Forecasting the time of arrival of a Coronal Mass Ejection at Earth is of critical importance for our high-technology society and for any future manned exploration of the Solar System. As critical as the forecast accuracy is the knowledge of its precision, i.e. the error associated to the estimate. Here a statistical approach to the computation of the time of arrival using the Drag-Based Model is proposed through the introduction of probability distributions, rather than exact values, as input parameters, thus allowing the evaluation of the uncertainty on the forecast.

Surveys of pulsating stars in the inner Galaxy have been very limited, but recent large-scale surveys are rapidly bringing us new samples of various kinds of variable stars and new insights into stellar populations therein. Because of the severe interstellar extinction along the Galactic disc, the stellar populations in the inner Galaxy are more easily observed in the infrared, but even in the infrared the interstellar extinction may cause a serious problem in revealing their accurate characteristics. Here we review recent discoveries of Cepheids and Miras, two kinds of luminous pulsating stars with period–luminosity relation, in the inner Galaxy.

We have studied the dynamics of the solar active region (AR) NOAA 12192 using full-disc continuum images and the vector magnetograms observed by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) onboard Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). AR 12192 is the largest region of the solar cycle 24. It underwent a noticeable growth and produced 6 X-class, 22 M-class and 53 C-class flares during its disc passage. But the most peculiar fact of this AR is that it was associated with only one CME in spite of producing several X-class flares. In this work, we present the area evolution of this giant sunspot group during the first three rotations when it appeared as AR 12172, AR 12192 and AR 12209, respectively. We have also attempted to make a comparative study of the flare-related photospheric magnetic field and Lorentz force changes for both the eruptive and non-eruptive flares produced by AR 12192.

Phylogenetics is a widely used concept in evolutionary biology. It is the reconstruction of evolutionary history by building trees that represent branching patterns and sequences. These trees represent shared history, and it is our contention that this approach can be employed in the analysis of Galactic history. In Galactic archaeology the shared environment is the interstellar medium in which stars form and provides the basis for tree-building as a methodological tool. Using elemental abundances of solar-type stars as a proxy for DNA, we built such an evolutionary tree to study the chemical evolution of the solar neighbourhood and published in Jofré15 et al. (2017). In this proceeding we summarise these results and discuss future prospects.

Emanating from coronals holes (CHs), high speed streams (HSSs) cause recurrent geomagnetic disturbances in the Earth’s magnetosphere. For this reason being able to predict the occurrence and timing of the high speed solar wind is one of the more important issues in space weather forecasting. Currently, it is still difficult to estimate the effect of a CH in case that it extends from high latitudes to lower ones. To monitor the global solar wind condition we have therefore developed a three-dimensional MHD simulation code, the REProduce Plasma Universe (REPPU) code, that is driven by the solar magnetic field from the solar surface to 1AU. The connectivity of magnetic field lines from CHs to Earth’s orbit via HSSs has been investigated. Simulation results are presented and the usefulness of our model is discussed.

We have carried out an imaging survey for Local Group dwarf spheroidal galaxy Ursa Minor (UMi) using Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) on the 8.2m Subaru Telescope. Wide and deep data obtained by HSC enable us to investigate the extent of UMi which is revealed to extend out to twice the nominal tidal radius. The fraction of binary systems is also investigated from the morphology of the main sequence and estimated to be ~0.4.

Solar twins are a special group of stars that have spectra and stellar parameters very close to the Sun. Also having mass around 1 solar mass and roughly solar chemical composition, these stars follow a similar evolutionary path to the Sun, from the zero age main sequence to the end of their lives. Additional to that, the similarity between themselves permit us to obtain high-precision differential abundance and thus, very precise atmospheric parameters that allows a reliable estimation of their ages using the traditional isochronal method. Taking advantage of this very restrict group of stars we can better understand the effects of nucleosynthesis of chemical elements throughout the Galaxy and with this, finding constrains for its evolution.

Four-spacecraft missions are probing the Earth’s magnetospheric environment with high potential for revealing spatial and temporal scales of a variety of in-situ phenomena. Magnetic curvature is intrinsic to curved magnetic fields where the magnetic energy is stored in the form of magnetic tension. In-situ magnetic curvature has been resolved by the four-spacecraft technique called “magnetic curvature analysis” (MCA). We test the MCA on 2.5D MHD simulations of curved magnetic structures induced by Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) waves, with increasing (regular) tetrahedron sizes of virtual spacecraft. We have found variations of the curvature vectors both in radii and orientations depending on the sizes of the tetrahedron. This is helpful to better understand the MCA measures when the technique is applied to in-situ data without knowing the scale sizes of plasma structures under consideration. This study lends support for cross-scale observations to better understand the nature of curvature and its role in plasma phenomena.

The best way to trace back the history of star formation and mass assembly of the Milky Way disc is by combining chemical compositions, ages and phase-space information for a large number of disc stars. With the advent of large surveys of the stellar populations of the Galaxy, such data have become available and can be used to pose constraints on sophisticated models of galaxy formation. We use SDSS-III/APOGEE data to derive the first detailed 3D map of stellar density in the Galactic disc as a function of age, [Fe/H] and [α/Fe]. We discuss the implications of our results for the formation and evolution of the disc, presenting new constraints on the disc structural parameters, stellar radial migration and disc flaring. We also discuss how our results constrain the inside out formation of the disc, and determine the surface-mass density contributions at the solar radius for mono-age, mono-[Fe/H] populations.

We present our models of the effect of binaries on high-resolution spectroscopic surveys. We want to determine how many binary stars will be observed, whether unresolved binaries will contaminate measurements of chemical abundances, and how we can use spectroscopic surveys to better constrain the population of binary stars in the Galaxy. Using a rapid binary-evolution algorithm that enables modelling of the most complex binary systems we generate a series of large binary populations in the Galactic disc and evaluate the results. As a first application we use our model to study the binary fraction in APOGEE giants. We find tentative evidence for a change in binary fraction with metallicity.

Relying on the complementarity of Gaia proper motions with radial velocities of the RAVE survey, we attempt to constrain the kinematics of the Milky Way disc. Based on the population synthesis model, we simulate the observations, applying the detailed selection functions of the observations. The dynamics is described using a global gravitational potential computed from the mass distribution of the population model, approximated by a Stäckel potential (Bienaymé et al. 2015). We explore a set of free parameters (solar motion, age - velocity dispersion of the disc as a function of age, the velocity gradients, vertex deviation) using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. We show that the fitted model reproduces very well the radial velocity and proper motion distributions, allowing to constrain the thin and thick disc secular evolution with time.

The Kepler and CoRoT satellites have determined precise asteroseismic radii for large samples of red giant stars. Combining these data with data from spectroscopic and photometric surveys has led to precise distance determinations using comprehensive Bayesian methods. Here we determine angular diameters and thus distances using the interferometrically calibrated near-IR surface-brightness method finding good agreement with previous results. The method can easily be reversed when accurate Gaia parallaxes for these stars become available to calibrate the asteroseismic scaling relations.

We investigate the vertical metallicity gradients of five mono-age stellar populations between 0 and 11 Gyr for a sample of 18 435 dwarf stars selected from the cross-matched Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) and RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) Data Release 5. We find a correlation between the vertical metallicity gradients and age, with no vertical metallicity gradient in the youngest population and an increasingly steeper negative vertical metallicity gradient for the older stellar populations. We also find that the intrinsic dispersion in metallicity increases steadily with age. Our results are consistent with a scenario that thin disk stars formed from a flaring thin star-forming disk.

The spatial structure of the Milky Way outer disk is characterized with ~ 70000 LAMOST DR3 K giants after carefully correction of their selection effects. By slicing the data into various Galactocentric radius bins, we are able to fit the vertical stellar density profile with a models composed of two isothermal-sheet disks and an oblate power-law halo. We find that although the thin disk is significantly flared, the radial surface density profile can extend to as far as 19 kpc. Beyond 12 kpc, only one thicker disk, rather than two disk components, are found in the samples. Moreover, the residual of the density profiles after subtracting the best fit models show different oscillation patterns in almost all range of detecting radius.

We describe existing research infrastructures relevant for space weather and open issues of space weather research including the need for sustainable observation networks and for high-quality data products as basis for model development. The local relevance in Europe for studies of the ionosphere at high latitude is described. We propose as possible a way forward to sustain space weather research in Europe to establish a European research infrastructure project for space weather research and observations.

We present the development of physics-based models of solar-terrestrial regions from the solar surface to the Earth’s atmosphere at NICT. Our models consist of three regions: (1) the solar surface and solar wind, (2) the Earth’s magnetosphere-ionosphere, and (3) a model of the whole atmosphere from the troposphere to the ionosphere, called the Ground to Topside Model of Atmosphere and Ionosphere for Aeronomy (GAIA). We also have a solar wind and CME model, Space-weather-forecast-Usable System Anchored by Numerical Operations and Observations (SUSANOO). Furthermore, we have developed a high-resolution plasma bubble model. The coupling of these models is a future work.

In the context of the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE, Steinmetz et al. 2006), we present chemical abundances derived with the pipeline GAUGUIN. Based of 520 701 RAVE stars with medium resolution (R~7 500) spectra and stellar atmospheric parameters of the fifth Data Release, the analysis is performed around the infrared Ca-triple domain for 6 chemical elements: Mg, Ni, Si, Ti, Fe and Al. We discuss here the reliability of the chemical abundances provided by GAUGUIN, and the implications for the future Data Release 6 of the RAVE Survey. We also present elemental abundance patterns of Milky Way components based of kinematical criteria.

Recent observations from SEGUE, RAVE, and LAMOST have revealed tantalizing evidence that the local stellar disk of the Milky Way is in a state of disequilibrium. In particular, the disk appears to exhibit bending and breathing waves normal to its midplane within 2 kiloparsecs of our position within the disk. There also appear to be bending waves or corrugations at larger Galactocentric radii. These waves may be linked to other time-dependent disk phenomena such as the bar, spiral structure, and warp, or they may be the result of a passing dark matter subhalo or dwarf galaxy. Here, we discuss the observational evidence for these waves, the theory of bending and breathing waves in (simulated) stellar disks, and implications of disequilibrium for attempts to determine the local vertical force and dark matter density (the Oort problem). We also discuss the types of analyses that one might do with the Gaiadatabase.

4MOST is a new wide-field, high-multiplex spectroscopic survey facility for the VISTA telescope of ESO. Starting in 2022, 4MOST will deploy 2400 fibres in a 4.1 square degree field-of-view using a positioner based on the tilting spine principle. In this contribution we give an outline of the major science goals we wish to achieve with 4MOST in the area of Galactic Archeology. The 4MOST Galactic Archeology surveys have been designed to address long-standing and far-reaching problems in Galactic science. They are focused on four major themes: 1) Near-field cosmology tests, 2) Chemo-dynamical characterisation of the major Milky Way stellar components, 3) The Galactic Halo and beyond, and 4) Discovery and characterisation of extremely metal-poor stars. In addition to a top-level description of the Galactic surveys we provide information about how the community will be able to join 4MOST via a call for Public Spectroscopic Surveys that ESO will launch.

Using the data from APOGEE, WISE, and GLIMPSE, we explored the variation of the near-infrared (NIR) and mid-infrared (MIR) interstellar extinction laws of the Milky Way. We derived the IR extinction laws towards a number of different sightlines, including 24 bins along Galactic latitude (b) and 592 plates observed by APOGEE. Our results indicate that E(J-H)/E(J-K) show only subtle variation along b, Galactic longitude (l), or the depth of E(J-K). This suggests that the NIR extinction law can be considered as universal. Similarly, E(K-W1, W2, W3, [3.6], [4.5], [5.8], [8.0])/E(J-K) also show only small variation along b, l, or the extinction depth. The MIR extinction curve is flat, indicating that the MIR extinction law is likely universal.