In this paper we first discuss observational evidence of longitudinal concentrations of magnetic activity in the Sun and rapidly rotating late-type stars with outer convective envelopes. Scenarios arising from the idea of rotationally influenced anisotropic convective turbulence being the key physical process generating these structures are then presented and discussed - such effects include the turbulent dynamo mechanism, negative effective magnetic pressure instability (NEMPI) and hydrodynamical vortex instability. Finally, we discuss non-axisymmetric stellar mean-field dynamo models, the results obtained with them, and compare those with the observational information gathered up so far. We also present results from a pure α2 mean-field dynamo model, which show that time-dependent behavior of the dynamo solutions can occur both in the form of an azimuthal dynamo wave and/or oscillatory behavior related to the alternating energy levels of the active longitudes.

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

In recent years, the fullerene species C60 (and to a lesser extent also C70) has been reported in the mid-IR spectra of various astronomical objects. Cosmic fullerenes form in the circumstellar material of evolved stars, and survive in the interstellar medium (ISM). It is not entirely clear how they form or what their excitation mechanism is.

Recently, massive early-type galaxies have shed their red-and-dead moniker, thanks to the discovery that many host residual star formation. As part of the ATLAS-3D project, we have conducted a complete, volume-limited survey of the molecular gas in 260 local early-type galaxies with the IRAM-30m telescope and the CARMA interferometer, in an attempt to understand the fuel powering this star formation. We find that around 22% of early-type galaxies in the local volume host molecular gas reservoirs. This detection rate is independent of galaxy luminosity and environment. Here we focus on how kinematic misalignment measurements and gas-to-dust ratios can be used to put constraints on the origin of the cold ISM in these systems. The origin of the cold ISM seems to depend strongly on environment, with misaligned, dust poor gas (indicative of externally acquired material) being common in the field but completely absent in rich groups and in the Virgo cluster. Very massive galaxies also appear to be devoid of accreted gas. This suggests that in the field mergers and/or cold gas accretion dominate the gas supply, while in clusters internal secular processes become more important. This implies that environment has a strong impact on the cold gas properties of ETGs.

We are currently undertaking a monitoring campaign with NASA 70-m antennas to capture a large sample of Crab Giant Pulses (CGP) at multiple radio wavelengths. The goal of this campaign is to carry out a correlation study of CGPs at radio frequencies with pulsed emission from the Crab pulsar with Fermi photons at X-ray. After a year of this study, we expect around 200 Fermi photons to coincide with a CGP radio-frequency detection, allowing us to either confirm a predicted correlation in average gamma-ray pulsed flux increase with GP emission, or place a tight upper limit, at least a factor of 10 more constraining than previous work. We will report on the status of this campaign and will present our preliminary results and prospects for future improvements in receivers and back-end instrumentation.

The durations (T90) of 315 GRBs detected with Fermi/GBM (8-1000 keV) by 2011 September are calculated using the Bayesian Block method. We compare the T90 distributions between this sample and that observed with previous/current GRB missions. We show that T90 is energy-band dependent and the observed bimodal T90 distribution would be due to the instrumental selection effect.

We carried out a photometric analysis of a sample of early-type galaxies in Abell~1689 at z = 0.183, using HST/ACS archive images in the rest-frame V band. We performed a two-dimensional photometric decomposition of each galaxy surface-brightness distribution using the GASP2D fitting algorithm (Méndez-Abreu et al. 2008). We adopted both a Sérsic and de Vaucouleurs law. S0 galaxies were analysed also taking into account a disc component described by an exponential law. The derived photometric parameters, together with the ones previously obtained with the curve of growth method (Houghton et al. 2012), will be used to analyse the Fundamental Plane of Abell 1689 and quantify how it is affected by the use of different decomposition techniques (Dalla Bontà et al. 2013, in preparation). The stellar velocity dispersions of the sample galaxies were derived by using GEMINI-N/GMOS and VLT/FLAMES (D'Eugenio et al. 2013) spectroscopic data.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is nearing its phase of full operations. ALMA will collect about 200TB/year of astronomical data which will be reduced by an automatic pipeline and turned into fully calibrated science-ready data products. We present design choices, challenges and solutions from data capturing over data reduction and data distribution to archival research, that allow to deal with the large amounts of data and, hopefully, achieve the maximum amount of science return.

The kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations (kHz QPOs) have been found in neutron star low mass X-ray binaries (NS-LMXBs), which present the millisecond timing phenomena close to the surface of the compact objects. We briefly summarize the following contents: (1). The correlations and distributions of twin kHz QPOs; (2). The relations of high-low frequency QPOs; (3). The QPO properties of NS Atoll and Z sources; (4). No clear direct correlations between NS spins and QPOs; (5). The mechanisms of kHz QPOs; (6). The implications of kHZ QPOs, e.g., NS mass and radius, disk thickness and magnetic field of Atoll and Z source.

Stars are usually faint point sources and investigating their surfaces and interiors observationally is very demanding. Here I give a review on the state-of-the-art observing techniques and recent results on studying interiors and surface features of active stars.

The theory of mean-field galactic dynamos is generalized by allowing for a finite response time of the mean electromotive force (emf) to variations in the mean magnetic field and small-scale turbulence. A non-axisymmetric forcing of the dynamo by a spiral pattern (either stationary or transient) is invoked. The resulting magnetic spiral arms are phase-shifted from the spiral arms of the pattern by an angle 15°–40°, opposite to the sense of galactic rotation. Our findings may help to explain the phase shift between material and magnetic arms observed in NGC 6946 and other galaxies.

This contribution discusses the prospect of using millimeter interferometry to survey molecular gas in a large number of galaxies beyond the distance of Virgo.

We present a result of IRS spectroscopy of 14 Ultra-Luminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIRGs) in the Extended Groth Strip region. These galaxies are massive and have very high star formation rate. Four objects of this sample are detected in the HST/WFC3 near-infrared imaging. They show very diversified rest-frame optical morphologies, including string-like, extended/diffused, and even spiral with a possible bulge, implying different formation processes for these galaxies. We also search for signatures of active galactic nucleus (AGN) in our sample in the X-ray, mid-infrared and radio bands. This sample is dominated by objects with intensive star formation, only 14–29% of them have AGN activities.

Detecting the small velocity amplitudes (≤ 10 m/s) produced by habitable zone rocky planets around M Dwarfs requires radial velocity precisions of a few m s−1. However, an iodine absorption cell, commonly used as a high precision wavelength reference on non-stabilised spectrographs, is not efficient for very red and faint objects like M Dwarfs. Instead, arc lamps have to be used. With the exception of the ultra-stabilised HARPS spectrograph, achieving ~m s−1 calibration with arc lamps has not been possible because typical spectrographs experience drifts of several hundred m s−1 due to local atmospheric changes in pressure and temperature. We outline and present results from an innovative differential wavelength calibration method that enables ~m s−1 precision from non-stabilised, high-resolution spectrographs. This technique allows the detection of rocky planets with radial velocity amplitudes of a few m s−1.

We used UV-to-IR archival data to investigate the nature of the giant spiral galaxy, NGC 6872, 65 Mpc away. It belongs to the southern Pavo group and is interacting with a small lenticular galaxy, IC4970. GALEX UV images show a very large part of the galaxy not seen before, making it one of the largest spiral galaxies known, with a physical size greater than 150 kpc. The SED of 17 regions (10 kpc of diameter) across the two arms show a remarkable spatial distribution, as if they were mirror images with respect to their stellar population. However, the last 40 kpc of the northeastern arm are much bluer than any other region of the southwestern one. There is a strong spatial correlation between the NUV luminosity and the distance to the nucleus. The UV data supports the scenario of an interaction at 130 Myr which triggered star formation all over the disk of NGC 6872. The tip of the northeastern arm resembles a tidal dwarf galaxy in the process of formation.

The final episode in the history of black hole accretion and galaxy formation takes place in our cosmic backyard, the local universe. Within this volume must also reside the — until now unknown — sources of observed ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). A thorough study of the local universe requires full-sky coverage to obtain a sizable sample and map the matter anisotropy. We recently constructed the first catalog of radio-emitting galaxies that meets this requirement. The sample contains all radio galaxies similar to Centaurus~A out to ~100 Mpc. Only 3% of the hosts of the powerful radio jets are classified as Spiral galaxies, while for non-radio galaxies of similar mass, this fraction is 34%. The energy injected by radio jets per unit volume indicates that Cen A-like radio galaxies have in principle sufficient power to accelerate cosmic rays to ultra-high energies. A significantly enhanced clustering of radio-loud galaxies compared to normal galaxies of the same luminosity is observed. This indicates a causal relation between galaxy environment and jet power, independent of black hole mass.

A brief history is given of wide area optical surveys of galaxies and resulting catalogs, starting from the Shapley-Ames Catalog through POSS and CfA surveys to modern surveys. Scientific impacts of large surveys are described in terms of the complete sample, large homogeneous samples, and new discoveries. Upcoming and future ambitious surveys are also mentioned. A recent review of surveys in various wavelength regions is given by Djorgovski et al. (2012).

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.

Because modern astronomy associates the quest of our origins and high-tech instruments, communicating and teaching astronomy explore both science and technology. We report here on our work in communicating astronomy to the public through Web sites (www.herschel.fr), movies on Dailymotion (www.dailymotion.com/AstrophysiqueTV) and new ITC tools that describe interactively the technological dimension of a space mission for astrophysics.

Merging systems at low redshift provide the unique opportunity to study the processes related to star formation in a variety of environments that presumably resemble those seen at higher redshifts. Previous studies of distant starbursting galaxies suggest that stars are born in turbulent gas, with a higher efficiency than in MW-like spirals. We have investigated in detail the turbulent-driven regime of star-formation in nearby colliding galaxies combining high resolution VLA B array Hi maps and UV GALEX observations. With these data, we could check predictions of our state-of-the-art simulations of mergers, such as the global sharp increase of the fraction of dense gas, as traced by the SFR, with respect to the diffuse gas traced by Hi during the merging stage, following the increased velocity dispersion of the gas. We present here initial results obtained studying the SFR-Hi relation at 4.5 kpc resolution. We determined SFR/Hi mass ratios that are higher in the external regions of mergers than in the outskirts of isolated spirals, though both environments are Hi dominated. SFR/Hi increases towards the central regions following the decrease of the atomic gas fraction and possibly the increased star–formation efficiency. These results need to be checked with a larger sample of systems and on smaller spatial scales. This is the goal of the on-going Chaotic THINGS project that ultimately will allow us to determine why starbursting galaxies deviate from the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation between SFR density and gas surface density.