COBE Constraints on a Local group X-ray Halo

We investigate the effect of a putative X-ray emitting halo surrounding the Local Group of galaxies, and specifically the possible temperature anisotropies induced in the COBE-DMR four-year sky maps by an associated Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. By fitting the isothermal spherical halo model proposed by Suto et.al. (1996) to the coadded four-year COBE-DMR 53 and 90 GHz sky maps in Galactic coordinates, we find no significant evidence of a contribution. We therefore reject the claim that such a halo can affect the estimation of the primordial spectral index and amplitude of density perturbations as inferred from the DMR data. We find that correlation with the DMR data imposes constraints on the plausible contribution of such an X-ray emitting halo to a distortion in the CMB spectrum (as specified by the Compton-y parameter), up to a value for R -- the ratio of the core radius of the isothermal halo gas distribution to the distance to the Local Group centroid -- of 0.68. For larger values of R, the recent cosmological upper limit derived by COBE-FIRAS provides stronger constraints on the model parameters. Over the entire parameter space for R, we find an upper limit to the inferred sky-RMS anisotropy signal of 14 microKelvin (95% c.l.), a negligible amount relative to the 35 microKelvin signal observed in the COBE-DMR data.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; accepted for publication in MNRAS pink page

Конференція директорів бібліотек вищих навчальних закладів – практика багаторічної співпраці польських університетських бібліотек

The article describes established in 1997 the Conference of Directors of Academic Libraries in Poland (KDBASP): history, formal structure, tasks, forms of activity, working groups, and ongoing projects.У статті представлено Конференцію директорів бібліотек вищих навчальних закладів (КДБВНЗ), започатковану у 1997 р., організацію що представляє інтереси середовища польських університетських бібліотек. Описано історію, структуру, форми діяльності, реалізовані проекти

Probing non-Gaussianities on Large Scales in WMAP5 and WMAP7 Data using Surrogates

Probing Gaussianity represents one of the key questions in modern cosmology, because it allows to discriminate between different models of inflation. We test for large-scale non-Gaussianities in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in a model-independent way. To this end, so-called first and second order surrogates are generated by first shuffling the Fourier phases belonging to the scales not of interest and then shuffling the remaining phases for the length scales under study. Using scaling indices as test statistics we find highly significant signatures for both non-Gaussianities and asymmetries on large scales for the WMAP data of the CMB. We find remarkably similar results when analyzing different ILC-maps based on the WMAP five and seven year data. Such features being independent from the map-making procedure would disfavor the fundamental principle of isotropy as well as canonical single-field slow-roll inflation - unless there is some undiscovered systematic error in the collection or reduction of the CMB data or yet unknown foreground contributions.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of Moriond Cosmology 201

Interplay between pairing and correlations in spin-polarized bound states

We investigate the single and multiple defects embedded in a superconducting host, studying interplay between the proximity induced pairing and interactions. We explore influence of the spin-orbit coupling on energies, polarization and spatial patterns of the bound (Yu-Shiba-Rusinov) states of magnetic impurities in 2-dimensional square lattice. We also address the peculiar bound states in the proximitized Rashba chain, resembling the Majorana quasiparticles, focusing on their magnetic polarization which has been recently reported by S. Jeon et al., [Science 358, 772 (2017)]. Finally, we study leakage of these polarized Majorana quasiparticles on the side-attached nanoscopic regions and confront them with the subgap Kondo effect near to the singlet-doublet phase transition.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure