As part of the Gaia-ESO Survey (GES), a number of clusters will be observed that were chosen specifically for their massive-star content. We report on the procedures we followed to determine the stellar parameters from the massive-star spectra of this survey. We intercompare the results from the different techniques used by the nodes of our group to determine these parameters and discuss some of the problems encountered. We present preliminary results for NGC 6705, NGC 3293, and Trumpler 14. We study microturbulence in A-type stars, we use the repeat observation to investigate binarity, and we determine cluster membership from the radial velocity information. The large number of massive-star spectra obtained by the Gaia-ESO Survey will allow us to critically test stellar evolution modelling.

Collisional fluid mechanics theory predicts a turbulent hot big bang at Planck conditions from large, negative, turbulence stresses below the Fortov-Kerr limit (< −10113Pa). Big bang turbulence fossilized when quarks formed, extracting the mass energy of the universe by extreme negative viscous stresses of inflation, expanding to length scales larger than the horizon scale ct. Viscous-gravitational structure formation by fragmentation was triggered at big bang fossil vorticity turbulence vortex lines during the plasma epoch, as observed by the Planck space telescope. A cosmic web of protogalaxies, protogalaxyclusters, and protogalaxysuperclusters that formed in turbulent boundary layers of the spinning voids are hereby identified as expanding turbulence fossils that falsify CDMHC cosmology.

I will briefly review the dependence of the explosive yields on the initial mass, metallicity and initial rotational velocity.

The three most iron-poor stars known until now are also known to have peculiar enhancements of intermediate mass elements. Under the assumption that these iron-deficient stars reveal the nucleosynthesis result of Pop III stars, we show that a weak supernova model successfully reproduces the observed abundance patterns. Moreover, we show that the initial parameters of the progenitor, such as the initial masses and the rotational property, can be constrained by the model, since the stellar yields result from the nucleosynthesis in the outer region of the star, which is significantly affected by the initial parameters. The initial parameter of Pop III stars is of prime importance for the theoretical study of the early universe. Future observation will increase the number of such carbon enhanced iron-deficient stars, and the same analysis on the stars may give valuable information for the Pop III stars that existed in our universe.

Measurements of secular period change probe real-time stellar evolution of classical Cepheids making these measurements powerful constraints for stellar evolution models, especially when coupled with interferometric measurements. In this work, we present stellar evolution models and measured rates of period change for two Galactic Cepheids: Polaris and l Carinae, both important Cepheids for anchoring the Cepheid Leavitt law (period-luminosity relation). The combination of previously-measured parallaxes, interferometric angular diameters and rates of period change allows for predictions of Cepheid mass loss and stellar mass. Using the stellar evolution models, We find that l Car has a mass of about 9 M⊙ consistent with stellar pulsation models, but is not undergoing enhanced stellar mass loss. Conversely, the rate of period change for Polaris requires including enhanced mass-loss rates. We discuss what these different results imply for Cepheid evolution and the mass-loss mechanism on the Cepheid instability strip.

As a step towards a more accurate modelling of redshift-space distortions (RSD) in galaxy surveys, we develop a general description of the probability distribution function of galaxy pairwise velocities within the framework of the so-called streaming model. For a given galaxy separation , such function can be described as a superposition of virtually infinite local distributions. We characterize these in terms of their moments and then consider the specific case in which they are Gaussian functions, each with its own mean μ and variance σ2. Based on physical considerations, we make the further crucial assumption that these two parameters are in turn distributed according to a bivariate Gaussian, with its own mean and covariance matrix. Tests using numerical simulations explicitly show that with this compact description one can correctly model redshift-space distorsions on all scales, fully capturing the overall linear and nonlinear dynamics of the galaxy flow at different separations. In particular, we naturally obtain Gaussian/exponential, skewed/unskewed distribution functions, depending on separation as observed in simulations and data. Also, the recently proposed single-Gaussian description of redshift-space distortions is included in this model as a limiting case, when the bivariate Gaussian is collapsed to a two-dimensional Dirac delta function. More work is needed, but these results indicate a very promising path to make definitive progress in our program to improve RSD estimators.

The cosmic web is a complex spatial pattern of walls, filaments, cluster nodes and underdense void regions. It emerged through gravitational amplification from the Gaussian primordial density field. Here we infer analytical expressions for the spatial statistics of caustics in the evolving large-scale mass distribution. In our analysis, following the quasi-linear Zel'dovich formalism and confined to the 1D and 2D situation, we compute number density and correlation properties of caustics in cosmic density fields that evolve from Gaussian primordial conditions. The analysis can be straightforwardly extended to the 3D situation. We moreover, are currently extending the approach to the non-linear regime of structure formation by including higher order Lagrangian approximations and Lagrangian effective field theory.

Very massive stars (in excess of ~ 100 M⊙) and massive stars in pre-SN phases at the end of their evolution are continuously approaching the Eddington limit. According to our theoretical predictions their high Eddington factors lead to a peculiar sub-photospheric structure and enhanced mass-loss. Their proximity to the Eddington limit is thus likely the reason why these objects appear as LBVs and WR stars. Here we discuss how our predictions relate to the characteristics of strange-mode pulsations, and how rotating massive stars at low metallicities can produce spectroscopic signatures that have recently been observed in a sample of star-forming galaxies at redshifts z ≈ 2 – 4.

We studied the variation of stellar mass and various star-formation characteristics of satellite galaxies in a volume limited sample of nearby groups as a function of their group-centric distance and of their relative line-of-sight velocity in the group rest frame. We found clear radial dependencies, e.g. massive, red and passive satellites being distributed predominantly near the center of composite group. We also found some evidence of velocity modulation of star-forming properties of satellite galaxies near the group virial radius. We conclude that using kinematical data, it should be feasible to separate dynamical classes of bound, in-falling and 'backsplash' satellite galaxies.

Our purpose is to measure thickness of gaseous discs in 0 < z < 1.2 galaxies. As gas dispersions are sensitive to scale height of gaseous discs, we model the kinematics of galaxies using Jeans equations. The resulting thicknesses of gaseous discs at higher redshifts are more thicker (and arbitrary) while nearby ones are thinner. We also found that clumpiness of galaxy is a possible indicator of the gas disc thickness.

In B stars, the transportation of metals such as iron due to radiative levitation is thought to trigger sub-surface convection, which may lead to significant stellar pulsations through the iron-induced kappa mechanism (Pamyatnykh et al. 2004). The main goal of this work is to model the evolution of these stars by treating radiative levitation in an accurate and efficient manner in order to enable rapid asteroseismic analysis using the Opacity Project data and codes (Seaton 2005) with the GARching STellar Evolution Code (Weiss & Schlattl 2008).

Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich was remarkably talented.† His active scientific career included major contributions in fields as diverse as chemical physics (adsorption & catalysis), the theory of shock waves, thermal explosions, the theory of flame propogation, the theory of combustion & detonation, nuclear & particle physics, and, during the latter part of his life: gravitation, astrophysics and cosmology (Zeldovich 1992).

Several clues for understanding the nature and evolution of galaxies can be gained by studying galactic structures and their evolution with time and environment. However, even for nearby galaxies, detailed structural decomposition is not a straightforward task. Choosing the number of structural components and the limits placed on their parameters can have a large effect on the derived characteristics of galaxies. For distant galaxies, structural analysis is further hampered by the spatial resolution limits of the imaging. However, by using a relatively robust two-component bulge+disk modelling, galaxies in the nearby Universe can be compared to distant galaxies for tracing signs of evolution in the extracted structures. We start such a study by analysing first a well observed nearby sample of galaxies, using ∼600 targets from the CALIFA survey. We show that even in this small sample of nearby galaxies, the effects of environmental density are already well apparent.

The enigmatic oxygen sequence Wolf-Rayet (WO) stars represent a very late stage in massive star evolution, although their exact nature is still under debate. The spectra of most of the WO stars have never been analysed through detailed modelling with a non-local thermodynamic equilibrium expanding atmosphere code. Here we present preliminary results of the first homogeneous analysis of the (apparently) single WOs.

A quantitative study of the clustering properties of galaxies in the cosmic web as a function of absolute magnitude and colour is presented using the SDSS Data Release 7 galaxy redshift survey. We compare our results with mock galaxy samples obtained with four different semi-analytical models of galaxy formation imposed on the merger trees of the Millenium simulation.

We investigate the physical properties of large-scale wind structures around massive hot stars with radiatively-driven winds. We observe Discrete Absorption Components (DACs) in optical He i P Cygni lines of the LBV binary MWC 314 (Porb = 60.8 d). The DACs are observed during orbital phases when the primary is in front of the secondary star. They appear at wind velocities between −100 km s−1 and −600 km s−1 in the P Cyg profiles of Hei λ5875, λ6678, and λ4471, signaling high-temperature expanding wind regions of enhanced density and variable outflow velocity. The DACs can result from wave propagation linked to the orbital motion near the low-velocity wind base. The He i lines indicate DAC formation close to the primary's surface in high-temperature wind regions in front of its orbit, or in dynamical wind regions confined between the binary stars. We observed the DACs with Mercator-HERMES on 5 Sep 2009, 5 May 2012, and 6 May 2014 when the primary is in front of the secondary star. XMM-Newton observations of 6 May 2014 significantly detected MWC 314 in X-rays at an average rate of ~0.015 cts s−1.

We present an influence of mass loss, element diffusion and convective overshooting on instability areas of SPBsg stars with masses of 13 - 18 M⊙. Evolutionary phases before and after helium core ignition are considered. We discuss how these effects affect the structure of the blue loops and hence a coverage of instability areas.

Analysis of three-dimensional cosmological surveys has the potential to answer outstanding questions on the initial conditions from which structure appeared, and therefore on the very high energy physics at play in the early Universe. We report on recently proposed statistical data analysis methods designed to study the primordial large-scale structure via physical inference of the initial conditions in a fully Bayesian framework, and applications to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data release 7. We illustrate how this approach led to a detailed characterization of the dynamic cosmic web underlying the observed galaxy distribution, based on the tidal environment.

We found the alignement of elongated clusters of BM type I and III (the excess of small values of the Δθ angles is observed), having range till about 60 h −1Mpc. The first one is probably connected with the origin of supergiant galaxy, while the second one with environmental effects in clusters, originated on the long filament or plane.

We have developed a new method to approach the missing baryons problem. We assume that the missing baryons reside in a form of Warm Hot Intergalactic Medium, i.e. the WHIM. Our method consists of (a) detecting the coherent large scale structure in the spatial distribution of galaxies that traces the Cosmic Web and that in hydrodynamical simulations is associated to the WHIM, (b) mapping its luminosity into a galaxy luminosity density field, (c) using numerical simulations to relate the luminosity density to the density of the WHIM, (d) applying this relation to real data to trace the WHIM using the observed galaxy luminosities in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and 2dF redshift surveys. In our application we find evidence for the WHIM along the line of sight to the Sculptor Wall, at redshifts consistent with the recently reported X-ray absorption line detections. Our indirect WHIM detection technique complements the standard method based on the detection of characteristic X-ray absorption lines, showing that the galaxy luminosity density is a reliable signpost for the WHIM. For this reason, our method could be applied to current galaxy surveys to optimise the observational strategies for detecting and studying the WHIM and its properties. Our estimates of the WHIM hydrogen column density NH in Sculptor agree with those obtained via the X-ray analysis. Due to the additional NH estimate, our method has potential for improving the constrains of the physical parameters of the WHIM as derived with X-ray absorption, and thus for improving the understanding of the missing baryons problem.