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Spitzer Space Telescope InfraRed Array Camera (IRAC) images of M100 show numerous long filaments with regularly-spaced clumps, suggesting the associated cloud complexes formed by large-scale gravitational instabilities in shocked and accumulated gas. Optical images give no hint of this underlying regularity. The typical spacing between near infrared (NIR) clumps is ~410 pc, which is ~3 times the clump diameter, consistent with the fastest growing mode in a filament of critical line density. The IRAC magnitudes and colors of several hundred clumps are measured in the most obvious 27 filaments and elsewhere. The clump colors suggest that the dust is associated with diffuse gas, PAH emission, and local heating from star formation. Neighboring clumps on the same filament have similar magnitudes. The existence of many clumps all along the filament lengths suggests that the ages of the filaments are uniform. The observations support a model where interstellar gas is systematically accumulated over lengths exceeding several kpc, forming spiral-like filaments that spontaneously collapse into giant clouds and stellar complexes. Optical wavelengths show primarily the irregular dust debris, HII regions, and lingering star formation downstream from these primal formation sites., Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, ApJ, in press

NGC 6946, known as the Fireworks galaxy because of its high supernova rate and high star formation, is embedded in a very extended HI halo. Its northern spiral arm is well detached from the galactic main body. We found that this arm contains a large (~300 pc in size) Red Ellipse, named according to a strong contamination of the H-alpha emission line on its optical images. The ellipse is accompanied by a short parallel arc and a few others still smaller and less regular; a bright star cluster is seen inside these features. The complicated combination of arcs seems to be unique, it is only a bit similar to some SNRs. However, the long-slit spectral data obtained with the Russian 6-m telescope did not confirm the origin of the nebula as a result of a single SN outburst. The emission-line spectrum corresponds to the photoionization by young hot stars with a small contribution of shock ionization. The most likely explanation of the Red Ellipse is a superbbuble created by a collective feedback of massive stars in the star cluster located in the NE side of the Red Ellipse. However, the very regular elliptical shape of the nebulae seems strange., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to MNRAS after revision. Comments welcome

Star-forming regions that are visible at 3.6 microns and Halpha but not in the u,g,r,i,z bands of the Sloan Digital Sky survey (SDSS), are measured in five nearby spiral galaxies to find extinctions averaging ~3.8 mag and stellar masses averaging ~5x10^4 Msun. These regions are apparently young star complexes embedded in dark filamentary shock fronts connected with spiral arms. The associated cloud masses are ~10^7 Msun. The conditions required to make such complexes are explored, including gravitational instabilities in spiral shocked gas and compression of incident clouds. We find that instabilities are too slow for a complete collapse of the observed spiral filaments, but they could lead to star formation in the denser parts. Compression of incident clouds can produce a faster collapse but has difficulty explaining the semi-regular spacing of some regions along the arms. If gravitational instabilities are involved, then the condensations have the local Jeans mass. Also in this case, the near-simultaneous appearance of equally spaced complexes suggests that the dust lanes, and perhaps the arms too, are relatively young., Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, ApJ in press

We investigate photometric properties of spiral arms and stellar complexes/associations inside these arms in the grand design NGC 628 (M74) galaxy.We analyze GALEX ultraviolet, optical UBVRI, and H-alpha? surface photometry data, including those obtained with 1.5 m telescope at the Maidanak Observatory. In the longer arm, the large and bright stellar complexes are located at regular intervals along the arm, but only farther from the galaxy center. They are joined with the narrow lane of dust, visible only in the infrared bands. The usual dust lane along the stellar arm inner side is seen there only at distances closer to the galaxy center. It is well expressed in CO (H_2) image. We have found, that the second, short arm hosts two dust lanes, the strong and wide at the inner side, and narrow and irregular along its outer edge. This outer dust lane is well seen in IR images only. The shorter arm contains no star complexes at all. Gradients of age and luminosity of stars across both arms are missing (again excepting the parts of arms located closer to the center), which is confirmed by our photometric cuts across both arms. The drastic difference in the morphology of the two symmetric arms (grand design type) of a galaxy has now been confirmed by objective measurements in the case of M74. It is unclear why about two third of galaxies with beaded arms host these "beads" (star complexes) in one arm only., Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures, 2 tables (high resolution jpeg Figures 1, 6, and 14 are available in the source format). Accepted for publication in MNRAS

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 figures

We consider the possible pattern of the overall spiral structure of the Galaxy, using data on the distribution of neutral (atomic), molecular, and ionized hydrogen, on the base of the hypothesis of the spiral structure being symmetric, i.e. the assumption that spiral arms are translated into each other for a rotation around the galactic center by 180{\deg} (a two-arm pattern) or by 90{\deg} (a four-arm pattern). We demonstrate that, for the inner region, the observations are best represented with a four-arm scheme of the spiral pattern, associated with all-Galaxy spiral density waves. The basic position is that of the Carina arm, reliably determined from distances to HII regions and from HI and H2 radial velocities. This pattern is continued in the quadrants III and IV with weak outer HI arms; from their morphology, the Galaxy should be considered an asymmetric multi-arm spiral. The kneed shape of the outer arms that consist of straight segments can indicate that these arms are transient formations that appeared due to a gravitational instability in the gas disk. The distances between HI superclouds in the two arms that are the brightest in neutral hydrogen, the Carina arm and the Cygnus (Outer) arm, concentrate to two values, permitting to assume the presence of a regular magnetic field in these arms., Comment: 21 pages, 14 fugures; accepted for publication in Astronomichesky Journal (Astron. Rep.)

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 MNRAS

Most star complexes are in fact complexes of stars, clusters and gas clouds; term "star complexes" was introduced as general one disregarding the preferential content of a complex. Generally the high rate of star formation in a complex is accompanied by the high number of bound clusters, including massive ones, what was explained by the high gas pressure in such regions. However, there are also complexes, where clusters seems to be more numerous in relation to stars than in a common complex. The high rate of clusters - but not isolated stars - formation seems to be typical for many isolated bursts of star formation, but deficit of stars might be still explained by the observational selection. The latter cannot, however, explain the complexes or the dwarf galaxies, where the high formation rate of only stars is observed. The possibility of the very fast dissolution of parental clusters just in such regions should itself be explained. Some difference in the physical conditions (turbulence parameters ?) within the initial gas supercloud might be a reason for the high or low stars/clusters number ratio in a complex., Comment: Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow This paper has been withdrawn by the author because its content is about identical to that of his astro-ph/0512302 paper

We report on a study of young star cluster complexes in the spiral galaxy M51. Recent studies have confirmed that star clusters do not form in isolation, but instead tend to form in larger groupings or complexes. We use {\it HST} broad and narrow band images (from both {\it WFPC2} and {\it ACS}), along with {\it BIMA}-CO observations to study the properties and investigate the origin of the e complexes. We find that the complexes are all young ($< 10$ Myr), have sizes between $\sim$85 and $\sim$240 pc, and have masses between 3-30 $\times 10^{4} M_{\odot}$. Unlike that found for isolated young star clusters, we find a strong correlation between the complex mass and radius, namely $M\propto R^{2.33 \pm 0.19}$. This is similar to that found for giant molecular clouds (GMCs). By comparing the mass-radius relation of GMCs in M51 to that of the complexes we can estimate the star formation efficiency within the complexes, although this value is heavily dependent on the assumed CO-to-H$_2$ conversion factor. The complexes studied here have the same surface density distribution as individual young star clusters and GMCs. If star formation within the complexes is proportional to the gas density at that point, then the shared mass-radius relation of GMCs and complexes is a natural consequence of their shared density profiles. We briefly discuss possibilities for the lack of a mass-radius relation for young star clusters. We note that many of the complexes show evidence of merging of star clusters in their centres, suggesting that larger star clusters can be produced through the build up of smaller clusters., Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures,accepted A&A, high resolution PDF version available at http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~bastian/complexes.pdf

The round and arc-shaped formations are known in some galaxies, the Bubble complex (the Hodge object) in NGC 6946 being the most remarkable. The rim of the complex has a form of a regular arc in which a part of a hexagonal structure is embedded. A similar morphology is recognized in NGC 7421 galaxy, in that part of its rim which is leading in the galaxy motion through the intergalactic gas, as suggested by the bow-shock appearance of the HI halo of the galaxy. A hexagonal shape is also found in NGC4676A galaxy. The HII radial velocities across the Bubble complex are compatible with its retrograde rotation and drift, which are characteristic for solitary vortices known in nonlinear hydrodynamics. The drift motion may explain the location of the Bubble complex at the tip of the largest elliptical HI hole in NGC 6946. The hexagonal vortices in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn are within the gas streams what seems to be suggestive as well. It is conjectured that the hexagonal rims of stellar systems might be relics of flat segments of the shock wave produced by the ram pressure. The giant stellar arcs in NGC 300 and M33 are associated with the energetic X-ray sources P42 and X-4 respectively (fig. 11), and these might be the relics of Hypernovae., Comment: Submitted to Astronomical and Astrophysical Transactions

The evidences are given for the origin of the GRB progenitors from the ready stellar remnants in result of the dynamical interaction in the dense star clusters. In this way the close binaries of compact objects may form and then merge, often after ejecting from the parent cluster. The GRB may trigger star formation in the gaseous partiall sphere and occurence of the GRB afterglows near the star formation regions may be connected with the successive GRB origins in the same parent cluster. The observed distributions of GRB afterglows in Z and in distance to the galactic centers are compatible with the origin of many GRBs in the (present day classical) globular clusters, which were younger than 2 Gyr at the time of many GRBs events., Comment: Paper presented to the Second Roma Workshop on GRB in the afterglow era, October 2000

The paper is devoted to a new direction in SETI. After a general discussion of the field, the authors put forth the hypothesis that the black holes may serve as a physical substratum for intelligent beings. This hypothesis is based on four parallels between the brain-psyche system, on the one hand, and black holes, on the other. (1) The descriptions of brain and psyche, in the system brain-psyche, are complementary to each other, as descriptions by internal and external observers of a black hole in Susskind-t'Hooft's schema. (2) There is an aspect of the inner structure of a black hole in Kerr's model of the rotating black hole that is isomorphic to the structure of the human subjective domain in the psychological model of reflexion. (3) Both black holes and the brain-psyche system have a facet which can be represented using thermodynamic concepts. (4) The brain lends itself to a holographic description; as has been recently demonstrated by Susskind, black holes can also be described holographically. The authors speculate that the intelligent black holes can generate other black holes by triggering creation of massive stars from which new black holes arise after the stars' collapse. In addition, the authors analyze certain strange phenomena related to the birth of young massive stars which may or may not be connected with such a triggering., Comment: 13 pages, accepted for publication at Zemlia i Vselennaya (Earth and Universe) for No.4, 2000

Precessing Gamma Jets, originated by Neutron Stars or Black Holes, may blaze to the observer leading to Gamma Bursts (GRBs) and Soft Gamma repeaters (SGRs). The thin gamma jet is born either at Supernova (SN) like events mostly at the cosmological distances, like GRB, or at nearer accreting binary system, like SGRs. The collimated gamma jet Comptonized by the ultrarelativistic inner electron pairs jets (hitting thermal photos) spins (because of the pulsar) and precedes (because of a companion or accreating disk) in helical and spiral nebular shapes. Its cumulative spray may eject and sweep gas creating nebular rings and plerions and, after long time, partiall HI supershells. Their consequent gravitational fragmentation may lead to characteristic star formation in giant arcs, which might be just the relic imprints of the earliest peaked GRBs and the late steady SGRs precesing jet emissions. Relic stellar rings and arcs may inform, by present morphology on the jet binary eccentricity and its time evolution. Their lifetime and occurrence may probe the Supernova-GRB connection., Comment: 9 pages,1 figure; AAstyle

The bizarre patterns of rapid flashes and bursts in the X-ray source MXB 1730-335 (Rapid Burster) have been puzzling researchers for two decades; especially intriguing are its peculiarities in the time-invariant decay profiles of many type II bursts of the Rapid Burster. We have discovered that they are similar to certain regularities found in cognitive psychology, suggesting an analogy between the activity of the Rapid Burster and the cognitive activity of the human mind., Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures

The origin of a regular, 600 pc-long arc of young stars and clusters in the Constellation III region of the Large Magellanic Cloud is considered. The circular form of this arc suggests that the prestellar gas was uniformly swept up by a central source of pressure. In the center of the arc are six $\sim30$ My old A-type supergiant stars and a Cepheid variable of similar age, which may be related to the source of this pressure. We calculate the expansion of a bubble around a cluster of this age, and show that it could have triggered the formation of the arc at the right time and place. Surrounding the central old stars and extending well outside the young arc is the LMC4 superbubble and giant HI shell. We show how this superbubble and shell could have formed by the continued expansion of the 15 My old cavity, following star formation in the arc and the associated new pressures. The age sequence proposed here was not evident in the recent observations by Olsen et al. and Braun et al. because the first generation stars in the center of the LMC superbubble are relatively faint and scarce compared to the more substantial population of stars less than 15 My old that formed throughout the region in a second generation. These considerations lead to an examination of the origin of the LMC4/Constellation III region and other large rings in the LMC and other galaxies. Their size and circularity could be the result of low galactic shear and a thick disk, with several generations of star formation in their interiors now too faint to see., Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures

Hierarchical structure from stellar clusters, to subgroups, to associations and star complexes is discussed in the context of the Orion stellar grouping and its origin. The analogous structure in gas clouds is also reviewed, with an emphasis on general fractal properties and mass distribution functions. The distinction between the cloud, cluster, and stellar mass functions is discussed in terms of different sampling statistics for hierarchically structured clumps in clouds with an interclump medium., Comment: 34 pages, 12 figures; to be published in "The Orion Complex Revisited," ed. M. J. McCaughrean & A. Burkert, ASP Conference Series, 1998