Studying a sample of late-B fast rotators, the authors have detected narrow absorptions of C IV and Si IV in the direction of six stars within 200 pc of the sun. The features are faint and narrow and in a few cases superimposed on broader and more complex profiles. It is not yet clear if they originate in the surroundings of the star or in the

We use a high-resolution collisionless simulation of a Virgo-like cluster in a ΛCDM cosmology to determine the velocity and clustering properties of the diffuse stellar component in the intracluster region at the present epoch. The simulated cluster builds up hierarchically and tidal interactions between member galaxies and the cluster potential

These notes are a didactic overview of the non perturbative and background independent approach to a quantum theory of gravity known as loop quantum gravity. The definition of real connection variables for general relativity, used as a starting point in the program, is described in a simple manner. The main ideas leading to the definition of the

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Ionized gas and stellar kinematics have been measured along the major axes of seventeen nearby spiral galaxies of intermediate to late morphological type. We discuss the properties of each sample galaxy, distinguishing between those characterized by regular or peculiar kinematics. In most of the observed galaxies, ionized gas rotates more rapidly

The results of medium resolution (R=600) spectrophotometry of 15 bright carbon stars of class N, obtained in the range of lambda:1 to 4.2 microns, are presented. Data is complemented by wide band photometry in JHKLM for a bigger sample. The selected sample of stars does not show evidence of massive circumstellar dust envelopes. The infrared flux is