The WEBDA database of open clusters (hereafter OCs) in the Galaxy contains 970 OCs, of which 911 have age determinations, 920 have distance measurements, and 911 have color-excess data. Base on the statistical analysis of global properties of open clusters, we investigate disk properties such as the height above the Galactic plane. We find that old open clusters (age ≥ 1 Gyr) are preferentially located far from the Galactic plane with 〈|z|〉~394.5 pc. They lie in the outer part of the Galactic disk. The young open clusters are distributed in the Galactic plane almost symmetrically with respect to the Sun, with a scale height perpendicular to the Galactic plane of 50.5 pc. The age distribution of open clusters can be fit approximately with a two-component exponential decay function: one component has an age scale factor of 225.2 Myr, and the other consists of longer-lived clusters with an age scale of 1.8 Gyr, which are smaller than those derived by Janes & Phelps (1994) of 200 Myr and 4 Gyr for the young and old OCs, respectively. As a consequence of completeness effects, the observed radial distribution of OCs with respect to Galactocentric distance does not follow the expected exponential profile. Instead, it falls off both for regions external to the solar circle and more sharply towards the Galactic Center, which is probably due to giant molecular cloud disruption in the center. We simulate the effects of completeness, assuming that the observed distribution of the number of OCs with a given number of stars above the background is representative of the intrinsic distribution of OCs throughout the Galaxy. Two simulation models are considered, in which the intrinsic number of the observable stars are distributed (i) assuming the actual positions of the OCs in the sample, and (ii) random selection of OC positions. As a result, we derive completeness-corrected radial distributions which agree with an exponential disk throughout the observed Galactocentric distance in the range of 5–15 kpc, with scale lengths in the range of 1.6–2.8 kpc.

We investigate 10 QSO host galaxies at 1<z<2 in the COSMOS field (Scoville et al. 2007), observed with the HST in both ACS/WFC I-band and NICMOS/NIC3 H-band. We find that our galaxies with mean z = 1.4 follow the local MBH–Mbulge relation exactly – however, not with an explicit bulge mass, but with their total stellar mass.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the brightest events in the universe. They have been used in the last five years to study the cosmic chemical evolution, from the local universe to the first stars. The sample size is still relatively small when compared to field galaxy surveys. However, GRBs show a universe that is surprising. At z > 2, the cold interstellar medium in galaxies is chemically evolved, with a mean metallicity of about 1/10 solar. At lower redshift (z < 1), metallicities of the ionized gas are relatively low, on average 1/6 solar. Not only is there no evidence of redshift evolution in the interval 0 < z < 6.3, but also the dispersion in the ~30 objects is large. This suggests that the metallicity of host galaxies is not the physical quantity triggering GRB events. From the investigation of other galaxy parameters, it emerges that active star-formation might be a stronger requirement to produce a GRB. Several recent striking results strongly support the idea that GRB studies open a new view on our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution, back to the very primordial universe at z ~ 8.

We present elemental abundances of 13 microlensed dwarf and subgiant stars in the Galactic bulge, which constitute the largest sample to date. We show that these stars span the full range of metallicity from Fe/H= −0.8 to +0.4, and that they follow well-defined abundance trends, coincident with those of the Galactic thick disc.

Although the first stars were likely very hot and luminous, their low or zero metallicity implies that any mass loss through winds driven by line-scattering of radiation in metal ions was likely small or non-existent. Here we examine the potential role of another possible mechanism for mass loss in these first stars, namely via decretion disks associated with near-critical rotation induced from evolution of the stellar interior. In this case the mass loss is set by the angular momentum needed to keep the stellar rotation at or below the critical rate. In present evolutionary models, that mass loss is estimated by assuming effective release from a spherical shell at the surface. Here we examine the potentially important role of viscous coupling of the decretion disk in outward angular momentum transport, emphasizing that the specific angular momentum at the outer edge of the disk can be much larger than at the stellar surface. The net result is that, for a given stellar interior angular momentum excess, the mass loss required from a decretion disk can be significantly less than invoked in previous models assuming a direct, near-surface release.

The Tully-Fisher Relation (TFR) is of fundamental importance for galaxy formation as it provides information about the relation between the baryonic content of galaxies and the depth of their dark halos potential wells. In recent years, it has been possible to study this relation at different redshifts. However, there are still controversies about its origin and evolution. In this work, we try to address the origin of the Tully-Fisher Relation by employing cosmological hydrodynamical simulations.

Observations show that massive stars always form in clusters or associations, and that the most massive stars form in the dense cores of large clusters. This suggests that accretion processes in cluster cores may be responsible for the formation of stars. In addition, young stellar clusters have been found to contain subclusters, so that star formation can be seen to be a hierarchical process that involves clustering on a range of scales. In this paper, we propose a fractal model of the parental molecular cloud, namely that of the Julia set given by f(z) = z2 + c, where z and c are complex numbers and c = −0.745430 + 0.113008i, to explain this phenomenon and the associated complex structures seen in star-forming regions.

We study the fragmentation of expanding shells in the context of the linear thin-shell analysis. We simulate shell fragmentation using the flash AMR code and a variant of the Benz SPH code.

The secular light curves of comets (Ferrín, 2005) give a large amount of physical information on the cometary nucleus. We have developed a model that allows the prediction of a secular light curve, from which we derive parameters like the orientation of the rotational axis (I, φ) and optical thickness of the cometary coma. The model is based on the paper published by (Cowan & A'Hearn, 1979). To do the calculation we found a correlation between the water production rate and the reduced magnitude. We obtain probable orientations of the nucleus pole for several combinations of parameters for comet C/1996 B2 Hyakutake.

This review summarizes the important properties of active black holes (BHs) up to z ~ 2; their mass, accretion rate, and growth rate. At higher redshifts, such information is only available for small samples that do not represent the entire population of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Black hole spin is still unknown; it is speculated to change with redshift, but with little experimental evidence. The available data sets also enable a direct comparison of BH accretion rates and host galaxy star-formation rates (SFRs). The ratio of the BH growth rate g(BH) and the bulge growth rate g(bulge), suggests that the two are proportional to each other. The local value of g(bulge)/g(BH) in low-luminosity AGNs is of order 100 and the corresponding ratio in high-luminosity, high-redshift AGNs is of order 10. This has important implications regarding the parallel evolution of active BHs and their hosts.

The solar radio emissions in the decimetric frequency range (above 1 GHz) are very rich in temporal and spectral fine structures due to nonlinear processes occurring in the magnetic structures on the corresponding active regions. In this paper we characterize the singularity spectrum, f(α), for solar bursts observed at 1.6, 2.0 and 3 GHz. We interpret our findings as evidence of inhomogeneous plasma turbulence driving the underlying plasma emission process and discuss the nonlinear multifractal approach into the context of geoeffective solar active regions.

Long-term trends in the solar spectral irradiance are important to determine the impact on Earth's climate. These long-term changes are thought to be caused mainly by changes in the surface area covered by small-scale magnetic elements. The direct measurement of the contrast to determine the impact of these small-scale magnetic elements is, however, limited to a few wavelengths, and is, even for space instruments, affected by scattered light and instrument defocus. In this work we calculate emergent intensities from 3-D simulations of solar magneto-convection and validate the outcome by comparing with observations from Hinode/SOT. In this manner we aim to construct the contrast at wavelengths ranging from the NUV to the FIR.

Analysis of integrated spectra of star clusters in the Magellanic Clouds can bring important information for studies on the chemical evolution of the Clouds. The aim of the present work is to derive ages and metallicities from integrated spectra of 15 star clusters in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), some of them not studied so far. Making use of a full spectrum fitting technique, we compared the integrated spectra of the sample clusters to three different sets of single stellar population models available in the literature. We derived ages and metallicities for the sample clusters employing the codes STARLIGHT and ULySS. Out of the 15 clusters in our sample, 9 are old/intermediate age clusters and 6 are young clusters. We point out the results for the newly identified as old/intermediate age clusters HW1, NGC 152, Lindsay 3 and 11. We also confirm old ages for NGC 361, NGC 419 and Kron 3, and the oldest well-known SMC cluster NGC 121.

We report the spectroscopic analysis of six kinematical members of the Zeta Reticuli Moving Group, one of them for the first time. We confirm the existence of the Group by establishing a common abundance pattern for four kinematical members. High resolution spectra yielded abundances of Si, Ca, Fe, Ni and Ba, and others. Effective temperatures were derived from the excitation & ionization equilibria of Fe lines of four stars. For these, and the remaining two members, temperatures were derived from colors and the fitting of theoretical spectra to the Hα line, and ages and masses were estimated from theoretical HR diagrams. We suggest that the Group is physical being metal-poor and ~6 Gyr old.

A large fraction of otherwise normal galaxies shows weak nuclear activity. One of the signatures of the low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGNs) is the ultraviolet variability which was serendipitously discovered in the center of some low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER) galaxies (see Ho 2008 for a review).

We investigate the formation of terrestrial planets in the late stage of planetary formation using two-planet model. At that time, the protostar has formed for about 3 Myr and the gas disk has dissipated. In the model, the perturbations from Jupiter and Saturn are considered. We also consider variations of the mass of outer planet, and the initial eccentricities and inclinations of embryos and planetesimals. Our results show that, terrestrial planets are formed in 50 Myr, and the accretion rate is about 60% - 80%. In each simulation, 3 - 4 terrestrial planets are formed inside “Jupiter” with masses of 0.15 – 3.6 M⊕. In the 0.5 - 4AU, when the eccentricities of planetesimals are excited, planetesimals are able to accrete material from wide radial direction. The plenty of water material of the terrestrial planet in the Habitable Zone may be transferred from the farther places by this mechanism. Accretion may also happen a few times between two giant planets only if the outer planet has a moderate mass and the small terrestrial planet could survive at some resonances over time scale of 108 yr.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has made it possible to identify the first samples of active galaxies with estimated black hole masses below ~ 106M⊙. We have obtained Spitzer IRS low-resolution spectra, covering 5–38 μm, of a sample of 41 Seyfert galaxies with low-mass black holes. Our sample includes SDSS-selected objects from the low-mass Seyfert 1 sample of Greene & Ho (2004) and the low-mass Seyfert 2 sample of Barth et al. (2008), as well as NGC 4395 and POX 52. The goals of this work are to examine the dust emission properties of these objects and investigate the relationship between type 1 and type 2 AGNs at low luminosities and low masses, to search for evidence of star formation, and to use emission-line diagnostics to constrain physical conditions within the narrow-line regions. Here we present preliminary results from this project.

We combine results from interferometry, asteroseismology and spectroscopic analyses to determine accurate fundamental parameters (mass, radius and effective temperature) of 10 bright solar-type stars covering the H-R diagram from spectral type F5 to K1. Using “direct” techniques that are only weakly model-dependent we determine the mass, radius and effective temperature. We demonstrate that model-dependent or “indirect” methods can be reliably used even for relatively faint single stars for which direct methods are not applicable. This is important for the characterization of the targets of the CoRoT and Kepler space missions.

We revisit a basic model of quasar activation by major mergers of dark matter halos (with “galactic” masses of ≲1013M⊙h−1). This model usually consists of two main ingredients: the halo merger rate describing triggering, and a quasar light curve, which describes the evolution of individual quasars. We show how the matching between model predictions and a variety of new, independent data sets allows one to efficiently constrain several aspects of black hole growth and evolution that must be taken into account in future studies by more advanced models of galaxy formation. Our results can be summarized as follows: (1) A descending phase modelled such that quasars in more massive halos shut down faster than those in less massive ones allows a good description of the bright end of the AGN luminosity function at all epochs and is compatible with downsizing, with more massive galaxies shutting down star formation earlier. (2) We measure the average bias of type 2 AGNs in SDSS to be b = 1.233 ± 0.195, independent of luminosity in the range 42.5≤ log L(erg s−1) ≤ 45.5. Such a value of the bias implies that faint AGNs at z<0.3 are mainly hosted by halos more massive than ~1011.5–12M⊙h−1. The black hole mass function predicted by this model is flatter than previously found. (3) The high clustering signal measured at z>3 in SDSS forces successful models to be characterized by rather short delay times of tdelay≲108 yr between the triggering and the shining epochs, implying massive “seed” BHs ≳ 105M⊙h−1 and initial super-Eddington growth. (4) The low number counts of X-ray AGNs measured in recent deep surveys are better reproduced by models with a minimal post-peak phase and a higher minimum hosting halo mass at high redshifts. (5) Cross-correlating the feedback-constrained MBH–M relation, with the redshift-dependent Mstar–M relation obtained from the cumulative number-matching of the stellar and halo mass functions, we find a factor of ~2 larger BH-to-stellar mass ratio at high redshifts. We discuss the meaning of such trends in connection with the mild, positive evolution in the MBH-σstar relation, and the strong observed evolution in the sizes and velocity dispersions of their hosts.

If all stars form in clusters and both stars and clusters follow a power-law distribution which favours the creation of low-mass objects, the numerous low-mass clusters will be deficient in high-mass stars. Therefore, the stellar mass function integrated over the entire galaxy (the integrated galactic initial mass function; IGIMF) will be steeper at the high-mass end than the underlying stellar IMF. We show how the steepness of the IGIMF depends on the sampling method and on the assumptions made regarding the star cluster mass function. We also investigate the O-star content, integrated photometry and chemical enrichment of galaxies that result from several IGIMFs compared to more standard IMFs.