Studies of accretion flows around rotating black holes – II. Standing shocks in the pseudo-Kerr geometry

Standing, propagating or oscillating shock waves are common in accretion and winds around compact objects. We study the topology of all possible solutions using the pseudo-Kerr geometry. We present the parameter space spanned by the specific energy and angular momentum and compare it with that obtained from the full general relativity to show that the potential can work satisfactorily in fluid dynamics also, provided the polytropic index is suitably modified. We then divide the parameter space depending on the nature of the solution topology. We specifically study the nature of the standing Rankine–Hugoniot shocks. We also show that as the Kerr parameter is increased, the shock location generally moves closer to the black hole. In future, these solutions can be used as guidelines to test numerical simulations around compact objects.     

The evolution of regional development concepts: some new trends

This paper traces the theoretical development of the regional concept and the use of regionalization techniques in Soviet geography and seeks to compare this history with comparable trends in Western geography. It is severely critical of the major and rapid paradigm shifts noticed in post-war Western geographical science and relates these to shifts in the approach to global development issues.     

PROBLEMS IN CONSTRUCTING A BATHYMETRIC BASE MAP FOR THE GULF OF FINLAND

The various steps required for compilation of a bathymetric chart of the Gulf of Finland are outlined, taking into account the specific conditions characteristic of that water body. The use of available initial source materials and special survey work required for supplementing these sources is discussed. Translated by Edward Torrey, Alexandria, VA 22308 from: Geodeziya i kartografiya, 1988, No. 8, pp. 40-42.     

The interpretation of body trace metal concentrations in neogastropods from Hong Kong.

Three species of neogastropods, i.e., Thais clavigera, Thais luteostoma and Morula musiva, were collected from 12 sites in the coastal waters of Hong Kong, including clean and known metal-enriched ones. Accordingly, body trace metal concentrations varied greatly. Copper and zinc body concentrations compared poorly with those of accepted biomonitors and presumed metal contamination profiles. Much is known about the feeding ecology of neogastropods on local shores and where direct observational data were not available, their diets could, nevertheless, be estimated reliably. Accumulated metal concentrations can be interpreted with regard to dietary history. T. luteostoma, for example, had body copper concentrations of 51.8 microg g(-1) on an exposed shore and a diet of mainly barnacles. In contrast, on a sheltered shore (but only some 250 m distant) where the diet consisted mainly of oysters, body copper concentrations were approximately 15 times greater at 833 microg g(-1). Similar results were obtained for T. clavigera. The results of this analysis suggest that neogastropods can play a significant role in trace metal trophic transfer studies, especially as their representatives are intertidally and subtidally ubiquitous and can be spatially separated into tropical specialists and temperate generalists.     

Expansion of the principal functions of Keplerian motion using complex variables

A special system of canonical variables is considered. An algorithm for expanding the principal functions of Keplerian motion in new elements is presented. The advantage of the proposed system is a relatively small number of terms in the classical expansions of the unperturbed two-body problem. A method for expanding the time derivatives of the rectangular coordinates is proposed. Some estimates of the number of terms in the presented expansions have been obtained through numerical experiments.     

Landscape Controls on Structural Variation in Eucalypt Vegetation Communities: Woronora Plateau,Australia

Quantification of landscape-based vegetation structural variation and pattern is a significant goal for a variety of ecological, monitoring and biodiversity studies. Vegetation structural metrics, derived from airborne laser scanning (ALS or aerial light detection and ranging—LiDAR) and QuickBird satellite imagery, were used to establish the degree of plot-based vegetation variation at a hillslope scale. Topographic position is an indicator of energy and water availability, and was quantified using DEM-based insolation and topographic wetness, respectively, stratifying areas into hot-warm-cold and wet-moist-dry topographic classes. A range of vegetation metrics—maximum and modal canopy height, crown cover, foliage cover, NDVI and semivariance—were compared among randomly selected plots from each topographic class. NDVI increases with increasing landscape wetness, whereas ALS-derived foliage cover decreases with increasing insolation. Foliage cover is well correlated with crown cover (R ² =0.65), and since foliage cover is readily calculable for whole-of-landscape application, it will provide valuable and complementary information to NDVI. Between-plot heterogeneity increases with increasing wetness and decreasing insolation, indicating that more sampling is required in these locations to capture the full range of landscape-based variability. Pattern analysis in landscape ecology is one of the fundamental requirements of landscape ecology, and the methods described here offer statistically significant, quantifiable and repeatable means to realise that goal at a fine spatial grain.     

Spatially resolved spectroscopy of the E+A galaxies in the z= 0.32 cluster AC 114

We present spatially resolved intermediate-resolution spectroscopy of a sample of 12 E+A galaxies in the   z = 0.32  rich galaxy cluster AC 114, obtained with the FLAMES multi-integral field unit system on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory. Previous integrated spectroscopy of all these galaxies by Couch & Sharples had shown them to have strong Balmer line absorption and an absence of [O  ii ]λ3727 emission – the defining characteristics of the 'E+A' spectral signature, indicative of an abrupt halt to a recent episode of quite vigorous star formation. We have used our spectral data to determine the radial variation in the strength of Hδ absorption in these galaxies and hence map out the distribution of this recently formed stellar population. Such information provides important clues as to what physical event might have been responsible for this quite dramatic change in star formation activity in the recent past of these galaxies. We find a diversity of behaviour amongst these galaxies in terms of the radial variation in Hδ absorption: four galaxies show little Hδ absorption across their entire extent; it would appear they were misidentified as E+A galaxies in the earlier integrated spectroscopic studies. The remainder show strong Hδ absorption, with a gradient that is either negative (Hδ equivalent width decreasing with radius), flat or positive . By comparison with numerical simulations we suggest that the first of these different types of radial behaviour provides evidence for a merger/interaction origin, whereas the latter two types of behaviour are more consistent with the truncation of star formation in normal disc galaxies with the Hδ gradient becoming increasingly positive with time after truncation. It would seem therefore that more than one physical mechanism is responsible for E+A formation in the same environment.