The Blandford-Znajek process, the steady electromagnetic energy extraction from a rotating black hole, is widely believed to work for driving relativistic jets, although it is still under debate where the electric current is driven. We address this issue analytically by investigating the time-dependent state in the Boyer-Lindquist and Kerr-Schild coordinate systems. This analysis suggests that a non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic region is required in the time-dependent state, while not in the steady state.

A huge amount of data has been acquired with the GREGOR Fabry-Pérot Interferometer (GFPI), large-format facility cameras, and since 2016 with the High-resolution Fast Imager (HiFI). These data are processed in standardized procedures with the aim of providing science-ready data for the solar physics community. For this purpose, we have developed a user-friendly data reduction pipeline called “sTools” based on the Interactive Data Language (IDL) and licensed under creative commons license. The pipeline delivers reduced and image-reconstructed data with a minimum of user interaction. Furthermore, quick-look data are generated as well as a webpage with an overview of the observations and their statistics. All the processed data are stored online at the GREGOR GFPI and HiFI data archive of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP). The principles of the pipeline are presented together with selected high-resolution spectral scans and images processed with sTools.

A very active area of research in the field of core-collapse supernovae (SNe) is the study of their progenitors and the links with different subtypes. Direct identification using pre- and post-SN images is a powerful method but it can only be applied to the most nearby events. An alternative method is the hydrodynamical modeling of SN light curves and expansion velocities, which can serve to characterize the progenitor (e.g. mass and radius) and the explosion itself (e.g. explosion energy and radioactive yields). This latter methodology is particularly powerful when combined with stellar evolution calculations. We review our current understanding of the properties of normal core-collapse SNe based chiefly on these two methods.

Young star clusters (YSCs) appear to be a ubiquitous product of star formation in local galaxies, thus, they can be used to study the star formation process at work in their host galaxies. Moreover, YSCs are intrinsically brighter that single stars, potentially becoming the most important tracers of the recent star formation history in galaxies in the local Universe. In local galaxies, we also witness the presence of a large population of evolved star clusters, commonly called globular clusters (GCs). GCs peak formation history is very close to the redshift (z ~ 2) when the cosmic star formation history reached the maximum. Therefore, GCs are usually associated to extreme star formation episodes in high-redshift galaxies. It is yet not clear whether YSCs and GCs share a similar formation process (same physics under different interstellar medium conditions) and evolution process, and whether the former can be used as progenitor analogs of the latter. In this invited contribution, I review general properties of YSC populations in local galaxies. I will summarise some of the current open questions in the field, with particular emphasis to whether or not galactic environments, where YSCs form, leave imprints on the nested populations. The importance of this rapidly developing field can be crucial in understanding GC formation and possibly the galactic environment condition where this ancient population formed.

In this contribution I provide a brief summary of the contents of Gaia DR1. This is followed by a discussion of studies in the literature that attempt to characterize the quality of the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution parallaxes in Gaia DR1, and I point out a misconception about the handling of the known systematic errors in the Gaia DR1 parallaxes. I highlight some of the more unexpected uses of the Gaia DR1 data and close with a look ahead at the next Gaia data releases, with Gaia DR2 coming up in April 2018.

We describe here the parallels in astronomy and earth science datasets, their analyses, and the opportunities for methodology transfer from astroinformatics to geoinformatics. Using example of hydrology, we emphasize how meta-data and ontologies are crucial in such an undertaking. Using the infrastructure being designed for EarthCube - the Virtual Observatory for the earth sciences - we discuss essential steps for better transfer of tools and techniques in the future e.g. domain adaptation. Finally we point out that it is never a one-way process and there is enough for astroinformatics to learn from geoinformatics as well.

This review presents the latest advances in the nebular studies of post-AGB objects. Post-AGB stars are great tools to test nucleosynthesis and evolution models for stars of low and intermediate masses, and the evolution of dust in harsh environment. I will present the newly discovered class of post-RGB stars, formed via binary interaction on the RGB. Binary systems can also lead to the formation of two class of aspherical post-AGB, the Proto-Planetary Nebulae and the naked post-AGBs (dusty RV Taus, a.k.a. Van Winckel’s stars).

Recent high-precision photometry from space (e.g., Kepler) enables us to investigate the nature of “superflares” on solar-type stars. The bolometric energy of superflares detected by Kepler ranges from 1033 erg to 1036 erg which is 10-10,000 times larger than that released by a typical X10 class solar flare. The occurrence frequency (dN/dE) of superflares as a function of flare energy (E) shows the power-law distribution with the power-law index of ~−1.8 for 1034 < E < 1036 erg. Most of superflare stars show quasi-periodic light variations which suggest the presence of large starspots. The bolometric energy released by flares is consistent with the magnetic energy stored near the starspots. The occurrence frequency of superflares increases as the rotation period decreases. However, the energy of the largest flares observed in a given period bin does not show any clear correlation with the rotation period. These results suggest that superflares would occur on the slowly-rotating stars.

Observational evidence from archival, pre-explosion images, suggests that progenitors of type-IIP SNe (SNe-IIP) have 8 ⩽ MP ⩽ 17 M⊙. However, the post-explosion temporal evolution of the event suggests that even in this mass range, the stellar evolutionary paths, the ensuing mass loss, and the eventual interaction of the supernova shock with the resulting CSM can show considerable diversity. Here we present the results from our program on multi-waveband (mainly optical) observations of SNe-IIP. Mass loss in their progenitors, with a massive and extended H-envelopes, is seen to occur via both strong stellar winds, or episodic mass ejections. Moreover, some type-IIP SNe also show unusually steep decline, characteristic of type-IIL (e.g. SN-IIP 2013ej). Our early and late-time spectrophotometry of these events shows CSM- shock interaction to varying degree among progenitors of comparable mass. Combined with X-ray data, our findings suggest that SNe-IIP progenitors can lose mass via strong stellar winds (e.g. SN2013ej, and SN2014cx), have episodic mass loss (SN2011ja), or have negligible mass loss (SN2012aw, SN2013ab).

We extend our MCMC sampler of 3D EoR simulations, 21CMMC, to perform parameter estimation directly on light-cones of the cosmic 21cm signal. This brings theoretical analysis one step closer to matching the expected 21-cm signal from next generation interferometers like HERA and the SKA. Using the light-cone version of 21CMMC, we quantify biases in the recovered astrophysical parameters obtained from the 21cm power spectrum when using the co-eval approximation to fit a mock 3D light-cone observation. While ignoring the light-cone effect does not bias the parameters under most assumptions, it can still underestimate their uncertainties. However, significant biases (∼few – 10 σ) are possible if all of the following conditions are met: (i) foreground removal is very efficient, allowing large physical scales (k ∼ 0.1 Mpc−1) to be used in the analysis; (ii) theoretical modelling is accurate to ∼10 per cent in the power spectrum amplitude; and (iii) the 21cm signal evolves rapidly (i.e. the epochs of reionisation and heating overlap significantly

Python is considered to be a mature programming language, besides of being widely accepted as an engaging option for scientific analysis in multiple areas, as will be presented in this work for the particular case of solar physics research. SunPy is an open-source library based on Python that has been recently developed to furnish software tools to solar data analysis and visualization. In this work we present a graphical user interface (GUI) based on Python and Qt to effectively compute proper motions for the analysis of time series of solar data. This user-friendly computing interface, that is intended to be incorporated to the Sunpy library, uses a local correlation tracking technique and some extra tools that allows the selection of different parameters to calculate, vizualize and analyze vector velocity fields of solar data, i.e. time series of solar filtergrams and magnetograms.

We simulate the formation and evolution of young star clusters from turbulent molecular clouds using smoothed-particle hydrodynamics and direct N-body methods. We find that the shape of the cluster mass function that originates from an individual molecular cloud is consistent with a Schechter function with power-law slopes of β = −1.73. The superposition of mass functions turn out to have a power-law slope of < −2. The mass of the most massive cluster formed from a single molecular cloud with mass Mg scales with 6.1 M0.51g. The molecular clouds that tend to form massive clusters are much denser than those typical found in the Milky Way. The velocity dispersion of such molecular clouds reaches 20km s−1 and it is consistent with the relative velocity of the molecular clouds observed near NGC 3603 and Westerlund 2, for which a triggered star formation by cloud-cloud collisions is suggested.

In this concluding article I recall the early history of the Gaia mission, showing that the original science case and expectations of wide community interest in Gaia data have been met. The quarter-century long partnership involving some 1,000 scientists, engineers and managers in industry and academia is delivering a large, high-quality and unique data set which will underpin astrophysics across many sub-fields for years to come.

Recent observations of the magnetic field in pre-main sequence stars suggest that the magnetic field topology changes as a function of age. The presence of a tachocline could be an important factor in the development of magnetic field with higher multipolar modes. In this work we performed MHD simulations using the EULAG-MHD code to study the magnetic field generation and evolution in models that mimic stars at two evolutionary stages. The stratification for both stellar phases was computed by fitting stellar structure profiles obtained with the ATON stellar evolution code. The first stage is at 1.1Myr, when the star is completely convective. The second stage is at 14Myrs, when the star is partly convective, with a radiative core developed up to 30% of the stellar radius. In this proceedings we present a preliminary analysis of the resulting mean-flows and magnetic field. The mean-flow analysis shown that the star rotate almost rigidly on the fully convective phase, whereas at the partially convective phase there is differential rotation with conical contours of iso-rotation. As for the mean magnetic field both simulations show similarities with respect to the field evolution. However, the topology of the magnetic field is different.

Linking core-collapse SNe to their stellar progenitors is a major ongoing challenge. To date, H rich Type IIP SNe have been shown to come from red supergiants, while there is increasing evidence that the majority of stripped envelope SNe come from binary systems. The first candidates for failed SNe, where a massive star collapses to form a black hole without a bright optical display have been identified, while the range of outbursts and eruptions from pre-SN stars are just beginning to be revealed.

Observational effort is on the way to probe the 21-cm of neutral hydrogen from the epochs of Reionization and Cosmic Dawn. Our current poor knowledge of high redshift astrophysics results in a large uncertainty in the theoretically predicted 21-cm signal. A recent parameter study that is highlighted here explores the variety of 21-cm signals resulting from viable astrophysical scenarios. Model-independent relations between the shape of the signal and the underlying astrophysics are discussed. Finally, I briefly note on possible alternative probes of the high redshift Universe, specifically Fast Radio Bursts.

Here we discuss the observational properties of supernovae exploding in extremely dense environments, namely Type IIn supernovae (SNe IIn). In SNe IIn, the surrounding environments play significant role in the supernovae energetics and evolution. Thus they are different than other classes of core collapse supernovae, whose energetics are not significantly altered by their environments. Though high density of medium is a prerequisite for radio and X-ray emission, less than 10% on SNe IIn are bright in these bands. This has important implications for their progenitor models. I will discuss the radio and X-ray observations of SNe IIn, which are crucial to unravel their complex environments. We also discuss some individual supernovae belonging to this class and discuss as to how they have refined our understanding of SNe IIn. Finally the importance of well sampled long term light curves in radio and X-ray bands cannot be stressed enough.

We present infrared two color diagrams (2CDs) for a large sample of AGB stars, post-AGB stars, and planetary nebulae (PNe) to study their spectral evolution in infrared bands. We discuss possible evolutionary tracks from AGB stars to PNe on the 2CDs. We use catalogs from the available literature for the sample of AGB stars, post-AGB stars, and PNe in our Galaxy.

We present recent results of the studies of low angular momentum accretion of matter onto Schwarzschild black hole using fully relativistic numerical simulations. We compare the resulting 2D structure of transonic flows with results of 1D pseudo-Newtonian computations of non-magnetized flow. The research has observable consequences on black holes on the whole mass scale, in particular it is related to the time-scale and shape of luminosity flares in Sgr A* or to the evolution of QPO frequency during outbursts of microquasars.

Astronomy is rapidly approaching an impasse: very large datasets require remote or cloud-based parallel processing, yet many astronomers still try to download the data and develop serial code locally. Astronomers understand the need for change, but the hurdles remain high. We are developing a data archive designed from the ground up to simplify and encourage cloud-based parallel processing. While the volume of data we host remains modest by some standards, it is still large enough that download and processing times are measured in days and even weeks. We plan to implement a python based, notebook-like interface that automatically parallelises execution. Our goal is to provide an interface sufficiently familiar and user-friendly that it encourages the astronomer to run their analysis on our system in the cloud—astroinformatics as a service. We describe how our system addresses the approaching impasse in astronomy using the SAMI Galaxy Survey as an example.