A new chemodynamical model for the formation and evolution of a Milky Way type galaxy is introduced. In this scenario, the galaxy forms inside a slowly growing dark matter halo in a ΛCDM cosmology. In contrast to the simple merger and collapse scenarios, the galactic mass grows continuously over a Hubble time. The whole formation scenario is simulated with a three-dimensional chemodynamical code. Within this model it is possible to follow the evolution of the galactic substructure in detail. The structure of the galactic components — halo, bulge, and disk — and the kinematical and chemical signatures of the stellar populations in the model are in excellent agreement with data from the Milky Way. The present model provides a detailed formation scenario for the Milky Way Galaxy and it yields new information about its kinematical and chemical history. The model predicts that even galaxies like the Milky Way show phases with supernova-driven galactic winds. However, with a mass loss of the order of only a few per cent of the total baryonic mass, these galaxies are in all probability not the main contributors to the enrichment of the intergalactic medium.

PILOT (the Pathfinder for an International Large Optical Telescope) is a proposed 2.5-m optical/infrared telescope to be located at Dome C on the Antarctic plateau. The atmospheric conditions at Dome C deliver a high sensitivity, high photometric precision, wide-field, high spatial resolution, and high-cadence imaging capability to the PILOT telescope. These capabilities enable a unique scientific potential for PILOT, which is addressed in this series of papers. The current paper presents a series of projects dealing with the nearby Universe that have been identified as key science drivers for the PILOT facility. Several projects are proposed that examine stellar populations in nearby galaxies and stellar clusters in order to gain insight into the formation and evolution processes of galaxies and stars. A series of projects will investigate the molecular phase of the Galaxy and explore the ecology of star formation, and investigate the formation processes of stellar and planetary systems. Three projects in the field of exoplanet science are proposed: a search for free-floating low-mass planets and dwarfs, a program of follow-up observations of gravitational microlensing events, and a study of infrared light-curves for previously discovered exoplanets. Three projects are also proposed in the field of planetary and space science: optical and near-infrared studies aimed at characterising planetary atmospheres, a study of coronal mass ejections from the Sun, and a monitoring program searching for small-scale Low Earth Orbit satellite debris items.

It is likely that in most stars certain layers, either in the interior or outer regions, will be unstable against convection and the study of energy transport by convection has raised considerable interest since the early days of this century when Karl Schwarzschild derived his criterion for deciding whether a certain region is in convective or radiative equilibrium.

Recently E. M. Burbidge and P. A. Strittmatter1 have found that the DB-like star G61-29 has broad He emission lines suggesting a rapid rotation. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a further white dwarf candidate for rapid rotation.

We present 63 new multi-site radial velocity (RV) measurements of the K1III giant HD 76920, which was recently reported to host the most eccentric planet known to orbit an evolved star. We focused our observational efforts on the time around the predicted periastron passage and achieved near-continuous phase coverage of the corresponding RV peak. By combining our RV measurements from four different instruments with previously published ones, we confirm the highly eccentric nature of the system and find an even higher eccentricity of $e=0.8782 \pm 0.0025$ , an orbital period of $415.891^{+0.043}_{-0.039}\,\textrm{d}$ , and a minimum mass of $3.13^{+0.41}_{-0.43}\,\textrm{M}_{\textrm{J}}$ for the planet. The uncertainties in the orbital elements are greatly reduced, especially for the period and eccentricity. We also performed a detailed spectroscopic analysis to derive atmospheric stellar parameters, and thus the fundamental stellar parameters ( $M_*, R_*, L_*$ ), taking into account the parallax from Gaia DR2, and independently determined the stellar mass and radius using asteroseismology. Intriguingly, at periastron, the planet comes to within 2.4 stellar radii of its host star’s surface. However, we find that the planet is not currently experiencing any significant orbital decay and will not be engulfed by the stellar envelope for at least another 50–80 Myr. Finally, while we calculate a relatively high transit probability of 16%, we did not detect a transit in the TESS photometry.

The dependences of Stark width on the upper-level ionization potential within different series of the neutral beryllium spectral lines have been studied. The dependences previously observed for electron impact contribution to the Stark widths were also obtained for the proton impact contribution. The emphasis is on the fine structure influence on the studied Stark parameter dependences. The influence of temperature on the dependences of Stark width parameters has been demonstrated. The relations found can be used in both cases for prediction of new Stark broadening data, thus avoiding much more complicated procedures.

Many early-type stars are in systems; some of them have been indicated as putative high-energy emitters. The radiation would be produced at the region where two stellar winds collide. Compelling evidence of such emission was found only for the colliding-wind binary (CWB) Eta Car, which was associated to a GeV source. Very recently, the closest CWB, WR 11, was proposed as a counterpart of a 6σ emission excess, measured with the Fermi LAT satellite. We sought evidence to support or reject the hypothesis that WR 11 is responsible of the gamma-ray excess. Archive radio interferometric data at 1.4 and 2.5 GHz taken with the Australia Telescope Compact Array along 16 dates were reduced. The sizes of the field-of-view at 2.5 GHz and of the central region of the Fermi LAT excess are alike. We analysed the emission of the WR 11 field, characterised the radio sources detected and derived their spectral indices, to investigate their nature. Eight sources with fluxes above 10 mJy were detected at both frequencies. All but one (WR 11) showed negative spectral indices. Four of them were identified with known objects, including WR 11. A fifth source, labeled here S6, is a promising candidate to produce gamma-ray emission, besides the CWB WR 11.

The star-formation process is an outstanding and largely unsolved problem in astrophysics. The role of magnetic fields is unclear but is widely considered to be important at all stages of protostellar evolution, from cloud collapse to ZAMS. For example, in some hydromagnetic models, the field may assist in removing angular momentum, thereby driving accretion and perhaps bipolar outflows.

Spectropolarimetry between 8 and 13μm provides information on the direction of the transverse component of a magnetic field through the alignment of dust grains. We present results of 8–13μm spectropolarimetric observations of a number of bipolar molecular outflow sources, and compare the field directions observed with the axes of the outflows and putative disk-like structures observed to be associated with some of the objects. There is a strong correlation, though so far with limited statistics, between the magnetic field and disk orientations. We compare our results with magnetic field configurations predicted by current models for hydromagnetically driven winds from the disks around Young Stellar Objects (YSOs). Our results appear to argue against the Pudritz and Norman model and instead seem to support the Uchida and Shibata model.

Three mirrors of the White Cliffs Solar Power Station are currently being used for very high energy γ-ray Astronomy while the University of Adelaide very high energy γ-ray telescope is being designed. Use is made of fast-timing to obtain γ-ray arrival directions to an accuracy approaching 1 °. The experimental arrangement and operation of the telescope is described and our current observing program is outlined.

In a previous paper of this issue (Stewart and Nelson 1979 — Paper A) we showed that for extended bursts a good correlation exists between the observed 100 keV X-ray slux density and the 3.75 or 9.4 GHz microwave flux density. We also showed that the microwave spectrum of these bursts was much flatter (S ∝ f1.0 on the average) than the optically thick (self-absorbed) spectrum observed for impulsive microwave bursts (Crannell et al. 1978; Dulk et al. 1978). Furthermore, the microwave turnover frequency was > 10 GHz in eight of the nine events studied and <20 GHz in four of these cases. The remaining event, which was severely occulted by the solar limb, had a turnover frequency of ∽ 1 GHz.

The flux densities of 220 radio sources have been accurately measured at 408 MHz in order to provide a useful set of calibration sources accessible to southern radio astronomers. The flux densities are based on a scale defined by absolute measurements. This scale appears to be 10% higher than the commonly accepted CKL scale and about 8% higher than the scale defined by Kellermann when averaged over common sources.

NGC 4945 is a ninth-magnitude southern galaxy orientated almost edge-on to the line-of-sight. De Vaucouleurs and de Vaucouleurs (1964) list its classification as SB(s)cd and its optical dimensions as 17’ x 3’ arc. It is of particular interest because 18 cm OH and 6 cm H2CO absorption has been detected (Whiteoak and Gardner 1973; Gardner and Whiteoak 1974) in molecular clouds in this galaxy which overlie the small-diameter radio source located near the nucleus. In reporting the detection of the OH absorption we suggested that the HI profile in the direction of the nucleus was affected by HI absorption. In this paper we describe a study of the HI distribution which substantiates this conclusion.

The design and construction of the 30 m2 Bicentennial Gamma Ray Telescope at Woomera South Australia is described. This novel instrument is now completed and commissioning is underway. It is designed to observe astronomical sources at energies greater than ∼ 500 GeV by means of atmospheric Cerenkov light. It contains 55 spherical, glass mirrors of focal length 2.66 m arranged in three groups of 10 m2, to focus the light onto three sets of detectors operated in fast co-incidence. The recording electronics includes a rubidium clock to enable pulsars to be studied.

Some unsolved cosmological questions remain in relation to the formation of structure in the universe. One way of addressing such questions is to use rich galaxy clusters as tracers of the growth of large-scale structure. To date, studies of rich clusters of galaxies have concentrated on systems generally at either high redshift or in the local universe. The properties of clusters and their constituent galaxies at these extrema are becoming well understood. In particular, it is becoming clear that rich clusters have undergone considerable evolution both dynamically and in their galaxy populations over the last 5–8 Gyr. We are undertaking a detailed study of rich clusters of galaxies in the range 0·05 ≲ z ≲ 0·15. Our results will be directly comparable to those of previous studies both at high and low redshift and, for the first time, provide continuous coverage across this important and unexplored transitory epoch in terms of galaxy evolution and structure growth.

This article describes a method to turn astronomical imaging into a random number generator by using the positions of incident cosmic rays and hot pixels to generate bit streams. We subject the resultant bit streams to a battery of standard benchmark statistical tests for randomness and show that these bit streams are statistically the same as a perfect random bit stream. Strategies for improving and building upon this method are outlined.

We investigate the scale on which the correlation arises between the 843 MHz radio and the 60 μm far-infrared (FIR) emission from star forming regions in the Milky way. The correlation, which exists on the smallest scales investigated (down to ≈ 4 pc), becomes noticeably tight on fields of size 30′, corresponding to physical scales of ≈ 20–50 pc. The FIR to radio flux ratio on this scale is consi stent with the radio emission being dominated by thermal emission. We also investigate the location dependence of qmean, a parameter measuring the mean FIR to radio flux ratio, of a sample of star forming regions. We show that qmean displays a modest dependence on galactic latitude. If this is interpreted as a dependence on the intensity of star formation activity, the result is consistent with studies of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and other near by galaxies that show elevated values for q in regions of enhanced star formation.

We present observations of the four $^2 \Pi _{3/2}\,J=3/2$ ground-rotational state transitions of the hydroxyl molecule (OH) along 107 lines of sight both in and out of the Galactic plane: 92 sets of observations from the Arecibo telescope and 15 sets of observations from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). Our Arecibo observations included off-source pointings, allowing us to measure excitation temperature ($T_{\rm ex}$) and optical depth, while our ATCA observations give optical depth only. We perform Gaussian decomposition using the Automated Molecular Excitation Bayesian line-fitting Algorithm ‘Amoeba’ (Petzler, Dawson, & Wardle 2021, ApJ, 923, 261) fitting all four transitions simultaneously with shared centroid velocity and width. We identify 109 features across 38 sightlines (including 58 detections along 27 sightlines with excitation temperature measurements). While the main lines at 1665 and 1667 MHz tend to have similar excitation temperatures (median $|\Delta T_{\rm ex}({\rm main})|=0.6\,$K, 84% show $|\Delta T_{\rm ex}({\rm main})|<2\,$K), large differences in the 1612 and 1720 MHz satellite line excitation temperatures show that the gas is generally not in LTE. For a selection of sightlines, we compare our OH features to associated (on-sky and in velocity) Hi cold gas components (CNM) identified by Nguyen et al. (2019, ApJ, 880, 141) and find no strong correlations. We speculate that this may indicate an effective decoupling of the molecular gas from the CNM once it accumulates.

While amongst the most luminous objects in the universe, many details regarding the inner structure of quasars remain unknown. One such area is the mechanism promoting increased polarisation in the broad absorption line troughs of certain quasars. This study shows how microlensing can be used to differentiate between two popular models that explain such polarisation through a realistic computational analysis. By examining a statistical ensemble of correlation data between two observables (namely image brightness and polarisation of the flux coming from the quasar), it was found that through spectropolarimetric monitoring it would be possible to discern between a model with an external scattering region and a model without one.

High-resolution surveys of the galactic radio emission show detailed structure both near the galactic plane and at high galactic latitudes. Some of this structure is describable as ‘spurs’ while the rest comprises isolated features. We describe here measurements of the spectral index of the background radiation with a resolution of 3°.5. These measurements are aimed at a detailed understanding of the high-latitude synchrotron emission.

A common form of wave propagation in the highly structured magnetic fields and density profiles of the solar atmosphere should be magnetohydrodynamic surface waves, i.e. waves with magnetic and velocity fields concentrated at an interface of two regions of plasma of differing properties. For example, local concentrations of equilibrium magnetic fields forming flux tubes will support these waves on their surfaces, in addition to the more commonly considered ‘body waves’ that are supported by an isolated flux tube, waves with an oscillatory radial dependence inside the tube. Mhd surface waves have recently been identified in a laboratory plasma at Sydney University (Collins, Cramer and Donnelly 1983).