On the chains of star complexes and superclouds in spiral arms

The relation is studied between occurrence of a regular chain of star complexes and superclouds in a spiral arm, and other properties of the latter. A regular string of star complexes is located in the north-western arm of M31; they have about the same size 0.6 kpc with spacing of 1.1 kpc. Within the same arm segment the regular magnetic field with the wavelength of 2.3 kpc was found by Beck et al. (1989). We noted that this wavelength is twice as large as the spacing between complexes and suggested that they were formed in result of magneto-gravitational instability developed along the arm. In this NW arm, star complexes are located inside the gas-dust lane, whilst in the south-western arm of M31 the gas-dust lane is upstream of the bright and uniform stellar arm. Earlier, evidence for the age gradient has been found in the SW arm. All these are signatures of a spiral shock, which may be associated with unusually large (for M31) pitch-angle of this SW arm segment. Such a shock may prevent the formation of the regular magnetic field, which might explain the absence of star complexes there. Anti-correlation between shock wave signatures and presence of star complexes is observed in spiral arms of a few other galaxies. Regular chains of star complexes and superclouds in spiral arms are rare, which may imply that a rather specific mechanism is involved in their formation, and the most probable one is the Parker-Jeans instability. The spiral pattern of our Galaxy is briefly discussed; it may be of M101 type in the outer parts. The regular bi-modal spacing of HI superclouds is found in Carina and Cygnus (Outer) arms, which may be an indirect evidence for the regular magnetic field along these arms.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

RAMPEX - a new spin experiment (presented for HELION97, 20-24 Jan 1997, Kobe, Japan)

RAMPEX - Russian-AMerican Polarization EXperiment - is dedicated to studies of one-spin asymmetries which have twist-3 and also twist-2 origin, in hard and semi-hard inclusive processes on the polarized propane-diol target. A special consideration has been given for the prospects of using polarized 3He target. The studies will be performed at the Serpukhov accelerator at 70 GeV/c (proton beam) and 40 GeV/c (pi- beam).Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur

Transversity in the chiral quark--soliton model and single spin asymmetries

A short review of single spin asymmetries in deep inelastic semi-inclusive processes, connected with prediction of chiral quark-soliton model for the nucleon transversity distributions, its possible theoretical understanding in the framework of QCD-induced approach and arising difficulties is given.Comment: Contribution to the Festschrift on the occasion of Klaus Goeke's 60th birthday, to appear in Annalen der Physik, 13 pages, 15 figure

Sivers vs. Collins effect in azimuthal single spin asymmetries in pion production in SIDIS

Recently it has been argued that the transverse momentum dependent twist-2 Sivers distribution function does not vanish in QCD. Therefore both, the Collins and Sivers effects, should be considered in order to explain the azimuthal single spin asymmetries A(UL) in pion production in semi-inclusive deeply inelastic lepton scattering of a longitudinally polarized target. On the basis of presently available phenomenological information on the Sivers function we estimate that for those asymmetries A(UL) in the kinematic region of the HERMES experiments the Sivers effect can be neglected with respect to the Collins effect. It is argued that the same feature holds also for the COMPASS and CLAS experiments. This justifies theoretical approaches to understand the HERMES data on the basis of the Collins effect only.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures. References added, small changes in text, Appendix adde

Transverse single spin asymmetry in the Drell-Yan process

We revisit the transverse single spin asymmetry in the angular distribution of a Drell-Yan dilepton pair. We study this asymmetry by using twist-3 collinear factorization, and we obtain the same result both in covariant gauge and in the light-cone gauge. Moreover, we have checked the electromagnetic gauge invariance of our calculation. Our final expression for the asymmetry differs from all the previous results given in the literature. The overall sign of this asymmetry is as important as the sign of the Sivers asymmetry in Drell-Yan.Comment: 9 page

Azimuthal single spin asymmetries in SIDIS in the light of chiral symmetry breaking

An attempt is made to understand the z-dependence of the azimuthal single spin asymmetries observed by the HERMES collaboration in terms of chiral models based on effective quark and Goldstone boson degrees of freedom. The effects of respectively neglecting and considering Gaussian intrinsic parton transverse momenta and the Sivers effect are explored. Predictions for the transverse target polarization experiment at HERMES are presented.Comment: 14 pages, 18 figure

Giant stellar arcs in the Large Magellanic Cloud: a possible link with past activity of the Milky Way nucleus

The origin of the giant stellar arcs in the LMC remains a controversial issue, discussed since 1966. No other stellar arc is so perfect a segment of a circle, moreover, there is another similar arc nearby. Many hypotheses were advanced to explain these arcs, and all but one of these were disproved. It was proposed in 2004 that origin of these arcs was due to the bow shock from the jet, which is intermittently fired by the Milky Way nucleus and during the last episode of its activity the jet was pointed to the LMC. Quite recently evidence for such a jet has really appeared. We suppose it was once energetic enough to trigger star formation in the LMC, and if the jet opening angle was about 2{\deg}, it could push out HI gas from the region of about 2 kpc in size, forming a cavity LMC4, but also squeezed two dense clouds, which occurred in the same area, causing the formation of stars along their surfaces facing the core of the MW. In result, spherical segments of the stellar shells might arise, visible now as the arcs of Quadrant and Sextant, the apices of which point to the center of the MW. This orientation of both arcs can be the key to unlocking their origin. Here we give data which confirm the above hypothesis, amongst which are radial velocities of stars inside and outside the larger one of the LMC arcs. The probability is low that a jet from an AGN points to a nearby galaxy and triggers star formation there, but a few other examples are now known or suspected.Comment: MNRAS Letters, accepted 2012 November 1. Received 2012 November 1; in original form 2012 September 7 6 pages, 3 figure

Azimuthal asymmetry in electro-production of neutral pions in SIDIS

Recently HERMES has observed an azimuthal asymmetry in electro-production of neutral pions in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering of unpolarized positrons off longitudinally polarized protons. This asymmetry (like those observed in the production of charged pions) is well reproduced theoretically by using the non-perturbative calculation of the proton transversity distribution in the effective chiral quark-soliton model combined with experimental DELPHI-data on the new T-odd Collins fragmentation function. There are no free, adjustable parameters in the analysis. Using the $z$-dependence of the HERMES azimuthal asymmetry and the calculated transversity distributions the z-dependence of the Collins fragmentation function is obtained. The value obtained from HERMES data is consistent with the DELPHI result, even though these results refer to different scales.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. Fig.3c, Fig.4a updated, conclusions adde