Damped transverse oscillations of magnetic loops are routinely observed in the solar corona. This phenomenon is interpreted as standing kink magnetohydrodynamic waves, which are damped by resonant absorption owing to plasma inhomogeneity across the magnetic field. The periods and damping times of these oscillations can be used to probe the physical

Several authors have reported that the dynamical masses of massive compact galaxies (M* ≳ 1011 M⊙, re ∼ 1 kpc), computed as Mdyn = 5.0 σe2 re/G, are lower than their stellar masses M*. In a previous study from our group, the discrepancy is interpreted as a breakdown of the assumption of homology that underlie the Mdyn determinations. Here, we

From the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 12, which covers the full Baryonic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) footprint, we investigate the possible variation of the fine-structure constant over cosmological time-scales. We analyse the largest quasar sample considered so far in the literature, which contains 13 175 spectra (10

Chariklo is known to possess an exotic ring system and we show indications from several distinct data sets that Chiron also has a ring system with similar features to that of Chariklo, although its case is somewhat more complex because Chariklo has never shown cometary-like activity, whereas Chiron has.

Within the context of the collaboration "B fields in OB stars" (BOB), we used the FORS2 low-resolution spectropolarimeter to search for a magnetic field in 50 massive stars, including two reference magnetic massive stars. Because of the many controversies of magnetic field detections obtained with the FORS instruments, we derived the magnetic field

This paper highlights very recent advances concerning the identification of new mechanisms that introduce polarization in spectral lines, which turn out to be key for understanding some of the most enigmatic scattering polarization signals of the solar visible spectrum. We also show a radiative transfer prediction on the scattering polarization