We continue to search for O-type subdwarf companions in binary systems containing Be primaries. We were not able to confirm an sdO object in π Aqr and HR 2142, even though optical and UV observations suggest their presence. Some possible reasons are enumerated.

The research of stars with the B[e] phenomenon is still in its infancy, with several unanswered questions. Physically realistic models that treat the formation and evolution of their complex circumstellar environments are rare. The code HDUST (developed by A. C. Carciofi and J. Bjorkman) is one of the few existing codes that provides a self-consistent treatment of the radiative transfer in a gaseous and dusty circumstellar environment seen around B[e] supergiant stars. In this work we used the HDUST code to study the circumstellar medium of the binary system GG Car, where the primary component is probably an evolved B[e] supergiant. This system also presents a disk (probably circumbinary), which is responsible for the molecular and dusty signatures seen in GG Car spectra. We obtained VLTI/MIDI data on GG~Car at eight baselines, which allowed to spatially resolve the gaseous and dusty circumstellar environment. From the interferometric visibilities and SED modeling with HDUST, we confirm the presence of a compact ring, where the hot dust lies. We also show that large grains can reproduce the lack of structure in the SED and visibilities across the silicate band. We conclude the dust condensation site is much closer to the star than previously thought. This result provides stringent constraints on future theories of grain formation and growth around hot stars.

In this article, we show how asteroseismology and spectropolarimetry allow to probe dynamical processes in massive star interiors. First, we give a summary of the state-of-the-art. Second, we recall the MHD mechanisms that take place in massive stars. Next, we show how asteroseismology gives strong constraints on the internal mixing and transport of angular momentum while spectropolarimetry allows to unravel the role played by magnetic fields.

In the race to break the SMC frontier and reach metallicity conditions closer to the First Stars the information from UV spectroscopy is usually overlooked. New HST-COS observations of OB stars in the metal-poor galaxy IC1613, with oxygen content ~1/10 solar, have proved the important role of UV spectroscopy to characterize blue massive stars and their winds. The terminal velocities (υ∞) and abundances derived from the dataset have shed new light on the problem of metal-poor massive stars with strong winds. Furthermore, our results question the υ∞-υesc and υ∞-Z scaling relations whose use in optical-only studies may introduce large uncertainties in the derived mass loss rates and wind-momenta. Finally, our results indicate that the detailed abundance pattern of each star may have a non-negligible impact on its wind properties, and scaling these as a function of one single metallicity parameter is probably too coarse an approximation. Considering, for instance, that the [α/Fe] ratio evolves with the star formation history of each galaxy, we may be in need of updating all our wind recipes.

Since the construction in the late nineties of modern facilities such as the VLTI or CHARA, interferometry became a key technique to probe massive stars and their often-complex circumstellar environments. Over the last decade, the development of a new generation of beam combiners for these facilities enabled major breakthroughs in the understanding of the formation and evolution of massive stars. In this short review, we will present few of these advances concerning young stellar objects, binarity, mass loss, and stellar surfaces.

Our recent estimates of galaxy counts and the luminosity density in the near-infrared (Keenan et al. 2010, 2012) indicated that the local universe may be under-dense on radial scales of several hundred megaparsecs. Such a large-scale local under-density could introduce significant biases in the measurement and interpretation of cosmological observables, such as the inferred effects of dark energy on the rate of expansion. In Keenan et al. (2013), we measured the K-band luminosity density as a function of distance from us to test for such a local under-density. We made this measurement over the redshift range 0.01 < z < 0.2 (radial distances D ~ 50 - 800 h 70 −1 Mpc). We found that the shape of the K-band luminosity function is relatively constant as a function of distance and environment. We derive a local (z < 0.07, D < 300 h 70 −1 Mpc) K-band luminosity density that agrees well with previously published studies. At z > 0.07, we measure an increasing luminosity density that by z ~ 0.1 rises to a value of ~ 1.5 times higher than that measured locally. This implies that the stellar mass density follows a similar trend. Assuming that the underlying dark matter distribution is traced by this luminous matter, this suggests that the local mass density may be lower than the global mass density of the universe at an amplitude and on a scale that is sufficient to introduce significant biases into the measurement of basic cosmological observables. At least one study has shown that an under-density of roughly this amplitude and scale could resolve the apparent tension between direct local measurements of the Hubble constant and those inferred by Planck team. Other theoretical studies have concluded that such an under-density could account for what looks like an accelerating expansion, even when no dark energy is present.

In the framework of the Gaia-ESO survey we have determined the fundamental parameters of a large number of B-type stars in the Galactic, young open cluster NGC 3293. The determination of the stellar parameters is based on medium-resolution spectra obtained with FLAMES/GIRAFFE at ESO-VLT. As a second step, we adopted the accurate parameters to determine the chemical abundances of these hot stars. We present a comparison of our results with those obtained by the 'VLT-FLAMES survey of massive stars' (Evans et al. 2005). Our study increases the number of objects analysed and provides an extended view of this cluster.

Be shell stars are believed to be ordinary Be stars seen edge-on, which makes them particularly desirable objects for study since the uncertainty in the inclination of the rotation axis is largely eliminated. We have recently modelled high resolution Hα spectroscopic observations for eight Be shell stars, using the non-local thermodynamical equilibrium radiative transfer code Bedisk (Sigut & Jones 2007) and the new spectral synthesis package Beray (Sigut 2011). Generally, we confirm that these systems are oriented at high inclination angles, although we find that they are not necessarily as close to edge-on as initially expected.

This was one of two general discussions at the conference and it focussed primarily on stellar modelling. In particular, we were interested in the quality of the models, how we can check the models and what the direction of future modelling will be given the rise in popularity of MESA.

We determine the auto-correlation function (ACF) of galaxies using massive deep galaxy surveys for which distances to individual objects are assessed using photometric redshifts. The method is applied to the 2deg COSMOS survey of ~ 300000 galaxies with i + < 25 and z ph ≲ 3. The distance estimates based on photometric redshifts are not sufficiently accurate to be directly used to determine the ACF. Nevertheless, the photometric redshifts carry statistical information on the data distribution on (very) large scales. The investigation of the surface distribution of galaxies in several redshift (=distance) bins allows us to determine the spatial (3D) ACF over the redshift range of 0.2 - 3.2 or look back time of 2.4 - 11.5 Gy.

The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey [VIPERS, Guzzo et al. 2014] is using the VIMOS spectrograph at the ESO VLT to measure redshifts for ∼ 100,000 galaxies with IAB < 22.5 and 0.5 < z < 1.2, over an area of 24 deg2 (split over the W1 and W4 fields of CFHTLS). VIPERS currently provides, at such redshifts, the best compromise between volume, number of galaxies and dense spatial sampling. We present here the first estimate of the power spectrum of the galaxy distribution, P(k), at redshifts z ∼ 0.75 and z ∼ 1, obtained from the ∼ 55,000 redshifts of the PDR-1 data release. We discuss first constraints on cosmological quantities, as the matter density and the baryonic fraction, obtained for the first time at an epoch when the Universe was about half its current age.

We use properties of void populations identified in N-body simulations to forecast the ability of upcoming galaxy surveys to differentiate models of f(R) gravity from \lcdm cosmology. We analyze simulations designed to mimic the densities, volumes, and clustering statistics of upcoming surveys, using the public {\tt VIDE} toolkit. We examine void abundances as a basic probe at redshifts 1.0 and 0.4. We find that stronger f(R) coupling strengths produce voids up to ∼20% larger in radius, leading to a significant shift in the void number function. As an initial estimate of the constraining power of voids, we use this change in the number function to forecast a constraint on the coupling strength of Δ fR0 = 10-5.

Rotation is a key parameter in the evolution of massive stars, affecting their evolution, chemical yields, ionizing photon budget, and final fate. We determined the projected rotational velocity, υe sin i, of ~330 O-type objects, i.e. ~210 spectroscopic single stars and ~110 primaries in binary systems, in the Tarantula nebula or 30 Doradus (30 Dor) region. The observations were taken using VLT/FLAMES and constitute the largest homogeneous dataset of multi-epoch spectroscopy of O-type stars currently available. The most distinctive feature of the υe sin i distributions of the presumed-single stars and primaries in 30 Dor is a low-velocity peak at around 100 km s−1. Stellar winds are not expected to have spun-down the bulk of the stars significantly since their arrival on the main sequence and therefore the peak in the single star sample is likely to represent the outcome of the formation process. Whereas the spin distribution of presumed-single stars shows a well developed tail of stars rotating more rapidly than 300 km s−1, the sample of primaries does not feature such a high-velocity tail. The tail of the presumed-single star distribution is attributed for the most part – and could potentially be completely due – to spun-up binary products that appear as single stars or that have merged. This would be consistent with the lack of such post-interaction products in the binary sample, that is expected to be dominated by pre-interaction systems. The peak in this distribution is broader and is shifted toward somewhat higher spin rates compared to the distribution of presumed-single stars. Systems displaying large radial velocity variations, typical for short period systems, appear mostly responsible for these differences.

The presence or absence of dwarf galaxies with Mr' > -14 in low-density volumes correlates with dark matter halos and how they affect galaxy formation. We are conducting a redshifted Hα imaging survey for dwarf galaxies with Mr' > -13 in the heart of the well-defined voids FN2 and FN8 using the KPNO 4m Mayall telescope and Mosaic Imager. These data have furnished over 600 strong candidates in a four square degree area. Follow-up spectra finding none of these candidates to be within the void volumes will constrain the dwarf population there to be 2 to 8% of the cosmic mean. Conversely, finding even one Hα dwarf in the void heart will challenge several otherwise successful theories of large-scale structure formation.

Tidal dissipation in stars is one of the key physical mechanisms that drive the evolution of binary and multiple stars. As in the Earth oceans, it corresponds to the resonant excitation of their eigenmodes of oscillation and their damping. Therefore, it strongly depends on the internal structure, rotation, and dissipative mechanisms in each component. In this work, we present a local analytical modeling of tidal gravito-inertial waves excited in stellar convective and radiative regions respectively. This model allows us to understand in details the properties of the resonant tidal dissipation as a function of the excitation frequencies, the rotation, the stratification, and the viscous and thermal properties of the studied fluid regions. Then, the frequencies, height, width at half-height, and number of resonances as well as the non-resonant equilibrium tide are derived analytically in asymptotic regimes that are relevant in stellar interiors. Finally, we demonstrate how viscous dissipation of tidal waves leads to a strongly erratic orbital evolution in the case of a coplanar binary system. We characterize such a non-regular dynamics as a function of the height and width of resonances, which have been previously characterized thanks to our local fluid model.

This is a sketch of a 321D approximation which is nonlocal, and thus has nonzero fluxes of KE (to be published in more detail elsewhere). We plan to add this as an option to MESA. Inclusion of KE fluxes seems to help resolve the solar abundance problem (Asplund et al.2009). Smaller cores may ease the explosion problems with core collapse supernova simulations.

Quasars are tracers of the cosmological evolution of the Black Hole mass– host galaxy relation, and indicate that the formation of BHanticipated that of the host galaxies. We find that selection effects andstatistical biases dominate the interpretation of the observational results;and co-evolution (= constant BH/galaxy mass ratio) is still compatiblewith observations.

We study the evolution of the gaseous components in massive simulated galaxies and show that their early formation is fuelled by cold, low entropy gas streams. At lower redshifts of z ≲ 3 the simulated galaxies are massive enough to support stable virial shocks resulting in a transition from cold to hot gas accretion. The gas accretion history of early-type galaxies is directly linked to the formation of their stellar component in the two phased formation scenario, in which the central parts of the galaxy assemble rapidly through in situ star formation and the later assembly is dominated primarily by minor stellar mergers.

Using own and literature data for a large sample of O stars in the Milky Way, we investigate the correspondence between their spectroscopic and evolutionary masses, and try to put constraints on various parameters that might influence the estimates of these two quantities.

We present the first systematic study of 4646 spectroscopically confirmed early-type massive stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), using variability as a tool to confine the physics of OB-type massive stars. We report the discovery of ∼100 massive eclipsing systems which are useful for the accurate determination of the fundamental parameters of massive stars and we evaluate the frequency of multiplicity. In addition, we explore the occurrence of the Oe/Be phenomenon and provide a large number of candidate non-radial pulsators, which can be further studied via asteroseismology. The results of this work (Kourniotis et al. 2014) will contribute to a better understanding of the role of metallicity in triggering processes associated to matter ejections and/or disk formation, which in turn affect mass loss and stellar rotation.