Gaia DR1 has opened a new era of stellar age dating, that is crucial for many astrophysical objectives. In addition, the Gaia based isochrone fitting ages can be compared to other chemical clocks like the [Y/Mg] one (Nissen et al. 2015). In our work we have used ESO archived data of the AMBRE project (de Laverny et al. 2013) for UVES spectra, in order to evaluate the age [Y/Mg] abundance correlation for turn off stars. 310 turn off stars of the UVES-archive (setups 564 and 580) are included in the TGAS database. Isochrone fitting ages were derived. We have applied the GAUGUIN procedure for those stars to derive the Mg and the Y abundances. As the result we present the [Y/Mg] vs stellar age dependence for ~40 TO-stars.

Binary stars can interact via mass transfer when one member (the primary) ascends onto a giant branch. The amount of gas ejected by the binary and the amount of gas accreted by the secondary over the lifetime of the primary influence the subsequent binary phenomenology. Some of the gas ejected by the binary will remain gravitationally bound and its distribution will be closely related to the formation of planetary nebulae. We investigate the nature of mass transfer in binary systems containing an AGB star by adding radiative transfer to the AstroBEAR AMR Hydro/MHD code.

The HAWC gamma-ray observatory is a wide field of view and high duty cycle γ-ray detector investigating the 0.1 - 100 TeV energy range. It has detected supermassive black holes in the near Universe, and is seeking to detect black hole related objects like gamma-ray bursts, Galactic binary systems, primordial black holes and gravitational wave mergers. Daily light curves of the BL Lac objects Mrk 421 and Mrk 501 are presented here, together with a compilation of studies of black hole related objects.

Comets in the Oort cloud evolve under the influence of internal and external perturbations from giant planets to stellar passages, the Galactic tides, and the interstellar medium.Using the positions, parallaxes and proper motions from TGAS in Gaia DR1 and combining them with the radial velocities from the RAVE-DR5, Geneva-Copenhagen and Pulkovo catalogues, we calculated the closest encounters the Sun has had with other stars in the recent past and will have in the near future. We find that the stars with high proper motions near to the present time are missing in the Gaia-TGAS, and those to tend to be the closest ones. The quality of the data allows putting better constraints on the encounter parameters, compared to previous surveys.

Our knowledge of the formation and early evolution of globular clusters (GCs) has been totally shaken with the discovery of the peculiar chemical properties of their long-lived host stars. Therefore, the interpretation of the observed Colour Magnitude Diagrams (CMD) and of the properties of the GC stellar populations requires the use of new stellar models computed with relevant chemical compositions. In this paper we use the grid of evolution models for low-mass stars computed by Chantereau et al. (2015) with the initial compositions of second-generation stars as predicted by the fast rotating massive stars scenario to build synthesis models of GCs. We discuss the implications of the assumed initial chemical distribution on 13 Gyr isochrones. We build population synthesis models to predict the fraction of stars born with various helium abundances in present day globular clusters (assuming an age of 13 Gyr). With the current assumptions, 61 % of stars on the main sequence are predicted to be born with a helium abundance in mass fraction, Yini, smaller than 0.3 and only 11 % have a Yini larger than 0.4. Along the horizontal branch, the fraction of stars with Yini inferior to 0.3 is similar to that obtained along the main sequence band (63 %), while the fraction of very He-enriched stars is significantly decreased (only 3 % with Yini larger than 0.38).

Rotational speed is an important physical parameter of stars: knowing the distribution of stellar rotational velocities is essential for understanding stellar evolution. However, rotational speed cannot be measured directly and is instead the convolution between the rotational speed and the sine of the inclination angle vsin(i). The problem itself can be described via a Fredhoml integral of the first kind. A new method (Curé et al. 2014) to deconvolve this inverse problem and obtain the cumulative distribution function for stellar rotational velocities is based on the work of Chandrasekhar & Münch (1950). Another method to obtain the probability distribution function is Tikhonov regularization method (Christen et al. 2016). The proposed methods can be also applied to the mass ratio distribution of extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs (in binary systems, Curé et al. 2015).

For stars in a cluster, where all members are gravitationally bounded, the standard assumption that rotational axes are uniform distributed over the sphere is questionable. On the basis of the proposed techniques a simple approach to model this anisotropy of rotational axes has been developed with the possibility to “disentangling” simultaneously both the rotational speed distribution and the orientation of rotational axes.

We present the results of our search for low- and intermediate mass evolved stars in the outer Galaxy using AllWISE catalogue photometry. We show that the [3.4]−[12] vs. [4.6]−[22] colour-colour diagram is most suitable for separating C-rich/O-rich AGB and post-AGB star candidates. We are able to select 2,510 AGB and 24,821 post-AGB star candidates. However, the latter are severely mixed with the known young stellar objects in this diagram.

Large magnetometric surveys have contributed to the detection of an increasing number of magnetic massive stars, and to the recognition of a population of magnetic massive stellar objects with distinct properties. Among these, NGC 1624-2 possesses the largest magnetic field of any O-type star; such a field confines the stellar wind into a circumstellar magnetosphere, which can be probed using observations at different wavelength regimes. Recent optical and X-ray observations suggest that NGC 1624-2’s magnetosphere is much larger than that of any other magnetic O star. By modeling the variations of UV resonance lines, we can constrain its velocity structure. Furthermore, recent spectropolarimetric observations raise the possibility of a more complex field topology than previously expected. Putting all of these multi-wavelength constraints together will allow us to paint a consistent picture of NGC 1624-2 and its surprising behavior, giving us valuable insight into the very nature of massive star magnetospheres.

Current Galactic surveys, including the Gaia mission, rely on the efficiency of the spectral analysis techniques to provide precise and accurate spectral information (i.e. effective temperature, surface gravity, metallicity, and chemical abundances) in the shortest computational time. In this work, we present a new package to preform complete spectral analyses based on the spectral synthesis technique (Tsantaki et al. 2017, submitted). We focus on deriving atmospheric parameters for FGK-type stars using both high and medium resolution (GIRAFFE) spectra. This method is implemented on the Gaia-ESO benchmark stars to confirm its validity, achieving similar accuracy for the two resolution setups.

In the past decade, observational evidence that Globular Clusters (GCs) harbour multiple stellar populations has grown steadily. These observations are hard to reconcile with the classical picture of star formation in GCs, which approximates them as a single generation of stars. Bastian et al. recently suggested an evolutionary scenario in which a second, chemically distinct, population is formed by the accretion of chemically enriched material onto the protoplanetary disc of low-mass stars in the initial GC population. Using assumptions that represent the (dynamical) conditions in a typical GC, we investigate whether a low-mass star surrounded by a protoplanetary disc can accrete sufficient enriched material to account for the observed abundances in ‘second generation’ stars. We compare the outcome of two different smoothed particle hydrodynamics codes and focus on the lifetime and stability of the disc and on the gas accretion rate onto both the star and the disc.

A subset of Post-AGB (PAGB) objects are the highly luminous RV Tauri variables that show similarities to Type-II Cepheids. By using a sample of known RV Tauri stars from the Magellanic Clouds we are able to determine period luminosity relationships (PLRs) in various bands that have been used to determine the luminosities of their Galactic counterparts. We have gathered all available photometry in order to generate an SED for each object and determine the total integrated flux. This total flux combined with a calculated or inferred intrinsic luminosity leads to a distance (Vickers et al. 2015). This distance catalogue has allowed us to begin to constrain the physical parameters of this poorly understood evolutionary phase and to determine links between these physical characteristics as a function of their stellar population.

Recent very high energy observations of the galactic centre region performed by H.E.S.S. revealed the presence of a powerful PeVatron. This is the first of such objects detected, and its most plausible counterpart seems to be associated to Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole in the centre of our galaxy. The implications of this discovery will be discussed, in particular in the context of the problem of the origin of galactic cosmic rays.

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a cubic kilometer neutrino telescope located at the Geographic South Pole. Cherenkov radiation emitted by charged secondary particles from neutrino interactions is observed by IceCube using an array of 5160 photomultiplier tubes embedded between a depth of 1.5 km to 2.5 km in the Antarctic glacial ice. The detection of astrophysical neutrinos is a primary goal of IceCube and has now been realized with the discovery of a diffuse, high-energy flux consisting of neutrino events from tens of TeV up to several PeV. Many analyses have been performed to identify the source of these neutrinos: correlations with active galactic nuclei, gamma-ray bursts, and the galactic plane. IceCube also conducts multi-messenger campaigns to alert other observatories of possible neutrino transients in real-time. However, the source of these neutrinos remains elusive as no corresponding electromagnetic counterparts have been identified. This proceeding will give an overview of the detection principles of IceCube, the properties of the observed astrophysical neutrinos, the search for corresponding sources (including real-time searches), and plans for a next-generation neutrino detector, IceCube–Gen2.

We present Chandra X-ray grating spectroscopy of the B0.2V star, θ Carina. θ Car is in a critical transition region between the latest O-type and earliest B-type stars, where some stars are observed to have UV-determined wind densities much lower than theoretically expected (e.g., Marcolino et al. 2009). In general, X-ray emission in this low-density wind regime should be less prominent than for O-stars (e.g., Martins et al. 2005), but observations suggest a higher than expected X-ray emission filling factor (Lucy 2012; Huenemoerder et al. 2012); if a larger fraction of the wind is shock-heated, it could explain the weak UV wind signature seen in weak wind stars, but this might severely challenge predictions of radiatively-driven wind theory.

We measured the line widths of several He-, H-like and Fe ions and the f/i ratio of He-like ions in the X-ray spectrum, which improves upon the results from Nazé et al. (2008) (XMM-Newton RGS) with additional measurements (Chandra HETG) of Mgxi and Sixiii by further constraining the X-ray emission location. The f/i ratio is modified by the proximity to the UV-emitting stellar photosphere, and is therefore a diagnostic of the radial location of the X-ray emitting plasma. The measured widths of X-ray lines are narrow, <300 km s−1 and the f/i ratios place the X-rays relatively close to the surface, both implying θ Car is a weak wind star. The measured widths are also consistent with other later-type stars in the weak wind regime, β Cru (Cohen et al. 2008), for example, and are smaller on average than earlier weak wind stars such as μ Col (Huenemoerder et al. 2012). This could point to a spectral type divide, where one hypothesis, low density, works for early-B type stars and the other hypothesis, a larger fraction of shock-heated gas, explains weak winds in late-O type stars. Archival IUE data still needs to be analyzed to determine the mass loss rate and hydrodynamical simulations will be compared with observations to determine which hypothesis works for θ Car.

We present the complex study of the open cluster NGC 2281 where both traditional and newly developed methods for study of open clusters have been used. Morphological and dynamical parameters of the cluster were obtained from the accepted astrometric data. The new method “Superposition of Gaussian surfaces” along with proper motion of stars was used to determine membership probabilities which were helpful in selection of stars for further analysis. Metallicity and radial velocity of the cluster were obtained from spectroscopic measurements. Age, colour excess, and distance of the cluster were determined using absolute CCD photometry combined with previous results. The results were compared with those of previous studies.

We have performed 3D hydrodynamic simulations of a symmetrical jet ejection following previous works (Raga et al. 2009, Riera et al. 2014, Velázquez et al. 2014). The jet is emitted from a binary system in elliptical orbit, and its direction changes describing a precession cone. We have considered that the jet has a time-dependence density ejection or a time-dependence velocity ejection, in order to propose an alternative model to explain the morphology of PPNe’s. Also in our description we have included the effect of the photoionization of the central source. From numerical results, synthetic Hα maps were obtained, and a proper motion study were carried out. We found that the photoionization has an important effect on the case with variation density resulting in a increse in the Hα emission.

Globular clusters (GCs) are known to have a very small amount of or no dark matter (DM). Even if GCs are formed in individual DM halos, they must have lost the majority of the DM through dynamical processes such as mass segregation or tidal stripping. Using Fokker-Planck (FP) calculations, we investigate the dynamical evolution of three Galactic GCs with an assumption that they were formed in mini DM halos. We trace the amount of DM of 47 Tuc, NGC 1851, and M 15, which are a ‘disk/bulge’ cluster, an ‘old halo’ cluster, and a ‘young halo’ cluster, respectively. We find that these three GCs must have initially had insignificant amounts of DM, less than 10 percent of the initial stellar mass of each cluster.

The detailed study of the Galactic stellar halo may hold the key to unlocking the assembly history of the Milky Way. Here, we present a machine learning model for selecting metal poor stars from the TGAS catalogue using 5 dimensional phase-space information, coupled with optical and near-IR photometry. We characterise the degree of substructure in our halo sample in the Solar neighbourhood by measuring the velocity correlation function.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), the next-generation optical imaging survey sited at Cerro Pachon in Chile, will provide hundreds of detections for a sample of more than ten million quasars with redshifts up to about seven. The LSST design, with an 8.4m (6.7m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 sq. deg. field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera, will allow about 10,000 sq. deg. of sky to be covered twice per night, every three to four nights on average, with typical 5-sigma depth for point sources of r=24.5 (AB). With about 1000 observations in ugrizy bands over a 10-year period, these data will enable a deep stack reaching r=27.5 (about 5 magnitudes deeper than SDSS) and faint time-domain astronomy. The measured properties of newly discovered and known astrometric and photometric transients will be publicly reported within 60 sec after closing the shutter. In addition to a brief introduction to LSST, I review optical quasar selection techniques, with emphasis on methods based on colors, variability properties, and astrometric behavior.

We report on the composition of turn-off stars in the intriguing open cluster, NGC 6791, which is old, but super-metal-rich using Keck/HIRES spectra. We find [Fe/H] = +0.30 ±0.02[O/Fe]n −0.06 ±0.02,[Mg/Fe], [Si/Fe], [Ca/Fe], and [Ti/Fe] near solar and the two Fe-peak elements, Cr and Ni, are consistent with Fe.