To look at propagating winds from evolved stars into the interstellar medium is to look at how they are sustained. To understand their origins, we must look to the circumstances that create them in the first instance. In this article, I examine the physical conditions under which pulsation-enhanced, dust-driven winds are first generated. These initial conditions can help constrain the late evolutionary stages of these stars and provide insight into the mechanisms that cause the mass loss itself.

The velocity-space distribution of the solar neighborhood stars shows complex substructures (moving groups) including the well-known Hercules stream. Recently, the Gaia observation revealed their detailed structures, but their origins are still in debate. We analyzed a high-resolution N-body simulation of a Milky Way (MW)-like galaxy. To find velocity-space distributions similar to that of the solar neighborhood stars, we used Kullback-Leibler divergence (KLD), which is a metric to measure similarities between probability distributions. The KLD analysis shows the time evolution and the spatial variation of the velocity-space distribution. Velocity-space distributions with small KLDs (i.e. high similarities) are frequently but not always detected around in the simulated MW. In the velocity-map with smallest KLD, the velocity-space substructures are made from bar resonances.

Neutron stars are known to host extremely powerful magnetic fields. Among other effects, one of the consequences of harboring such fields is the deformation of the neutron star structure, leading, together with rotation, to the emission of continuous gravitational waves (CGWs). We present an extensive numerical study of magnetized neutron stars in GR with a large variety of different Equations of State (EoSs) and show that it is possible to find simple relations between the magnetic deformation of a neutron star, its mass and radius, that are mostly independent on the EoS or magnetic configuration. We discuss how these relations can be used in conjunction with possible future CGWs detection to set constrains on the EoS and magnetic configurations of NSs (e.g. the presence of a superconducting phase). By carrying out a population synthesis, we estimate the possible CGWs detectability of galactic millisecond pulsars, with third generation GW detectors.

So far detached compact binaries containing neutron stars have been observed either at intermediate stages of the evolution by radio telescopes or at merger by ground-based gravitational wave detectors. Sensitive to gravitational waves from binaries millions to thousands years prior to the merger, the future Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will be crucial for bridging the gap between the currently accessible regimes. Depending on the binary type, LISA could potentially discover from a few to several hundreds in the entirely new regime throughout the Milky Way. Here we provide a concise summary of the current expectation for the detection of Galactic binaries containing neutron stars with LISA, focusing on double neutron stars and neutron star - white dwarf binaries. We outline a few examples of science investigations that LISA data will enable for these binaries.

In the present work, we have developed a two-dimensional gravitational model of barred galaxies to analyse the fate of escaping stars from the central barred region. For that, the model has been analysed for two different bar profiles viz. strong and weak. Here the phenomena of stellar escape from the central barred region have been studied from the perspective of an open Hamiltonian dynamical system. We observed that the escape routes correspond to the escape basins of the two index-1 saddle points. Our results show that the formation of spiral arms is encouraged for the strong bars. Also, the formation of grand design spirals is more likely for strong bars if they host central super massive black holes (SMBHs). In the absence of central SMBHs, the formation of less-prominent spiral arms is more likely. Again, for weak bars, the formation of inner disc rings is more probable.

S-type AGB stars, with C/O ratios close to 1, are expected to have a mixed circumstellar chemistry as they transition from being oxygen-rich stars to carbon-rich stars. Recently, several different carbonaceous molecules, thought to be more characteristic of carbon stars, have been found in the circumstellar envelope of the S-type AGB star W Aql. We have obtained new high spatial resolution ALMA images of some of these molecules, specifically HC3N, SiC2 and SiC, and SiN, which we present here. We report diverse behaviour for these molecules, with SiC2 being seen with a symmetric spatial distribution around the star, SiN and SiC being asymmetrically distributed to the north-east of the star, and HC3N being seen in a broken shell to the south-west. These differing distributions point to complex dynamics in the circumstellar envelope of W Aql.

The purpose of the present work is a detailed investigation of the dynamical evolution of Collinder 135 and UBC 7 star clusters. We present a set of dynamical numerical simulations using realistic star cluster -body modeling technique with the forward integration of the star-by-star cluster models to the present day, based on best-available 3D coordinates and velocities obtained from the latest Gaia EDR3 data release. We have established that Collinder 135 and UBC 7 are probably a binary star cluster and have common origin. We carried out a full star-by-star N-body simulation of the stellar population of both clusters using the new algorithm of Single Stellar Evolution and performed a comparison of the results obtained in the observational data (like cumulative number counts), which showed a fairly good agreement.

Identification of the electromagnetic-wave (EM) counterparts of gravitational-wave (GW) sources can significantly broaden the research scope of GW astronomy, by pinpointing the exact locations of GW events and their environments, and using GW sources as standard sirens for cosmology. Yet, only one GW event has been found to be associated with an EM counterpart so far. Here, we outline the challenges of identifying EM counterparts of GW events, and describe our global network of telescopes that has been used to uncover GW EM counterparts. We also introduce a new facility in construction, the 7-dimensional telescope (7DT). Our GECKO observations have demonstrated that we can cover 50 deg2 within one hour to find kilonovae at a few hundred Mpc away. Furthermore, 7DT will produce a low resolution spectral map of the GW localization area, facilitating the EM counterpart search.

A significant fraction of the stars near the tip of the AGB phase become regular or semi-regular (Mira-type, SRs) pulsators. However, some of these light curves have shown intriguing secondary minima or sharp dips with much longer periods. Although this phenomenon shows some resemblance with the R CrB variables, the light curve is generally symmetric before and after the dip, whereas in R CrB the luminosity recovers slower after its minimum. More recently, high-resolution ALMA CO observations revealed a spiral structure around some of these stars, which suggests the presence of a stellar or sub-stellar companion. In these cases, the long-term light curve minima could be caused by periodic eclipses of the primary by a spiral circumstellar structure, and the long-period would be related to the orbital period. In this paper we discuss the pros and cons of the various proposed scenarios for the long-term minima of pulsating AGB stars.

We summarize a series of numerical experiments of collisional dynamics in dense stellar systems such as globular clusters (GCs) and in weakly collisional plasmas using a novel simulation technique, the so-calledMulti-particle collision (MPC) method, alternative to Fokker-Planck and Monte Carlo approaches. MPC is related to particle-mesh approaches for the computation of self consistent long-range fields, ensuring that simulation time scales with N log N in the number of particles, as opposed to N2 for direct N-body. The collisional relaxation effects are modelled by computing particle interactions based on a collision operator approach that ensures rigorous conservation of energy and momenta and depends only on particles velocities and cell-based integrated quantities.

Carbon-rich dust is known to form in the atmosphere of the semiregular variable star R Sculptoris. Such stardust, as well as the molecules and gas produced during the lifetime of the star, will be spread into the Galaxy via the mass-loss process. Probing this process is crucial to understand the chemical enrichment of the Galaxy. R Scl was observed using the ESO/VLTI MATISSE instrument in December 2018. Here we show the first images of the star between 3 and 10 R*. Using the complementary MIRA 3D image reconstruction and the RHAPSODY 1D intensity profile reconstruction code, we reveal the location of molecules and dust in the close environment of the star. Indeed, the C2H2 and HCN molecules are spatially located between 1 and 3.4 R* which is much closer to the star than the location of the dust. The R Scl spectrum is fitted by molecules and a dust mixture of 90% of amorphous carbon and 10% of silicone carbide. The inner boundary of the dust envelope is estimated by DUSTY at about 4.6 R*. We derive a mass-loss rate of 1.2 ± 0.4 × 10−6M⊙ yr−1however no clear SiC forming region has been detected in the MATISSE data.

We join gravitational-wave and electromagnetic data to implement a combined simultaneous fit of the GW170817 event. The LIGO-Virgo analysis includes the estimation of the inclination, the angle of the binary with respect to the gravitationa-wave detector network line of sight. From the observations of the afterglow, instead, we can recover the viewing angle. The inclination and the viewing angle are supplementary angles, and can be treated as a single parameter. The value of the inclination that we recover from the fit is in agreement with the LIGO-Virgo previous works, with an uncertainty that is 10-fold smaller, thanks to contribution of the electromagnetic data. Moreover, with the inclusion of the gravitational-wave data, the degeneracy between the viewing angle and the jet opening angle is broken. This procedure is useful not only for analyzing GW170817, but any gravitational-wave event with an electromagnetic counterpart.

Most stars form in clumpy and sub-structured clusters. These properties also emerge in hydro-dynamical simulations of star-forming clouds, which provide a way to generate realistic initial conditions for N-body runs of young stellar clusters. However, producing large sets of initial conditions by hydro-dynamical simulations is prohibitively expensive in terms of computational time. We introduce a novel technique for generating new initial conditions from a given sample of hydro-dynamical simulations, at a tiny computational cost. In particular, we apply a hierarchical clustering algorithm to learn a tree representation of the spatial and kinematic relations between stars, where the leaves represent the single stars and the nodes describe the structure of the cluster at larger and larger scales. This procedure can be used as a basis for the random generation of new sets of stars, by simply modifying the global structure of the stellar cluster, while leaving the small-scale properties unaltered.

The cosmic origin of fluorine is still under debate. Asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars are among the few suggested candidates to efficiently synthesis F in our Galaxy, however their relative contribution is not clear. In this paper, we briefly review the theoretical studies from stellar yield models of the F synthesis and chemical equilibrium models of the F-containing molecules in the outflow around AGB stars. Previous detections of the F-bearing species towards AGB and post-AGB stars are also highlighted. We suggest that high-resolution ALMA observations of the AlF, one of the two main carriers of F in the outflow of AGB stars, can provide a reliable tracer of the F-budget in AGB stars. This will be helpful to quantify the role of AGB stars in the Galactic F budget.

The binary neutron star merger gravitational-wave event GW170817 and observations of the subsequent electromagnetic signals at different wavelengths have helped better understand the outflows that follow these mergers. In particular, the off-axis afterglow of the jetted ejecta has allowed to probe the lateral structure of such jets, especially thanks to VLBI imagery of the source. In this work, we model this afterglow including a decelerating jet with lateral structure, while synchrotron emission and synchrotron self-Compton scatterings power the jet radiation. In particular, we extend our analysis to very high energies and predict the light curve in the energy range of H.E.S.S. and the CTA. We finally discuss how future detections of afterglows by these observatories can help break the degeneracies in some key physical parameter measurements, and allow to probe efficiently a sub-population of fast-merging binaries.

Five long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been found to have very high energy (VHE, > 100GeV) counterparts. Interestingly, more than one emission mechanism has been invoked to explain the VHE counterpart from different events. As a result of this discovery, it has become apparent that we have been missing half of the energy produced in the afterglow of GRBs. We have been studying the radio afterglows in order to investigate whether these VHE GRBs have unusual jet properties. Studying these events in the radio waveband is advantageous as the emission at lower frequencies is brighter for longer enabling detailed, long term study of the jet evolution. The jet properties and environments of these GRBs vary hugely in a similar manner to that seen in the ‘regular’ long GRB population with evidence of bright reverse shock emission and multiple jet components. This work is presented on behalf of a much larger collaboration.

Water is a ubiquitous molecule in circumstellar envelopes (CSEs). Its emission has been detected at a wide range of distances from the central oxygen-rich evolved star. In particular, the water maser transition at 22 GHz, typically extending from about 5–20 stellar radii to as far as several hundred stellar radii from the star, has been commonly used to probe the structure and dynamics of the intermediate regions of the CSE where dust is condensing and the inner wind is being accelerated. The advent of ALMA has opened the door to high-angular resolution mapping of much higher excitation transitions of water, probing the inner regions of the CSEs, some of which are anticipated to exhibit maser action. The ALMA ATOMIUM large program observed many such transitions towards a sample of AGB stars & red supergiants. The preliminary results show that while some transitions depart only slightly from LTE, others clearly show signs of maser action. The Gaussian fitting of the non-diffuse/compact part of some of the (quasi) thermal & maser transitions reveal interesting velocity gradients, signatures of outflowing and infalling motions hence providing important constraints for stellar wind models.

We trained a Neural Network that can obtain selected STARLIGHT parameters directly from S-PLUS photometry. The training set consisted of over 55 thousand galaxies with their stellar population parameters obtained from a STARLIGHT application by Cid Fernandes et al. (2005). These galaxies were crossmatched with the S-PLUS iDR 3 database, thus, recovering the photometry for the 12 band filters for 55803 objects. We also considered the spectroscopic redshift for each object which was obtained from the SDSS. Finally, we trained a fully connected Neural Network with the 12-band photometry + redshift as features, and targeted some of the STARLIGHT parameters, such as stellar mass and mean stellar age. The model performed very well for some parameters, for example, the stellar mass, with an error of 0.23 dex. In the future, we aim to apply the model to all S-PLUS galaxies, obtaining never-before-seen photometric synthesis for most objects in the catalogue.

Maser properties can be measured with milli-arcsec precision over multiple epochs using ALMA, cm- and mm-wave VLBI and e-MERLIN. This allows: (i) Tracing SiO maser proper motions in the pulsation-dominated zone; (ii) Quantifying clumpiness, variability and asymmetry of the wind traced by masers; (iii) Contrasting behaviour from OH masers even at similar distances from the star; (iv) Measuring magnetic fields. Mass lost from the star, traced by SiO masers, is likely to take decades to reach ∼5 stellar radii. At 5–50 stellar radii, once dust is well formed, 22-GHz H2O masers show the wind accelerating through the escape velocity; its overall direction is away from the star but the velocity field is complex. In a few cases (so far), highly-directed, localised ejecta are seen. Magnetic fields appear to be stellar-centred and strong enough to influence wind kinematics. Recent ALMA and other observations have shown that otherwise inconspicuous companions shape a majority of evolved star winds, whilst advanced models demonstrate how, for some situations, this is compatible with masers showing negligible rotation proper motions. The long-term monitoring achievable at radio frequencies complements the multi-transition maser studies and analysis of thermal lines and dust at shorter wavelengths.

We introduce the HandOff, a set of computational tools to transfer general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic and spacetime data from the numerical code IllinoisGRMHD to Harm3d. While the former simulates binary neutron star (BNS) mergers in full dynamical General Relativity, the latter specializes in modeling accretion disks around black holes (BH) over long timescales. The HandOff, then, enables us to transfer the outcome of BNS mergers after BH formation from IllinoisGRMHD to Harm3d and to evolve the post-merger system efficiently over long timescales. We show our latest results in this respect, for matter modeled as a magnetized ideal-fluid, and discuss our future plans which involve incorporating advanced equations of state and neutrino physics into BNS simulations using the HandOff approach.