (i) the systematic study of several dozens of IPN locations using the ROSAT All-Sky-Survey data, (ii) results of deep ROSAT pointings of selected small GRB error boxes, (iii) the attempts for and results of quick follow-up observations after GRB events including the three GRBs localized with BeppoSAX, (iv) the correlation of GRB locations with serendipitous ROSAT pointings and (v) the search for X-ray flashes in the database of pointed ROSAT observations.Comment: Invited talk at the workshop on "All-sky X-ray observations in the next decade", held at RIKEN, Tokyo, March 3-5, 1997; 6 pages incl. 3 ps-figures, plus workshop style file

Density correlators in a self-similar cascade

Multivariate density moments (correlators) of arbitrary order are obtained for the multiplicative self-similar cascade. This result is based on the calculation by Greiner, Eggers and Lipa (reference [1]) where the correlators of the logarithms of the particle densities have been obtained. The density correlators, more suitable for comparison with multiparticle data, appear to have even simpler form than those obtained in [1].Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, uses epsfig.st

Thermalization through Hagedorn states - the importance of multiparticle collisions

Quick chemical equilibration times of hadrons within a hadron gas are explained dynamically using Hagedorn states, which drive particles into equilibrium close to the critical temperature. Within this scheme master equations are employed for the chemical equilibration of various hadronic particles like (strange) baryon and antibaryons. A comparison of the Hagedorn model to recent lattice results is made and it is found that for both Tc =176 MeV and Tc=196 MeV, the hadrons can reach chemical equilibrium almost immediately, well before the chemical freeze-out temperatures found in thermal fits for a hadron gas without Hagedorn states.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, talk presented at the International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter, Buzios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept. 27 - Oct. 2, 200

Optical counterparts of ROSAT X-ray sources in two selected fields at low vs. high Galactic latitudes

The optical identification of large number of X-ray sources such as those from the ROSAT All-Sky Survey is challenging with conventional spectroscopic follow-up observations. We investigate two ROSAT All-Sky Survey fields of size 10 * 10 degrees each, one at galactic latitude b = 83 deg (Com), the other at b = -5 deg (Sge), in order to optically identify the majority of sources. We used optical variability, among other more standard methods, as a means of identifying a large number of ROSAT All-Sky Survey sources. All objects fainter than about 12 mag and brighter than about 17 mag, in or near the error circle of the ROSAT positions, were tested for optical variability on hundreds of archival plates of the Sonneberg field patrol. The present paper contains probable optical identifications of altogether 256 of the 370 ROSAT sources analysed. In particular, we found 126 AGN (some of them may be misclassified CVs), 17 likely clusters of galaxies, 16 eruptive double stars (mostly CVs), 43 chromospherically active stars, 65 stars brighter than about 13 mag, 7 UV Cet stars, 3 semiregular resp. slow irregular variable stars of late spectral type, 2 DA white dwarfs, 1 Am star, 1 supernova remnant and 1 planetary nebula. X-ray emission is, expectedly, tightly correlated with optical variability, and thus our new method for optically identifying X-ray sources is demonstrated to be feasible.Comment: 92 pages, 521 figures, A&A (accepted