A new generation of radio telescopes with unprecedented capabilities for astronomy and fundamental physics will be in operation over the next few years. With high sensitivities and large fields of view, they are ideal for cosmological applications. We discuss their uses for cosmology focusing on the observational technique of HI intensity mapping, in particular at low redshifts (z < 4). This novel observational window promises to bring new insights for cosmology, in particular on ultra-large scales and at a redshift range that can go beyond the dark energy domination epoch. In terms of standard constraints on the dark energy equation of state, telescopes such as Phase I of the SKA should be able to obtain constrains about as well as a future galaxy redshift surveys. Statistical techniques to deal with foregrounds and calibration issues, as well as possible systematics are also discussed.

This essay introduces the papers from the specially organized session on the theme ‘The 2012 phenomenon: Maya calendar, astronomy, and apocalypticism in the worlds of scholarship and popular culture’. The papers that follow address this topical theme in the contexts of Maya and Western cultures as well as academic and popular cultures.

Unpulsed high energy (TeV) emission has been detected from several isolated pulsars (Aharonian 1999) and presumably results from relativistic electrons accelerated at the termination shock of an MHD wind driven by the pulsar itself. These electrons inverse Compton scatter target photons from either the cosmic microwave background, or from their own synchrotron radiation.

The rotation-powered binary pulsar PSR B1259–63 (Johnston et al. 1996) is also thought to drive an MHD wind, and the synchrotron radiation of electrons accelerated at its termination shock is probably the source of the unpulsed X-rays seen from this object by ROSAT, OSSE and ASCA (Tavani & Arons 1997). Compared to the isolated pulsars, however, the the pulsar’s Be-star companion provides an energy density of target photons available for inverse Compton scattering which is some 11 orders of magnitude larger. Using delta-function approximations to the emissivities and a monochromatic approximation to the spectrum of the target photons, we modelled the observed X-ray synchrotron emission and predicted the TeV emission in a recent paper (Kirk et al. 1999). In this contribution we improve these calculations in two respects – by treating the target spectrum more precisely, as described in the companion paper (Ball & Kirk 1999), and by relaxing the approximations made in the emissivities.

In the next generation surveys, the discovery of moving objects can be successful only if an observation strategy and the identification/orbit determination procedure are appropriate for the diverse apparent motions of the target sub-populations. The observations must accurately measure the displacement over a short interval of time; observations believed to belong to the same object have to be connected into tracklets. Information contained in tracklets is in most cases not sufficient to compute an orbit: two or more of them must be identified to provide an orbit. We have developed a method for recursive identification of tracklets allowing an unbiased orbit determination for all sub-populations and efficient enough to cope with the data flow expected from the next generation surveys. The success of the new algorithms can be easily measured only in a simulation, by consulting a posteriori some “ground truth”.

We present here the results of a simulation of the orbit determination for one month of operations of the future Pan-STARRS survey, based upon a Solar System Model with a downsized population of Main Belt asteroids and a full size populations of Trojans, NEO, Centaurs, Comets and TNO. The results indicate that the method already developed and tested to find identifications of NEO and Main Belt asteroids are directly applicable to Trojans. The more distant objects often require modified algorithms, fitting orbits with only 4 parameters in a coordinate system specially adapted to handle very short arcs of observations. These orbits are mostly used as intermediate results, allowing to find full solutions as more tracklets are identified.

When the number density of detections is as large as expected from the next generation surveys, both joining observations into tracklets and identifying tracklets can produce some false results. The only reliable way to remove them is a procedure of tracklet/identification management. It compares the tracklets and the identifications with a complex logic, allowing to discard almost all the false tracklets and all the false identifications. However, the distant objects still present a challenge for orbit determination: they require three tracklets in separate nights. If this requirement is met we have found no problem in achieving an unbiased orbit determination for all populations. Further work will lead to more advanced simulations, in particular by introducing a realistic model for astrometric and photometric errors.

The scientific goals for the TMT (Thirty Meter Telescope) are consistent with all the objectives outlined by the top level astronomy review committees in both Canada and the United States. In addition to powerful seeing-limited instruments, TMT will include instruments that will take advantage of the full diffraction-limited performance of a 30m telescope at wavelengths $\gt 1 \mu {\rm m}$. This will enable TMT to meet the challenges presented by the scientific requirements and will provide full complementarity with future project like JWST and ALMA. This paper presents a brief review of the status of TMT and an overview of the instruments and their adaptive optic systems.

How can teachers and researchers contribute to a new world-wide way to teach astronomy? The Hands-On-Universe group proposes multi-media tools, from remote telescopes to image processing, inspired by the most recent research activities in astronomy and astrophysics. Teachers and students can learn, in a quantitative way, to analyse images and spectra using free data sets and softwares available at the website www.eu-hou.org.

Spectra of Uranus were obtained with the 122 cm reflector of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory using the spectrometer of the Main Astronomical Observatory of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (Kiev), in March 1969. A photomultiplier (Soviet type 79) was used in a pulse counting mode, and the dispersion of the spectrometer at the camera focal plane was 15 Å/mm.

The Strömgren-Crawford (SC) intermediate-band photometric system is a very powerful and efficient one for the detailed study of stars, and therefore the Milky Way and local universe. However, due to the narrow bandwidth, low efficiency of detectors and serious atmospheric extinction in u band, and high photometric accuracy required, there was only one all sky survey in this system finished a decade ago, which is restricted to stars brighter than 8.3 mag in y (equal to V) in the solar neighborhood. In this context, it is the right time to carry out an all sky survey to a completeness depth of ~19 mag, equivalent to a volume-completed distance 4 kpc for solar-type stars. For stars brighter than 15 mag in V, the expected photometric accuracies are ~0.01mag. With these stars, high precision 3D extinction map can be obtained thanks to the β index. Stellar atmospheric parameters can be determined with accuracies comparable to those from high-resolution spectroscopy. Fundamental parameters like stellar luminosities and distances can be reliably estimated as well. We propose to use the Nanshan 1m telescope to start the survey in early 2014 in the Northern sky. There are several 1-m class telescopes in Chile which can be used to perform the Southern sky survey. This entire survey, when finished, will greatly improve our knowledge on stars and the Galaxy, and will provide us the first 6D map of the Milky Way together with the LAMOST survey and the Gaia mission.

We review the recent results of the nucleosynthesis yields of massive stars. We examine how those yields are affected by some hydrodynamical effects during the supernova explosions, namely, explosion energies from those of hypernovae to faint supernovae, mixing and fallback of processed materials, asphericity, etc. Those parameters in the supernova nucleosynthesis models are constrained from observational data of supernovae and metal-poor stars. The elemental abundance patterns observed in extremely metal-poor stars show some peculiarities relative to the solar abundance pattern, which suggests the important contributions of hypernovae and faint supernovae in the early chemical enrichment of galaxies. These constraints on supernova nucleosynthesis are taken into account in the latest yield table for chemical evolution modeling.

Indonesia is a very big country with over 238 million people. And we only have one higher learning institution on astronomy, so how do we reach and convey astronomical information effectively to the whole country? The answer lies in Astronomy Clubs who play an increasingly important role to communicate and educate the public. As part of South East Asia, Indonesia is actively involved in the region to develop astronomy.

In this invited review talk I summarize some of the recent observational advances in understanding mass loss from low-mass stars. This can take the form of a relatively steady wind, or stochastically occurring coronal mass ejections (CMEs). In recent years, there has been an expansion of observational signatures used to probe mass loss in low-mass stars. These observational tools span the electromagnetic spectrum. There has also been a resurgence of interest in this topic because of its potential impact on exoplanet space weather and habitability. The numerous recent observational and theoretical results also point to the complexities involved, rather than using simple scalings from solar understanding. This underscores the need to understand reconnection and eruption processes on magnetically active stars as a tool to putting our Sun in context.

The next generation low-frequency radio telescopes may probe cosmological models by means of observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). I discuss the prospects for observations of CMB imprints —- recombination lines from the epoch of recombination, μ distortions and angular temperature anisotropies —- at low frequencies. A future low-frequency radio telescope, like the proposed SKA, may be capable of attempting some difficult CMB measurements because of the large collecting area and large element numbers; however, this will require a telescope design that will allow specialized calibration strategies and will give emphasis to the control of spurious responses.

Almost every survey for β Cephei detection has been restricted to the small area of the HR diagram that contained the 15-20 first discovered. (Table 1). Of course, every new short period pulsating star found in such an a priori limited region has strengthened the impression that an instability box could be derived from the study of the statistics of β Cep variables. That conclusion could have led to the discovery of a β Cep pulsation mechanism related to a particular mass - age internal structure status. On the contrary if the phenomenon is due to a mechanism acting in a wider extension of the HR diagram (and so probably better related to envelope properties) one still has to explain why its detection seems to be easier in the B0-B1 zone. Moreover, even within the “instability box” some classical β Cep could be either in core hydrogen burning phase or others in shell hydrogen burning phase, i.e. with quite different internal structures.

The paper presents an overview of the problems astronomical data centers are facing today.

When one organizes a colloquium, one can do some fairly outrageous things, like putting ones own contribution first . However as an excuse for such a procedure, I shall say that I want really not to discuss that much what the C.D.S. itself does, but what problems we have been confronted with, specially those which came up since the last Strasbourg colloquium, or which got more complicated to handle.

Theoretical evolutionary sequences have been generated with the YREC code for a 15 M⊙ star from the ZAMS to core helium exhaustion with a variety of physical assumptions, covering both rotating and non-rotating cases. The non-rotating models agree qualitatively with other models found in the literature. The addition of only rotational distortion has little effect on the models, while the full treatment of rotation results in additional mixing and theoretical tracks that are similar to models with small amounts of convective overshoot. Models which include only rotation have fair agreement with the observed main sequence surface rotation velocities, but rotate too rapidly during the post-main sequence phases. The addition of mass loss at the given rates helps this problem somewhat but does not appear to completely resolve it. Neither the non-rotating models nor the rotating models provide full agreement with the terminal-age main sequence band used by Maeder & Meynet (1987); this may be indicative that additional mixing processes are necessary or that a more recent TAMS, such as that of Stothers (1991), should be used.

Outer convection zones of white dwarfs in the range 5800 K ≤ Teff ≤ 30000 K have been studied assuming that they have the same chemical composition as determined by Weidemann (1960) for van Maanen 2. Convection is important in all these stars. In white dwarfs Teff < 8000 K the adiabatic temperature gradient is strongly influenced by the pressure ionization of H, HeI and HeII which occurs within the convection zone. Partial degeneracy is also important.

Convective velocities are very small for cool white dwarfs but they reach considerable values for hotter objects. For a white dwarf of Teff = 30000 K a velocity of 6.05 km/sec and an acoustic flux (generated by the turbulent convection) of 1.5 × 1011 erg cm−2 sec−1 is reached. The formation of white dwarf coronae is briefly discussed.

The last ten years of observations have shown beyond doubt the fundamental role played by the magnetic field in the heating of stellar atmospheres. After the recognition of the extreme inhomogeneity of the solar corona, two basic new trends have appeared in the theoretical literature on the coronal heating problem. One is the adoption of a global point of view that stresses the connection of the properties of the upper layers to those of the underlying ones. In this way a general framework is provided, capable of accomodating many possible heating mechanisms that need not to be specified at this stage. The second novelty is the explicit inclusion in the theory of the inhomogeneous nature of the stellar envelopes, as a result of the presence of magnetic fields. The present status of knowledge on the subject as determined by the above evolution of the theoretical approach will be reviewed.

Recent research has suggested that long-duration gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs) occur preferentially in low-metallicity environments, but the exact nature of this correlation is currently a matter of intense debate. We use the newest generation of the Starburst99/Mappings code to generate an extensive suite of cutting-edge stellar population synthesis models, covering a wide range of physical parameters specifically tailored for modeling the ISM environments of metal-poor galaxies and LGRB host galaxies. With our models, we generate optical emission line diagnostics, which will allow us to examine the ISM properties and stellar populations of a variety of galaxy populations in unprecedented detail. While accurately modeling low-metallicity galaxies still poses a challenge to these models, future improvements to these grids will have profound consequences for our understanding of metal-poor galaxies, their ISM environments, and the nature of their role as the hosts of LGRBs.

We present a 3D N-body simulation of the Milky Way including 4 × 105 star- and dark-like particles and 2 × 104 gas particles, initially distributed according to an axisymmetric, observationally constrained, mass model. The whole system is self-gravitating and the gas hydrodynamics is solved using the SPH method. The simulation leads to the spontaneous formation of a central bar that strongly affects the gas dynamics. We compute (l – V) diagrams for both the gaseous and the stellar particles as a function of the angle of the bar with respect to the observer and compare the results for the gas with HI and CO observations.