NGC 1097 is a nearby barred spiral galaxy believed to be interacting with the elliptical galaxy NGC 1097A located to its northwest. It hosts a Seyfert 1 nucleus surrounded by a circumnuclear starburst ring. Two straight dust lanes connected to the ring extend almost continuously out to the bar. The other ends of the dust lanes attach to two main spiral arms. To provide a physical understanding of its structural and kinematical properties, two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations have been carried out. Numerical calculations reveal that many features of the gas morphology and kinematics can be reproduced provided that the gas flow is governed by a gravitational potential associated with a slowly rotating strong bar. By including the self-gravity of the gas disk in our calculation, we have found the starburst ring to be gravitationally unstable which is consistent with the observation in Hsieh et al. (2011). Our simulations also show that gas can flow into the region within the starburst ring even after its formation, leading to the coexistence of both a nuclear ring and a circumnuclear disk.

The X-ray luminous system XMMU J2235-2557 at z~1.4 is among the most massive of the very distant galaxy clusters, and remains a unique laboratory to observe environment-biased galaxy evolution already 9 Gyr ago (Lidman et al.2008, Rosati et al.2009, Strazzullo et al.2010). At a cosmic time when cluster cores start showing evidence of a still active galaxy population, star-forming (M>1010M⊙) galaxies in XMMU J2235-2557 are typically located beyond ~250kpc from the cluster center, with the cluster core already effectively quenched and dominated by massive galaxies on a tight red sequence, showing early-type spectral features and bulge-dominated morphologies. While masses and stellar populations of these red-sequence galaxies suggest that they have largely completed their formation, their size is found to be typically smaller that similarly massive early-type galaxies in the local Universe, in agreement with many high-redshift studies. This would leave room for later evolution, likely through non-secular processes, changing their structure to match their local counterparts. On the other hand, uncertainties and biases in the determination of masses and sizes, as well as in the local mass-size relation, and the possible effect of progenitor bias, still hamper a final conclusion on the actual relevance of size evolution for early-type galaxies in this dense high-redshift environment.

The Advanced Large Homogeneous Area Medium Band Redshift Astronomical (ALHAMBRA) survey is a photometric survey designed to study systematically cosmic evolution and cosmic variance (Moles et al.2008). It employs 20 continuous medium-band filters (3500 - 9700 Å), plus JHK near-infrared (NIR) bands, which enable measurements of photometric redshifts with good accuracy. ALHAMBRA covers > 4 deg2 in eight discontinuous regions (~ 0.5 deg2 per region), of theseseven fields overlap with other extragalactic, multiwavelength surveys (DEEP2, SDSS, COSMOS, HDF-N, Groth, ELAIS-N1). We detect > 600.000 sources, reaching the depth of R(AB) ~ 25.0, and photometric accuracy of 2-4% (Husillos et al., in prep.). Photometric redshifts are measured using the Bayesian Photometric Redshift (BPZ) code (Benítez et al.2000), reaching one of the best accuracies up to date of δz/z ≤ 1.2% (Molino et al., in prep.).

To deal with the morphological classification of galaxies in the ALHAMBRA survey (Pović et al., in prep.), we used the galaxy Support Vector Machine code (galSVM; Huertas-Company 2008, 2009), one of the new non-parametric methods for morphological classification, specially useful when dealing with low resolution and high-redshift data. To test the accuracy of our morphological classification we used a sample of 3000 local, visually classified galaxies (Nair & Abraham 2010), moving them to conditions typical of our ALHAMBRA data (taking into account the background, redshift and magnitude distributions, etc.), and measuring their morphology using galSVM. Finally, we measured the morphology of ALHAMBRA galaxies, obtaining for each source seven morphological parameters (two concentration indexes, asymmetry, Gini, M20 moment of light, smoothness, and elongation), probability if the source belongs to early- or late-type, and its error. Comparing ALHAMBRA morph COSMOS/ACS morphology (obtained with the same method) we expect to have qualitative separation in two main morphological types for ~ 20.000 sources in 8 ALHAMBRA fields. For early-type galaxies we expect to recover ~ 70% and 30-40% up to magnitudes 20.0 and 21.5, respectively, having the contamination of late-types of < 7%. For late-type galaxies, we expect to recover ~ 70%, 60 - 70%, and ~ 30% of sources up to magnitudes 22.0, 22.5, and 23.0, respectively, having the contamination of early-types of ≤ 10%. These data will be used to study the evolution of active and non-active galaxies respect to morphology and morphological properties of galaxies in groups and clusters.

The GHOSTS survey is the largest study to date of the resolved stellar populations in the outskirts of disk galaxies (Radburn-Smith et al.2011). The sample currently consists of 16 nearby disk galaxies, whose outer disks and halos are imaged with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). I will present new results obtained from the study of 19 GHOSTS fields in M81's outermost part. The observed fields probe the stellar halo of M81 out to projected distances of ~50 kpc, an unprecedented distance for halo studies outside the Local Group. The 50% completeness levels of the color magnitude diagrams are typically at 2.5 mag below the tip of the red giant branch. When considering only fields located at galactocentric radius R > 15 kpc, we detect no color gradient in the stellar halo of M81. We compare these results with model predictions for the colors of stellar halos formed purely via accretion of satellite galaxies (Bullock & Johnston 2005). When we analyze the cosmologically motivated models in the same way as the HST data, we find that they predict no color gradient for the stellar halos, in good agreement with the observations (see Fig. 1).

Magnetic fields dominate the universal energy balance on a wide variety of spatial scales; preserving life on Earth from extinction by cosmic rays, regulating star formation in giant molecular clouds, regulating the enrichment of the intergalactic medium by galactic winds and possibly regulating the growth of individual galaxies and filaments of galaxies. The structure of magnetic fields is determined by ubiquitous astrophysical turbulence and critically affects transport processes, including propagation and acceleration of cosmic rays and transfer of heat. Turbulent magnetic fields play an important role in magnetic field generation via dynamo processes, and must be understood to separate galactic foregrounds from the Cosmic Microwave Background signal.

Radio astronomy gave us new methods to study magnetic fields. Synchrotron radiation, the main cause of comic radio waves, is highly linearly polarised with the ‘E’ vector normal to the magnetic field. The Faraday Effect rotates the ‘E’ vector in thermal regions by the magnetic field in the line of sight. Also the radio Zeeman Effect has been observed.

We present a statistical tool to characterize correlation between the column density structure and the polarized emission from a molecular cloud. This tool uses the gradient as an estimator of the directionality of the structure in order to systematically relate the orientation of filaments and cores to the orientation of the magnetic field inferred from the polarization vectors.

We have performed both optical linear polarimetric and photometric observations of an isolated dark globule LDN 1570 aim to study the dust polarizing and extinction properties and to map the magnetic field geometry so as to understand not only the importance of magnetic fields in formation and evolution of clouds but also the correlation of the inferred magnetic field structure with the cloud structure and its dynamics. Dust size indicators (RV and λmax) reveal for the presence of slightly bigger dust grains towards the cloud region. The inferred magnetic field geometry, which closely follows the cloud structure revealed by Herschel images, suggest that the cloud could have been formed due to converging material flows along the magnetic field lines.

Massive infrared dark clouds (IRDCs) are believed to be the precursors to star clusters and massive stars (e.g. Bergin & Tafalla 2007). The supersonic, turbulent nature of molecular clouds in the presence of magnetic fields poses a great challenge in understanding the structure and dynamics of magnetized molecular clouds and the star formation therein. Using the high-order radiation-magneto-hydrodynamic adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) code ORION2 (Li et al. 2012), we perform a large-scale driven-turbulence simulation to reveal the 3D filamentary structure and dynamical state of a highly supersonic (thermal Mach number = 10) and strongly magnetized (plasma β=0.02) massive infrared dark molecular cloud. With the high resolution afforded by AMR, we follow the dynamical evolution of the cloud in order to understand the roles of strong magnetic fields, turbulence, and self-gravity in shaping the cloud and in the formation of dense cores.

We present a large-scale view of the magnetic field (MF) in the central 3° × 2° region of our Galaxy. There is a smooth transition of the large-scale MF configuration in this region.

The dissipation of turbulence is a key process in the evolution of diffuse gas towards denser structures. The vast range of coupled scales and the variety of dissipative processes in interstellar turbulence make it a complex system to analyze. Observations now provide powerful statistics of the gas velocity field, density and magnetic field orientations, opening a rich field of investigation. On-going comparisons of the orientation of intense velocity-shears, magnetic field and tenuous filaments of matter in a turbulent high-latitude cloud are promising.

To study the effects of magnetic fields on the properties of bar substructures, we run two-dimensional, ideal MHD simulations of barred galaxies under the influence of a non-axisymmetric bar potential. In the bar regions, magnetic fields reduce density compression in the dust-lane shocks, while removing angular momentum further from the gas at the shocks. This evidently results in a smaller and more distributed ring, and a larger mass inflows rate to the galaxy center in models with stronger magnetic fields. In the outer regions, an MHD dynamo due to the combined action of the bar potential and background shear operates, amplifying magnetic fields near the corotation resonance. In the absence of spiral arms, the amplified fields naturally shape into trailing magnetic arms with strong fields and low density. The reader is refereed to Kim & Stone (2012) for a detailed presentation of the simulation outcomes.

We report on a program to delineate magnetic field structure inside molecular clouds by optical and infrared polarization observations. An ordered magnetic field inside a dense cloud may efficiently align the spinning dust grains to cause a detectable level of optical and near-infrared polarization of otherwise unpolarized background starlight due to dichroic extinction. The near-infrared polarization data were taken by SIRPOL mounted on IRSF in SAAO. Here we present the SIRPOL results in RCW 57, for which the magnetic field is oriented along the cloud filaments, and in Carina Nebula, for which no intrinsic polarization is detected in the turbulent environment. We further describe TRIPOL, a compact and efficient polarimer to acquire polarized images simultaneously at g', r', and i' bands, which is recently developed at Nagoya University for adaption to small-aperture telescopes. We show how optical observations probe the translucent outer parts of a cloud, and when combining with infrared observations probing the dense parts, and with millimeter and submillimeter observations to sutdy the central embedded protostar, if there is one, would yield the magnetic field structure on different length scales in the star-formation process.

The SCUPOL catalog is a compilation of 83 regions that were observed at the JCMT between 1997 and 2005. For sufficiently sampled maps, we conduct an analysis for characterizing the polarization and magneto-turbulent properties of the observed regions. The same analysis is done on 2D polarization maps produced by 3D MHD 1024 pixel grid simulations that have been scaled on a sample of observed maps. Each scaled MHD cube of simulated data is used to calculate the mean turbulent regime of each observed regions.

We report our new results of the magnetic field (B) morphologies toward W51 North, traced with the linear polarization of the dust continuum at wavelengths of 870 μm. The B morphologies are resolved with an angular resolution of typically 1” using the Submillimeter Array (SMA). Dense structures with a number density 105 to 107 cm−3 are traced. In comparison, the B morphologies of sources at different evolutionary stages, from the collapsing core in W51 e2 (Tang et al. 2009a) and part of Orion BN/KL (Tang et al. 2010) to the ultra-compact HII region G5.89-0.39 (Tang et al. 2009b) clearly exhibit different morphologies, likely suggesting different roles of the B fields at different stages.

The Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (CGPS) is the largest effort of its kind to study and understand the Galactic Magnetic Field (GMF) and Interstellar Medium (ISM) in our Galaxy (see e.g. Taylor et al.2003). The CGPS has mapped the Galactic plane visible from DRAO on all spatial scales down to arcminute resolution in total intensity and polarized emission at νobs=1.4 GHz (see Landecker et al.2010). The latest results invoking Faraday rotation and polarization gradient studies of the CGPS are discussed.

After Prof. R. Wielebinski visited China in 1999, we started to plan the Sino-German λ6 cm polarization survey of the Galactic plane, using the Urumqi 25-m radio telescope of Xinjiang (formerly Urumqi) Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is a high-frequency complement of previous Effelsberg 21-cm and 11-cm surveys, using the same observing and processing methods. The telescope is located at an altitude of 2029 m above sea level at geographic longitude of 87°E and latitude 43°N. The dual-channel λ6 cm receiver with a polarimeter and a bandwidth of 600 MHz was designed by O. Lochner and constructed at the MPIfR in Germany with involvements by the Urumqi engineers M.Z. Chen and J. Ma. In August 2004, the receiver was installed at the secondary focus of the Urumqi 25-m telescope.

As supernova remnants (SNRs) expand, their shock waves freeze in and compress magnetic field lines they encounter; consequently we can use SNRs as magnifying glasses for interstellar magnetic fields. A simple model is used to derive polarization and rotation measure (RM) signatures of SNRs. This model is exploited to gain knowledge about the large-scale magnetic field in the Milky Way. Three examples are given which indicate a magnetic anomaly, an azimuthal large-scale magnetic field towards the anti-centre, and a chimney that releases magnetic energy from the plane into the halo.

I discuss our current theoretical understanding of the origin and evolution of interstellar magnetic fields in our Galaxy, with a focus on dynamo theory.

We report detection of the weak but significant linear polarization from the Supernova Remnant Cas A at low radio frequencies (327 MHz) using the GMRT. The spectro-polarimetric data (16 MHz bandwidth with 256 spectral channels) was analyzed using the technique of Faraday Tomography. Ascertaining association of this weak polarization to the source is non-trivial in the presence of the remnant instrumental polarization (<1% in our case) – the expected anti-correlation ρlp,x, between the linear polarized intensity and the soft X-ray counts gets masked by the correlation between the Stokes-I dependent instrumental leakage and the X-radiation that is spatially correlated with Stokes-I, if ρlp,x is computed naively. Hence, we compute ρlp,x using pixels within ultra narrow bins of Stokes-I within which the instrumental leakage is expected to remain constant, and establish the anti-correlation as well as the correspondence of this correlation with the mean X-ray profile (Figure 1). Given the angular and RM-resolution in our data, the observed depolarization relative to that at higher frequencies, implies that the mixing of thermal and non-thermal plasma within the source might be occurring on spatial scales ~ 1000 AU, assuming random superposition of polarization states.