The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) is one the of three global Pulsar Timing Array communities, aiming to use the clock nature of pulsars to detect gravitational wave. In this talk, I will provide an introduction to the current status of EPTA pulsar observations and present an overview of the recent results. I will also give an update on the progress of the Large European Array for Pulsar (LEAP) project, which attempts to coherently combine the data from the five biggest single site radio telescopes in Europe and make an equivalently 200-metre diameter dish. The LEAP project is an ideal effort in performing high precision pulsar timing and studying characteristics of single pulses from millisecond pulsars.

We present analysis of the photometric data of the distant comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann-1, obtained at the 6-m BTA telescope (SAO RAS, Russia) and at the 2-meter telescope Zeiss-2000 (ICAMER, KB). The comet shows significant jets activity at large heliocentric distances, beyond the zone of water ice sublimation. Various digital filters were applied to increase the contrast of the jets and separate them. The rotation period of the nucleus was derived using cross-correlation method. The value of the rotation period is 12.1 ± 1.2 days for observations made in 2008 and 11.7 ± 1.5 days for observations made in 2009.

We quantitatively explore in a unbiased way the evolution of dust attenuation up to z ≈ 4 as a function of galaxy properties. We have used one of the deepest datasets available at present, in the GOODS-N field, to select a star forming galaxy sample and robustly measure galaxy redshifts, star formation rates, stellar masses and UV restframe properties. Our main results can be summarized as follows: i) we confirm that galaxy stellar mass is a main driver of UV dust attenuation in star forming galaxies: more massive galaxies are more dust attenuated than less massive ones; ii) strikingly, we find that the correlation does not evolve with redshift: the amount of dust attenuation is the same at all cosmic epochs for a fixed stellar mass; iii) this finding explains why and how the SFR–AUV relation evolves with redshift: the same amount of star formation is less attenuated at higher redshift because it is hosted in less massive galaxies; iv) combining our finding with results from line emission surveys, we confirm that line reddening is larger than continuum reddening, at least up to z ≈ 1.5; v) given the redshift evolution of the mass-metallicity relation, we predict that star forming galaxies at a fixed metal content are more attenuated at high redshift. Finally, we explored the correlation between UV dust attenuation and the spectral slope: vi) the correlation is evolving with redshift with star forming galaxies at lower redshift having redder spectra than higher redshift ones for the same amount of dust attenuation.

We have conducted deep optical spectroscopic follow up of a sample of radio galaxies with redshifts z < 0.7. The spectra were used to construct robust sub-samples of low excitation and high excitation AGN and perform stellar population analysis via line indices and spectral fitting. While the high excitation objects have lower luminosity-weighted ages and lower metallicities than the low excitation galaxies, this can be explained by the different stellar mass distributions of the samples. When stellar mass is taken into account the age and metallicity distribution of both populations are consistent with the galaxy population as a whole.

We present Herschel-SPIRE imaging spectroscopy (194-671 μm) of the bright starburst galaxy M82. We use RADEX and a Bayesian Likelihood Analysis to simultaneously model the temperature, density, column density, and filling factor of both the cool and warm components of molecular gas traced by the entire CO ladder up to J=13-12. The high-J lines observed by SPIRE trace much warmer gas (~500 K) than those observable from the ground. The addition of 13CO (and [C I]) is new and indicates that [C I] may be tracing different gas than 12CO. At such a high temperature, cooling is dominated by molecular hydrogen; we conclude with a discussion on the possible excitation processes in this warm component. Photon-dominated region (PDR) models require significantly higher densities than those indicated by our Bayesian likelihood analysis in order to explain the high-J CO line ratios, though cosmic-ray enhanced PDR models can do a better job reproducing the emission at lower densities. Shocks and turbulent heating are likely required to explain the bright high-J emission.

We analyse a sample of 15,019 narrow emission-line galaxies, i.e. Seyferts, LINERs, composites and star-forming galaxies, from SDSS DR7 to study the differences between the different emission-line classes. We report two clear sequences of electron temperature (Te) and density (ne): Te-LINER ≳ Te-composite > Te-Seyfert > Te-star-forming and ne-Seyfert ≳ ne-LINER > ne-composite > ne-star-forming. General transitions of ne and Te from central regions to disks are quantitatively confirmed.

We have a plan to conduct a Doppler planet search for low-mass planets around nearby middle-to-late M dwarfs using IRD. IRD is the near-infrared high-precision radial velocity instrument for the Subaru 8.2-m telescope. We expect to achieve the accuracy of the radial velocity measurements of 1 m/s using IRD with a frequency comb as a wavelengh calibrator. Thus, we would detect super-Earths in habitable zone and low-mass rocky planets in close-in orbits around late-M dwarfs. In this survey, we aim to understand and discuss statistical properties of low-mass planets around low-mass M dwarfs compared with those derived from theoretical simulations.

The role of turbulence in astrophysical environments and its interplay with magnetic fields is still highly debated. In this lecture, we will discuss this issue in the framework of dynamo processes. We will first present a very brief summary of turbulent dynamo theories, then will focus on small scale turbulent dynamos and their particular relevance on the origin and maintenance of magnetic fields in the intra-cluster media (ICM) of galaxies. In these environments, the very low density of the flow requires a collisionless-MHD treatment. We will show the implications of this approach in the turbulent amplification of the magnetic fields in these environments. To finalize, we will also briefly address the connection between MHD turbulence and fast magnetic reconnection and its possible implications in the diffusion of magnetic flux in the dynamo process.

To study the effect of magnetic fields on lithium depletion and explain the characters of lithium evolution in solar-type stars, stellar models including Tayler-Spruit dynamo-type field are constructed. We compare the theoretical results with the time scales of lithium depletion suggested by Sestito & Randich (2005) and obtain very good agreements.

We report the discovery of a new pulsar PSR J1839+15, having a period of 549 ms and a DM of 68 pc cm−3. We also present its timing solution and report the intermittent behaviour of its radio emission.

I discuss a search for red giant stars in the Galactic halo with light-element abundances similar to second-generation globular cluster stars, and discuss the implications of such a population for globular cluster formation models and the balance between in situ star formation and accretion for the assembly of the Galactic halo.

Distant radio galaxies, hosted by massive ellipticals, follow the galaxy evolution process on an extremely large (0 ≥ z ≥7) time-scale ≥ 1012Gyrs, up to primeval galaxies. The new evolutionary code Pégase.3 predicts on similar time-scales, the coupled stellar and dust emissions of various galaxy types: starbursts and Hubble sequence types. All z=0 templates are fitted on local observations at ages ≃13 Gyrs (except irregulars at 9 Gyrs). The multi-λ spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of two z=3.8 radiogalaxies, including the most recent Herschel data from the HeRGÉ consortium, are interpreted in the observer's frame by Rocca-Volmerange et al. (2012) with Pégase.3. The apparent SEDs are fitted at best with the sum of a young starburst and an older early-type population, an AGN simple model is taken into account. These results favor massive gas-rich mergers at work in evolved galaxies at z≃4. Massive starbursts would be at the origin of galaxy evolution initiated at the earliest epochs (zfor≥10). The possible relation with super massive black holes is still debated.

We have carried out 1mm/3mm continuum and 12CO(2−1) line high resolution observations to identify the footprints of AGN feedback on 3C 236. The CO emission comes from a spatially resolved disk characterized by a regular rotating pattern. Within the limits imposed by the sensitivity and velocity coverage of our data, we do not detect any outflow signatures in the cold molecular gas. Re-inspection of optical and IR spectra, shows the presence of a previously unknown ionized gas outflow. The star-formation efficiency in 3C 236, is consistent with the value measured in normal galaxies, which follow the canonical Kennicutt-Schmidt law. This result, confirmed to hold in other young radio sources examined in this work, is in stark contrast with the factor of 10–50 lower SFE that has been claimed to characterize evolved powerful radio galaxies. The recent reactivation of the AGN in 3C 236 is a likely explanation for the early evolutionary status of its molecular disk.

We have observed Arp 270 using the GHαFaS Fabry-Perot spectrometer on the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope (La Palma). In the edge-on companion we detect a radial gas inflow of ∼ 0.36 M⊙/yr to the centre and also an axially confined outflow of ∼ 0.24 M⊙/yr from the nucleus in two opposing directions. We find two different behaviors between the physical properties of the HII regions. We suggest as a possible explanation a sub and supersonic regime.

The connection between the active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and star formation activity is one of the most important issues in understanding the coevolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and galaxies. In our recent study, by using SDSS quasar spectra we found that the emission-line flux rations involving a nitrogen line correlate with the Eddington ratio. This correlation suggests that the mass accretion in quasars is associated with a post-starburst phase, when AGB stars enrich the interstellar medium with the nitrogen. Moreover, we focused on nitrogen-loud quasars, that have prominent emission lines of the nitrogen, to investigate whether this argument is correct. In this symposium, we present our results regarding the relation between the star formation and feeding to SMBHs traced by the nitrogen abundance.

We review some of the recent progress on modeling planetary and stellar dynamos. Particular attention is given to the dynamo mechanisms and the resulting properties of the field. We present direct numerical simulations using a simple Boussinesq model. These simulations are interpreted using the classical mean-field formalism. We investigate the transition from steady dipolar to multipolar dynamo waves solutions varying different control parameters, and discuss the relevance to stellar magnetic fields. We show that owing to the role of the strong zonal flow, this transition is hysteretic. In the presence of stress-free boundary conditions, the bistability extends over a wide range of parameters.

We measured the UV-optical-near-IR spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of redshift z ~ 0.3-1.5 early-type galaxies (ETGs) with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 (Rutkowski et al.2012). We searched for young stellar populations and morphological signatures of the mechanisms driving recent star formation (RSF) in these ETGs in order to provide observational constraints on models of galaxy evolution.

We study the stellar populations of a large sample of nearly face-on disk Low Surface Brightness Galaxies (LSBGs), with B-band central surface brightness μ0(B) > 22 mag arcsec−2, selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 (SDSS-DR4) main galaxy sample (similar to Zhong et al. 2008; Liang et al. 2010).

Based on the very general assumptions on evolution, we have modeled the statistics of SNRs evolving at various initial and environmental conditions. The method is applied to M33, for which the value of the filling factor of the hot phase of the ISM is estimated to be ~ 10%.

We present the main results of statistical study of general properties of isolated AGN hosts and AGN hosts in pairs at z<0.05 as concerns with the environmental influence on the nuclear galaxy activity. With this aim we compiled the sample of 61 isolated AGNs selected from 2MIG Catalog and Catalog Veron+2010, and the sample of 109 AGNs in pairs selected from NED database.

We found a significant excess content of Sy 2 type galaxies in comparison with Sy 1 type galaxies in both samples (44% and 11% among isolated AGNs, 48% and 6% among AGNs in pairs, respectively). Isolated AGN hosts of all spectral types are located, in average, at the more far distances and have a more complicated structure than AGNs in pairs as well as they are mostly of late morphological types. Our statistical analysis shows that the observed nuclear activity of isolated 2MIG AGNs during last 3 billions years and more, first of all, is connected with the internal galaxy parameters (relative mass/size, dark/visible matter content, multi-wavelength properties of gas-dust medium in accretion disks, tor's structure, central black hole mass etc.).