As the Sun emerges from a period of unprecedented low activity, the nature of the Sun's magnetic field compared to that of other stars is a particularly timely question. Just as observations of the full 3D structure of the solar magnetic field are becoming available through STEREO and SDO, advances in spectropolarimetric techniques now allow us to map the surface magnetic fields of other stars, revealing the great diversity of magnetic geometries that stars of different masses and rotation rates can display. This has now been possible for over 60 main sequence stars, with a smaller number of younger, pre-main sequence stars also mapped. Modelling of coronal structures based on these observations is revealing the full nature of stellar magnetic activity and its possible impact on orbiting planets.

The past two decades have seen a significant advancement in the detection, classification and understanding of exoplanets and binary star systems. The vast majority of these systems consist of stars on the main sequence or on the giant branch, leading to a dearth of knowledge of properties at early times (<50 Myr). Only one transiting planet candidate and a dozen eclipsing binaries are known among pre-main sequence objects, yet these are the systems that can provide the best constraints on stellar and planetary formation models. We have recently completed a photometric survey of 3 young (<50 Myr), nearby (D<150 pc) moving groups with a small-aperture instrument, nicknamed “AggieCam”. We detected 7 candidate Hot Jupiters and over 200 likely pre-main sequence binaries, which are now being followed up photometrically and spectroscopically.

Commission 42 (C42) co-organized, together with Commission 27 (C27) and Division V (Div V) as a whole, a full day of science and business sessions that were held on 24 August 2012. The program included time slots for discussion of business matters related to Div V, C27 and C42, and two sessions of 2 hours each devoted to science talks of interest to both C42 and C27. In addition, we had a joint session between Div IV and Div V motivated by the proposal to reformulate the division structure of the IAU and the possible merger of the two divisions into a new Div G. The current report gives an account of the matters discussed during the business session of C42.

In this review, I discuss the use of galaxy-galaxy weak lensing measurements to study the masses of dark matter halos in which galaxies reside. After summarizing how weak gravitational lensing measurements can be interpreted in terms of halo mass, I review measurements that were used to derive the relationship between optical galaxy mass tracers, such as stellar mass or luminosity, and dark matter halo mass. Measurements of galaxy-galaxy lensing from the past decade have led to increasingly tight constraints on the connection between dark matter halo mass and optical mass tracers, including both the mean relationships between these quantities and the intrinsic scatter between them. I also review some of the factors that can complicate analysis, such as the choice of modeling procedure, and choices made when dividing up samples of lens galaxies.

Recent studies of active galactic nuclei (AGN) found a statistical inverse scaling between the X-ray normalized excess variance σrms2 (variability amplitude) and the black hole mass spanning over MBH = 106 − 109M⊙. We present a study of this relation by including AGN with MBH = 105 − 106M⊙. It is found that the relation is no longer a simple extrapolation of the known inverse proportion, but starts to flatten around 106M⊙. This behavior can be understood by the shape of the power spectrum density of AGN and its dependence on the black hole mass.

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), formerly Advanced Technology Solar Telescope when it begins operation in 2019 will be by a significant margin Earth's largest solar research telescope. Science priorities dictate an initial suite of instruments that includes four spectro-polarimeters. Accurate polarization calibration of the individual instruments and of the telescope optics shared by those instruments is of critical importance. The telescope and instruments have been examined end-to-end for sources of polarization calibration error, allowable contributions from each of the sources quantified, and techniques identified for calibrating each of the contributors. Efficient use of telescope observing time leads to a requirement of sharing polarization calibrations of common path telescope components among the spectro-polarimeters and for those calibrations to be repeated only as often as dictated by degradation of optical coatings and instrument reconfigurations. As a consequence the polarization calibration of the DKIST is a facility function that requires facility wide techniques.

In this work, we compiled 604 blazars with available core-dominance parameter, out of which 149 blazars are known to have γ-ray emissions. We compared the logR between the 149 Fermi-detected blazars (FDB) and the rest non-Fermi-detected blazars (non-FDB), and found that the average values are < logR > = 1.12 ± 0.88 for FDBs and < logR > = 0.05 ± 0.94 for non-FDBs. A K-S test shows that the probability for the distributions of FDB and non-FDB to come from the same parent distribution is P = 2.38 × 10−7. We also investigated the correlation between the core-dominance parameters and the γ-ray emission variability index (VI) for 125 FDBs (45 BLs and 79 FSRQs), and found that there is a tendency for VI to increase with the core-dominance parameter for 79 FSRQs, but there is no such tendency for 46 BLs.

We analyze the dynamics and activity observed in bodies approaching the Earth (perihelion distances q < 1.3 au) in short-period orbits (P < 20 yr), which essentially are near-Earth Jupiter Family Comets (NEJFCs) and near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). In the general definition, comets are “active”, i.e. they show some coma, while asteroids are “inactive”, i.e. they only show a bare nucleus. Besides their activity, NEJFCs are distinguished from NEAs by their dynamical evolution: NEJFCs move on unstable orbits subject to frequent close encounters with Jupiter, whereas NEA orbits are much more stable and tend to avoid close encounters with Jupiter. However, some JFCs are found to move on stable, asteroidal-type orbits, so the question arises if these objects are asteroids that have become active, perhaps upon approach to the Sun. In this sense they may be regarded as the counterparts of the main-belt comets (Hsieh & Jewitt 2006). On the other hand, some seemingly inert NEAs move on unstable, comet-type orbits, so the question about what is a comet and what is an asteroid has become increasingly complex.

A new spin wavelet transform on the sphere is proposed to analyse the polarisation of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), a spin ± 2 signal observed on the celestial sphere. The scalar directional scale-discretised wavelet transform on the sphere is extended to analyse signals of arbitrary spin. The resulting spin scale-discretised wavelet transform probes the directional intensity of spin signals. A procedure is presented using this new spin wavelet transform to recover E- and B-mode signals from partial-sky observations of CMB polarisation.

We present here a brief summary of the currenly on-going IFU surveys of galaxies in teh Local Universe, describing their main characteristics, including their sample selections, instrumental setups, wavelength ranges, and area of the galaxies covered. Finally, we make an emphasis on the main characteristics of the CALIFA survey and the more recent results that has been recently published.

It is difficult to find or identifying the binary black holes in parsec scales, since the dual AGN may be merged quickly. It is required to explore more possibilities to identifying binary black holes in parsec scales, we give some discussions, especially with the VLBI methods.

We discuss predictions for cycle 24 and the way forward if progress is to be made for cycle 25 and beyond.

We measure the stellar mass surface densities of early type galaxies by observing the micro-lensing of macro-lensed quasars caused by individual stars, including stellar remnants, brown dwarfs and red dwarfs too faint to produce photometric or spectroscopic signatures. Our method measures the graininess of the gravitational potential, in contrast to methods that decompose a smooth total gravitational potential into two smooth components, one stellar and one dark. We find the median likelihood value for the calibration factor $\cal F$ by which Salpeter stellar masses (with a low mass cutoff of 0.1 M⊙) must be multiplied is 1.23, with a one sigma confidence range of 0.77 < $\cal F$ < 2.10.

The business session for Commission 37 was held on 24 August 2012 at the IAU General Assembly in Beijing. The meeting was attended by about a dozen members of our Comission, including President Carraro, VP de Grijs and several committee members. We introduced ourselves and then went through a powerpoint presentation first prepared by outgoing President Elmegreen and revised by incoming President Carraro. The contents of the powerpoint presentation are given in this summary.

Methods to recover the fossil record of galaxy evolution encoded in their optical spectra have been instrumental in processing the avalanche of data from mega-surveys along the last decade, effectively transforming observed spectra onto a long and rich list of physical properties: from stellar masses and mean ages to full star formation histories. This promoted progress in our understanding of galaxies as a whole. Yet, the lack of spatial resolution introduces undesirable aperture effects, and hampers advances on the internal physics of galaxies. This is now changing with 3D surveys. The mapping of stellar populations in data-cubes allows us to figure what comes from where, unscrambling information previously available only in integrated form. This contribution uses our starlight-based analysis of 300 CALIFA galaxies to illustrate the power of spectral synthesis applied to data-cubes. The selected results highlighted here include: (a) The evolution of the mass-metallicity and mass-density-metallicity relations, as traced by the mean stellar metallicity. (b) A comparison of star formation rates obtained from Hα to those derived from full spectral fits. (c) The relation between star formation rate and dust optical depth within galaxies, which turns out to mimic the Schmidt-Kennicutt law. (d) PCA tomography experiments.

The incredible variety of galaxy shapes cannot be summarized by human defined discrete classes of shapes without causing a possibly large loss of information. Dictionary learning and sparse coding allow us to reduce the high dimensional space of shapes into a manageable low dimensional continuous vector space. Statistical inference can be done in the reduced space via probability distribution estimation and manifold estimation.

We present a novel way to mine the Kepler data for young M dwarfs.

The Solar Orbiter is the next solar physics mission of the European Space Agency, ESA, in collaboration with NASA, with a launch planned in 2018. The spacecraft is designed to approach the Sun to within 0.28 AU at perihelion of a highly eccentric orbit. The proximity with the Sun will also allow its observation at uniformly high resolution at EUV and visible wavelengths. Such observations are central for learning more about the magnetic coupling of the solar atmosphere. At a later phase in the mission the spacecraft will leave the ecliptic and study the enigmatic poles of the Sun from a heliographic latitude of up to 33○.

A central instrument of Solar Orbiter} is the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager, SO/PHI. It will do full Stokes imaging in the Landé g = 2.5 Fe I 617.3 nm line. It is composed of two telescopes, a full-disk telescope and a high-resolution telescope, that will allow observations at a resolution as high as 200 km on the solar surface. SO/PHI will also be the first solar polarimeter to leave the Sun-Earth line, opening up new possibilities, such as stereoscopic polarimetry (besides stereoscopic imaging of the photosphere and stereoscopic helioseismology). Finally, SO/PHI will have a unique view of the solar poles, allowing not just more precise and exact measurements of the polar field than possible so far, but also enabling us to follow the dynamics of individual magnetic features at high latitudes and to determine solar surface and sub-surface flows right up to the poles.

In this paper an introduction to the science goals and the capabilities of SO/PHI will be given, as well as a brief overview of the instrument and of the current status of its development.

Recent measurements of frequency-dependent shift of radio-core locations indicate that the ratio of the magnetic to kinetic energy flux (the σ parameter) is of the order of unity. These results are consistent with predictions of magnetically-arrested-disk (MAD) models of a jet formation, but contradict the predictions of leptonic models of γ-ray production in luminous blazars. We demonstrate this discrepancy by computing the γ-ray-to-synchrotron luminosity ratio (the q parameter) as a function of a distance from the black hole for different values of σ and using both spherical and planar models for broad-line region and dusty torus. We find that it is impossible to reproduce observed q ≫ 1 for jets with σ ≥ 1. This may indicate that blazar radiation is produced in reconnection layers or in spines of magnetically stratified jets.

On 13 December 2012, Chang'e-2 completed a successful flyby of the near-Earth asteroid 4179 Toutatis at a closest distance of 770 meters from the asteroid's surface. The observations show that Toutatis has an irregular surface and its shape resembles a ginger-root of a smaller lobe (head) and a larger lobe (body). Such bilobate shape is indicative of a contact binary origin for Toutatis. In addition, the high-resolution images better than 3 meters provide a number of new discoveries about this asteroid, such as an 800-meter depression at the end of the large lobe, a sharply perpendicular silhouette near the neck region, boulders, indicating that Toutatis is probably a rubble-pile asteroid. Chang'e-2 observations have significantly revealed new insights into the geological features and the formation and evolution of this asteroid. In final, we brief the future Chinese asteroid mission concept.