The long-term monitoring of magnetic cycles is a key diagnostic in understanding how dynamo generation and amplification of magnetic fields occur in solar-like stars. One of the current key problems is the establishment of the magnetic field behavior during the activity cycles for stars of different ages and evolutionary statuses. We present the experience of using own long-term datasets for study of activity cycles in selected stars at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory.

Activities started in early 2015. Individuals applying for nomination for IAU Individual Membership should have contacted their NCA or Adhering Organization before December 1, 2014. The deadline for approved nominations for Individual Members to be submitted to the IAU Secretariat by NCAs or Adhering Organizations was February 3, 2015. Therefore, the focus of this report are the last months prior to the IAU XXIX General Assembly (August 2015) in Honolulu.

The Pristine survey uses narrow-band photometry on the region of the Ca II H & K absorption lines to find extremely metal-poor stars. With a spectroscopic follow-up sample of 205 stars in the magnitude range 14 < V < 18, we compute the success rates for finding extremely metal-poor stars and modify the selection criteria used to select stars for follow-up. This reduces the sample to 149 stars, and from these we report success rates of 22% for recovering stars with [Fe/H] < −3.0 and 70% for [Fe/H] < −2.5. When compared to previous works that search for extremely metal-poor stars, the success rates of Pristine show an improvement in efficiency by a factor of ~4 − 5.

Long-term periodicities of magnetic fields in cool stars are usually studied from activity indicators, which are only indirectly related to the presence of the field. Direct detections are complicated issues since even a complex magnetic structure, as the solar one, has a very low disk integrated magnetic signal, which is usually hidden in the noise level. We introduce a method for the direct measurement of small integrated longitudinal stellar magnetic fields (effective magnetic fields), called multi-line slope method, based on the regression of the Stokes V signal with respect to the first derivative of Stokes I. We present the results of the application of this technique to a dataset of 9 yr of observations of the active star epsilon Eridani, obtained with the spectropolarimeters Narval, HARPSpol and CAOS, showing that the long-term variation of the effective magnetic field corresponds to the period of the cycle retrieved by the activity indicators.

In this presentation the author narrates some key episodes of his life of serving the IAU for more than seventy years.

Astronomy, more than most sciences, requires an international collaboration. It is the duty of the IAU to insure, between astronomers of the whole world, scientific and human relations. Less than 1,000 astronomers at the time (1946) of my first papers, more than 10,000 today: this means many international collaborations, and many faithful friendships, through several General Assemblies, and many Symposia and Colloquia. To the young astronomers, I must only wish : Cheer up !

Not being able to participate to the XXXth General Assembly in Vienna, the author sent a video presentation (available on the Vienna GA web site), and also provided a spoken text (in French) that was rendered in written form by a voice-to-text software. This text, a recollection of the author’s life “inside the IAU”, was then translated and formatted by Chris Sterken. The English version follows; the original French text is included as an Appendix.

The DESGW program is a collaboration between members of the Dark Energy Survey, the wider astronomical community, and the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration to search for optical counterparts of gravitational wave events, such as those expected from binary neutron star mergers or neutron star-black hole mergers. While binary black hole (BBH) events are not expected to produce an electromagnetic (EM) signature, emission is certainly not impossible. The DESGW program has performed follow-up observations of four BBH events detected by LIGO in order to search for any possible EM counterpart. Failure to find such counterparts is still relevant in that it produces limits on optical emission from such events. This is a review of follow-up results from O1 BBH events and a discussion of the status of ongoing uniform re-analysis of all BBH events that DESGW has followed up to date.

We initiated a long-term and highly frequent monitoring project toward 442 methanol masers at 6.7 GHz (Dec >−30 deg) using the Hitachi 32-m radio telescope in December 2012. The observations have been carried out daily, monitoring a spectrum of each source with intervals of 9–10 days. In September 2015, the number of the target sources and intervals were redesigned into 143 and 4–5 days, respectively. This monitoring provides us complete information on how many sources show periodic flux variations in high-mass star-forming regions, which have been detected in 20 sources with periods of 29.5–668 days so far (e.g., Goedhart et al. 2004). We have already obtained new detections of periodic flux variations in 31 methanol sources with periods of 22–409 days. These periodic flux variations must be a unique tool to investigate high-mass protostars themselves and their circumstellar structure on a very tiny spatial scale of 0.1–1 au.

Black widows and redbacks are binary systems consisting of a millisecond pulsar in a close binary with a companion having matter driven off of its surface by the pulsar wind. X-rays due to an intrabinary shock have been observed from many of these systems, as well as orbital variations in the optical emission from the companion due to heating and tidal distortion. We have been systematically studying these systems in radio, optical and X-rays. Here we will present an overview of X-ray and optical studies of these systems, including new XMM-Newton and NuStar data obtained from several of them, along with new optical photometry.

We have studied the dynamics of the solar active region (AR) NOAA 12192 using full-disc continuum images and the vector magnetograms observed by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) onboard Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). AR 12192 is the largest region of the solar cycle 24. It underwent a noticeable growth and produced 6 X-class, 22 M-class and 53 C-class flares during its disc passage. But the most peculiar fact of this AR is that it was associated with only one CME in spite of producing several X-class flares. In this work, we present the area evolution of this giant sunspot group during the first three rotations when it appeared as AR 12172, AR 12192 and AR 12209, respectively. We have also attempted to make a comparative study of the flare-related photospheric magnetic field and Lorentz force changes for both the eruptive and non-eruptive flares produced by AR 12192.

Determining the locations of the major snowlines in protostellar environments is crucial to fully understand the planet formation process and its outcome. Despite being located far enough from the central star to be spatially resolved with ALMA, the CO snowline remains difficult to detect directly in protoplanetary disks. Instead, its location can be derived from N2H+ emission, when chemical effects like photodissociation of CO and N2 are taken into account. The water snowline is even harder to observe than that for CO, because in disks it is located only a few AU from the protostar, and from the ground only the less abundant isotopologue H218O can be observed. Therefore, using an indirect chemical tracer, as done for CO, may be the best way to locate the water snowline. A good candidate tracer is HCO+, which is expected to be particularly abundant when its main destructor, H2O, is frozen out. Comparison of H218O and H13CO+ emission toward the envelope of the Class 0 protostar IRAS2A shows that the emission from both molecules is spatially anticorrelated, providing a proof of concept that H13CO+ can indeed be used to trace the water snowline in systems where it cannot be imaged directly.

Surveys of pulsating stars in the inner Galaxy have been very limited, but recent large-scale surveys are rapidly bringing us new samples of various kinds of variable stars and new insights into stellar populations therein. Because of the severe interstellar extinction along the Galactic disc, the stellar populations in the inner Galaxy are more easily observed in the infrared, but even in the infrared the interstellar extinction may cause a serious problem in revealing their accurate characteristics. Here we review recent discoveries of Cepheids and Miras, two kinds of luminous pulsating stars with period–luminosity relation, in the inner Galaxy.

Transitional millisecond pulsars (tMSPs), which are systems that harbor a pulsar in the throes of the recycling process, have emerged as a new source class since the discovery of the first such system a decade ago. These systems switch between accretion-powered low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) and rotation-powered radio millisecond pulsar (RMSP) states, and provide exciting avenues to understand the physical processes that spin-up neutron stars to millisecond periods. During the last decade, three tMSPs, as well as a candidate source, have been extensively probed using systematic, multi-wavelength campaigns. Here we review the observational highlights from these campaigns and our general understanding of tMSPs.

We present evidence of the excitation of vertically polarised transverse loop oscillations triggered by a catastrophic cooling of a coronal loop with two thirds of the loop mass comprising of cool rain mass. The nature and excitation of oscillations associated with coronal rain is not well understood. We consider observations of coronal rain using data from IRIS, SOT/Hinode and AIA/SDO in a bid to elucidate the excitation mechanism and evolution of wave characteristics. We apply an analytical model of wave-rain interaction, that predicts the inertial excitation amplitude of transverse loop oscillations as a function of the rain mass, to deduce the relative rain mass. It is consistent with the evolution of the oscillation period showing the loop losing a third of its mass due to falling coronal rain in a 10-15 minute time period.

Results are presented from our ongoing studies of Titan using ALMA during the period 2012-2015, including a confirmation of the previous detection of vinyl cyanide (C2H3CN), as well as the first spatial map for this species on Titan. Simultaneous mapping of HC3N, CH3CN and C2H5CN reveal characteristic abundance patterns for each species that provide insight into their individual photochemical lifetimes, and help inform our understanding of Titan’s unique, time-variable atmospheric chemistry and global circulation. A time-sequence of HC3N maps covering 38 months reveals a dramatic change in the distribution of this gas consistent with high-altitude photochemical production followed by advection towards the southern (winter) pole, combined with rapid loss in the north after Titan’s 2009 seasonal equinox. The 2015 C2H3CN and C2H5CN maps show abundance peaks in Titan’s southern hemisphere, similar to those observed for the short-lived HC3N molecule. The longer-lived CH3CN, on the other hand, remains more concentrated in the north.

NOTE. This chapter lists the main IAU scientific bodies: Divisions, Commissions and their Working Groups.

This paper discusses my time as IAU General Secretary, 1967–70 and the General Assemblies in Prague in 1967 and in Brighton in 1970. I cover my work with Jean-Claude Pecker, whom I succeeded as General Secretary and with Donald Sadler, who was General Secretary 1958–64. The work of J. Kleczek for the International Schools for Young Astronomers is discussed.

The recalibration of the sunspot number series has established a new standard version for sunspot time series that requires updating of prior results based on the calibration. These recent sunspot number corrections mean a change in the results of the previous correlational studies of ISSN with geomagnetic indices, such as the aa-index. In this paper, we investigate the correlation between the old and new sunspot numbers ISSN and SN and their relationship with the aa index through time series, using the methods of Echer et. al (2004), Verma & Trippathi (2016), Stamper et. al (1996), and Feynman (1982).

The Bulge Asymmetries and Dynamical Evolution (BAaDE) project aims to map the positions and velocities of up to ~20,000 late-type stars with SiO maser emission along the full Galactic plane, with a large concentration in the Galactic Bulge and inner Galaxy. Both J = 1 → 0 and J = 2 → 1 transitions using the Very Large Array (VLA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) are being observed. In the VLA observing setup, in addition to the 28SiO, v = 1 and v = 2J = 1 → 0 maser transitions, the bandwidth was wide enough to include the J = 1 → 0 transitions of the rare isotopologues of the SiO molecule in both the ground and vibrationally excited states: 29SiO, v = 0, 30SiO, v = 0, 29SiO, v = 1, and 29SiO, v = 2. Approximately 10% of the initial ~3500 targets of the project show maser emission from at least one of these lines. Some of these stars (with isotopic maser emission) show high radial velocities which implies that they are indeed in the Galactic Bulge or inner Galaxy (i.e. not foreground objects). We present line profiles, refined detection statistics, and the implications of the detection of the isotopic maser emission on pumping schemes that have been previously presented.

Motivated by the prospect of the wealth of data arising from the inauguration of the era of gravitational wave detection by ground-based interferometers the DES collaboration, in partnership with members of the LIGO collaboration and members of the astronomical community at large, have established a research program to search for their optical counterparts and to explore their use as cosmological probes. In this talk we present the status of our program and discuss prospects for establishing this new probe as part of the portfolio of the Dark Energy research program in the future, in particular for the next generation survey, LSST.

NOTE. This chapter gives the membership of the IAU Divisions in force until the end of the XVIIIth General Assembly.