We have undertaken a Spitzer campaign to measure the IR structures and spectra of low-redshift 3CRR radio galaxies. The results show that the 3.6 – 160 μm infrared properties vary systematically with integrated source power, and so demonstrate that contemporary core activity is characteristic of the behaviour of sources over their lifetimes. IR synchrotron emission is seen from jets and hotspots in some cases. Thermal emission is found from a jet/gas interaction in NGC7385. Most of the near-IR integrated colours of the low-redshift 3CRR radio galaxies are similar to those of passive galaxies, so that IR colours are poor indicators of radio activity.

Spatially resolved spectroscopy is even more powerful when combined with magnification by gravitational lensing. I discuss observations of lensed galaxies at z≃2 with spatial resolution reaching 100 parsecs. Near-IR integral field spectroscopy reveals the kinematics, distribution and physical properties of star forming regions, and gas-phase metallicity gradients. Roughly two thirds of observed galaxies are isolated systems with coherent velocity fields, large velocity dispersion, multiple giant star-forming regions, and negative gas-phase metallicity gradients, suggestive of inside-out growth in gravitationally unstable disks. The remainder are undergoing mergers and have shallower metallicity gradients, indicating mixing of the interstellar gas via gravitational interaction. The metallicity gradients in isolated galaxies are consistent with simulations using standard feedback prescriptions, whereas simulations with enhanced feedback predict shallower gradients. These measurements therefore constrain the growth of galaxies from mergers and star formation as well as the regulatory feedback.

The direct-summation of N gravitational forces is a complex problem for which there is no analytical solution. Dense stellar systems such as galactic nuclei and stellar clusters are the loci of different interesting problems. In this work we present a new GPU, direct-summation N-body integrator written from scratch and based on the Hermite scheme. The first release of the code consists of the Hermite integrator for a system of N bodies with softening. We find an acceleration factor of about ≈ 90 of the GPU version in a single node as compared to the Serial-Single-CPU one. We additionally investigate the impact of using softening in the dynamics of a dense cluster. We study how it affects the two body relaxation, as compared with another code, NBODY6, which uses KS regularization, so as to understand the role of softening in the evolution of the system. This initial release is the first step towards more and more realistic scenarios, starting for a proper treatment for binary evolution, close encounters and the role of a massive black hole.

Spectroscopic observations of evolved stars have shown signatures of aromatic and aliphatic compounds. This suggests that complex organics with chemical structures similar to those of insoluble organic matter (IOM) found in carbonaceous meteorites are made in stars. This raises the possibility that in addition to known pre-solar grains such as silicon carbide, organic star dust may also have traveled across the Galaxy to the Solar System.

While more and more long-period giant planets are discovered by direct imaging, the distribution of planets at these separations (≳5 AU) has remained largely uncertain, especially compared to planets in the inner regions of solar systems probed by RV and transit techniques. The low frequency, the detection challenges, and heterogeneous samples make determining the mass and orbit distributions of directly imaged planets at the end of a survey difficult. By utilizing Monte Carlo methods that incorporate the age, distance, and spectral type of each target, we can use all stars in the survey, not just those with detected planets, to learn about the underlying population. We have produced upper limits and direct measurements of the frequency of these planets with the most recent generation of direct imaging surveys. The Gemini NICI Planet-Finding Campaign observed 220 young, nearby stars at a median H-band contrast of 14.5 magnitudes at 1”, representing the largest, deepest search for exoplanets by the completion of the survey. The Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey is in the process of surveying 600 stars, pushing these contrasts to a few tenths of an arcsecond from the star. With the advent of large surveys (many hundreds of stars) using advanced planet-imagers we gain the ability to move beyond measuring the frequency of wide-separation giant planets and to simultaneously determine the distribution as a function of planet mass, semi-major axis, and stellar mass, and so directly test models of planet formation and evolution.

We utilize the clustering properties of the Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) and the growth rate data in order to constrain the growth index (γ) of the linear matter fluctuations based on a standard χ2 joint likelihood analysis between theoretical expectations and data. We find a value of γ=0.56± 0.05, perfectly consistent with the expectations of the ΛCDM model, and Ωm0 =0.29± 0.02, in very good agreement with the latest Planck results. Our analysis provides significantly more stringent growth index constraints with respect to previous studies as indicated by the fact that the corresponding uncertainty is only ∼ 0.09 γ.

The unification model of active galactic nuclei postulates an accreting supermassive black hole as the central engine, surrounded by a putative dusty torus. This dust absorbs the incoming radiation, re-emits it in the infrared and obscures our view of the central region at certain inclinations. We present a new set of AGN models, in which the torus is modelled as a 3D multiphase medium. These new models can explain the observed spectral energy distribution of AGNs over the entire infrared domain, including the observed silicate feature strength and the level of near-infrared continuum. A new generation of multi-phase models, based on hydrodynamical simulations, is being constructed. We will compute the polarisation structure of these physically motivated 3D torus models, and compare them to simpler smooth torus models and to the available observational data.

In recent years, all-sky surveys have uncovered a new and interesting population of young (≈10–200 Myr), nearby substellar objects. Many of these objects have inferred masses and temperatures that overlap those of directly imaged exoplanets. These young brown dwarfs provide valuable analogs to young, dusty exoplanets in a context where detailed spectroscopic observations across a broad range of wavelengths and at high S/N are possible. How do the temperatures inferred by atmospheric models and evolutionary models compare? Can we determine the formation mechanism of a young planetary-mass object? How well do we understand the role that disequilibrium chemistry and dust clouds play in the atmospheres of these objects? We review the successes and challenges in determining the fundamental properties (mass, log(g), effective temperature) of young substellar objects, both brown dwarfs and gas-giant exoplanets.

The Ca i 4227 Å is a chromospheric line exhibiting the largest degree of linear polarization near the limb, in the visible spectrum of the Sun. Modeling the observations of the center-to-limb variations (CLV) of different lines in the Second Solar Spectrum helps to sample the height dependence of the magnetic field, as the observations made at different lines of sight sample different heights in the solar atmosphere. Supriya et al. (2014) attempted to simultaneously model the CLV of the (I, Q/I) spectra of the Ca i 4227 Å line using the standard 1-D FAL model atmospheres. They found that the standard FAL model atmospheres and also any appropriate combination of them, fail to simultaneously fit the observed Stokes (I, Q/I) profiles at all the limb distances (μ) satisfying at the same time all the observational constraints. This failure of 1-D modeling approach can probably be overcome by using multi-dimensional modeling which is computationally expensive. To eliminate an even wider choice of 1-D models, we attempt here to simultaneously model the CLV of the (I, Q/I) spectra using the FCHHT solar model atmospheres which are updated and recent versions of the FAL models. The details of our modeling efforts and the results are presented.

Space-based and remote sensing observations reveal that regolith – a layer of loose unconsolidated material – is present on all asteroids, including very small, subkm-sized near- Earth asteroids (NEAs) such as (25143) Itokawa. Classically, regolith is believed to be produced by the ejecta of impact craters produced by small particles hitting asteroid surfaces. Such an explanation works for bodies whose gravity field is strong enough for substantial reaccretion of impact debris, but it fails to account for the ubiquitous presence of regolith also on small asteroids with weaker gravity. Several works have proposed that the thermal fatigue due to a huge number of day/night temperature cycles is a process that contributes to the formation of regolith on the Moon, Mercury, and on the NEA (433) Eros by fracturing boulders and rocks on their surfaces. However, this process lacks a demonstration: in order to study under which conditions rock cracking on NEAs occurs, we calculated typical temperature cycles for NEAs and we performed laboratory experiments of similar thermal cycling on meteorites taken as analogue of asteroid surface material. We will present results of these experiments and discuss their implications regarding regolith formation on asteroids.

We are developing a software library to calculate gravitational interaction for the Hermite scheme on parallel computing systems supported by OpenCL API. Our library is partly compatible with a standard GRAPE-6A interface and is easily usable in existing N-body codes. Since our library is based on OpenCL standard API, our library is working on many parallel computing systems such as a multi-core CPU, a GPU, and a many-core architecture. We report the performance evaluation of our library on computing platforms from various vendors.

Radio-loud AGN play an important rôle in galaxy evolution. We need to understand their properties, and the processes that affect their behaviour in order to model galaxy formation and development. We here present preliminary results of an investigation into the cluster environments of radio galaxies. We have found evidence of a strong correlation between radio luminosity and environment richness for low excitation radio galaxies, and no evidence of evolution of the environment with redshift. Conversely, for high excitation radio galaxies, we found no correlation with environment richness, and tentative evidence of evolution of the cluster environment.

We study the statistical inference of the cosmological dark matter density field from non-Gaussian, non-linear and non-Poisson biased distributed tracers. We have implemented a Bayesian posterior sampling computer-code solving this problem and tested it with mock data based on N-body simulations.

Star formation occurs on physical scales corresponding to individual star forming regions, typically of order ∼100 parsecs in size, but current observational facilities cannot resolve these scales within field galaxies beyond the local universe. However, the magnification from strong gravitational lensing allows us to measure the properties of these discrete star forming regions within galaxies in the distant universe. New results from multi-wavelength spectroscopic studies of a sample of extremely bright, highly magnified lensed galaxies are revealing the complexity of star formation on sub-galaxy scales during the era of peak star formation in the universe. We find a wide range of properties in the rest-frame UV spectra of individual galaxies, as well as in spectra that originate from different star forming regions within the same galaxy. Large variations in the strengths and velocity structure of Lyman-alpha and strong P Cygni lines such as C IV, and MgII provide new insights into the astrophysical relationships between extremely massive stars, the elemental abundances and physical properties of the nebular gas those stars ionize, and the galactic-scale outflows they power.

Models for galaxy clusters abundance and their spatial distribution are sensitive to cosmological parameters. Present and future surveys will provide high-redshift sample of clusters, such as Dark Energy Survey (z ⩽ 1.3), making cluster number counts one of the most promising cosmological probes. In the literature, some cosmological analyses are carried out using small cluster catalogs (tens to hundreds), like in Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) surveys. However, it is not guaranteed that maximum likelihood estimators of cosmological parameters are unbiased in this scenario. In this work we study different estimators of the cold dark matter density parameter Ωc, σ8 and the dark energy equation of state parameter w0 obtained from cluster abundance. Using an unbinned likelihood for cluster number counts and the Monte Carlo approach, we determine the presence of bias and how it varies with the size of the sample. Our fiducial models are based on the South Pole Telescope (SPT). We show that the biases from SZ estimators do not go away with increasing sample sizes and they may become the dominant source of error for an all sky survey at the SPT sensitivity.

We have recently identified a young, very red (J − Ks = 2.47 mag) late L-type companion at 8.06” ± 0.03” (~102 AU) from a previously unrecognized M dwarf. We determined the parallactic distance of the system to be 12.7±1.0 pc. Non-detection of lithium and the kinematics of the primary allowed us to constrain the age of the system in the range of 150–300 Myr. By comparison with theoretical evolutionary models we derived a mass of 73+20−15MJup for the primary, at around the substellar mass regime and 11.2+9.7−1.8MJup for the secondary, near the deuterium burning mass limit.

Macroscopic velocity fields in stellar atmospheres significantly affect the shapes of the emergent Stokes profiles. The inextricable coupling between the angle and frequency variables becomes more complex in a moving medium when compared to a static medium. In this paper we consider both complete frequency redistribution (CRD) and partial frequency redistribution (PRD) in the line scattering of a two-level atom in the presence of an external weak magnetic field. For simplicity we consider empirical velocity laws to represent motion of the atmospheric layers. We present emergent Stokes profiles computed with CRD, angle-averaged PRD, and angle-dependent PRD. We show that angle-dependent PRD effects are important both in non-magnetic and magnetized scattering when vertical velocity gradients are present in the atmosphere. The results are presented for simple atmospheric models. They are expected to be of relevance to polarized line formation in slowly expanding chromospheric layers.

We present a multi-wavelength study of the radio galaxy PKS J0334-3900, which resides at the centre of Abell 3135. Using Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) observations at 1.4, 2.5, 4.6 & 8.6 GHz, we performed a detailed analysis of PKS J0334-3900. The morphology and spectral indices give physical parameters that constrain the dynamical history of the galaxy, which we use to produce a simulation of PKS J0334-3900. This simulation shows that the morphology can be generated by a wind in the intracluster medium (ICM), orbital motion caused by a companion galaxy, and precession of the black hole (BH).

Additionally, ATCA polarisation data was used to obtain rotation measure values along the line of sight to PKS J0334-3900. Using our simulation we are able to infer the distance between the jets along the line of sight to be 154 ± 16 kpc, which when combined with the difference in rotation measure between the jets provides a novel new way to estimate the average magnetic field within the cluster. A lower limit to the cluster magnetic field was calculated to be 0.09±0.03 μG. We have shown that different techniques can be applied to observations of jets in galaxies to infer information on cluster environments.

MAHALO-Subaru (MApping HAlpha and Lines of Oxygen with Subaru) project aims to investigate how the star forming activities in galaxies are propagated as a function of time, mass, and environment. It employs a unique set of narrow-band filters on MOIRCS/Subaru to search for Ha emitters associated to the proto-clusters or in narrow redshift slices in the general field. We have shown not only filamentary/clumpy structures of all the proto-clusters but also very high star formation activities therein especially at z > 2. HST images from the CANDELS survey have revealed that nearly half of the Hα emitters in the field at z ∼ 2 have clumpy structures. Among them, “red dusty clumps” are preferentially found at or near the mass center of galaxies. Therefore, they are probably linked to the formation of bulge component. To explore physical states and the mode of star formation of those forming galaxies, we have started Gracias-ALMA project in full coordination with the Mahalo-Subaru project. We will resolve molecular gas contents and dusty star formation within these galaxies, and tell whether clumps are formed by gravitational instability of gas rich disks, and whether bulges are formed by clump migration or through galaxy-galaxy mergers.

MarcoPolo-R is a sample return mission to a primitive Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) selected in February 2011 for the Assessment Study Phase at ESA in the framework of ESAfs Cosmic Vision 2 program. MarcoPolo-R is a European-led mission with a proposed NASA contribution. MarcoPolo-R takes advantage of three industrial studies completed as part of the previous Marco Polo mission (see ESA/SRE (2009)3). The aim of the new Assessment Study is to reduce the cost of the mission while maintaining its high science level, on the basis of advanced studies and technologies, as well as optimization of the mission. MarcoPolo-R will rendezvous with a unique kind of target, a primitive binary NEA, scientifically characterize it at multiple scales, and return a unique pristine sample to Earth unaltered by the atmospheric entry process or terrestrial weathering. The baseline target of MarcoPolo-R is the primitive binary NEA (175706) 1996 FG3, which offers a very efficient operational and technical mission profile. A binary target also provides enhanced science return: the choice of this target will allow new investigations to be performed more easily compared to a single object, and also enables investigations of the fascinating geology and geophysics of asteroids that are impossible to obtain from a single object. Precise measurements of the mutual orbit and rotation state of both components can be used to probe higher-level harmonics of the gravitational potential, and therefore the internal structure. A unique opportunity is offered to study the dynamical evolution driven by the YORP/Yarkovsky thermal effects. Possible migration of regolith on the primary from poles to equator allows the increasing maturity of asteroidal regolith with time to be expressed as a latitude-dependent trend, with the most-weathered material at the equator matching what is seen in the secondary. MarcoPolo-R will allow us to study the most primitive materials available to investigate early solar system formation processes. Moreover, MarcoPolo-R will provide a sample from a known target with known geological context. Direct investigation of both the regolith and fresh interior fragments is also impossible by any means other than sample return. The main goal of the MarcoPolo-R mission is to return unaltered NEA material for detailed analysis in ground-based laboratories. The limited sampling provided by meteorites does not offer the most primitive material available in near-Earth space. More primitive material, having experienced less alteration on the asteroid, will be more friable and would not survive atmospheric entry in any discernible amount. Only in the laboratory can instruments with the necessary precision and sensitivity be applied to individual components of the complex mixture of materials that forms an asteroid regolith, to determine their precise chemical and isotopic composition. Such measurements are vital for revealing the evidence of stellar, interstellar medium, pre-solar nebula and parent body processes that are retained in primitive asteroidal material, unaltered by atmospheric entry or terrestrial contamination. It is no surprise therefore that sample return missions are considered a priority by a number of the leading space agencies.