The Concordia station on the Antarctica plateau will open very soon its winter-over activities. Astronomy is among the top priorities, because of the unique qualities that are being demonstrated step by step by the site testing programmes Concordiastro and Aastino.

Over the past decade we have developed a series of increasingly sophisticated robotic instruments for site testing in Antarctica. These range from exceedingly low power cloud monitors to fully autonomous 30 cm telescopes, and cover from the ultraviolet to the sub-mm. These instruments have been very successful at characterising the Antarctic sky, and have demonstrated beyond doubt the advantages Antarctic plateau sites offer over observatories at temperate locations.

We present results of daytime site testing at Dome C in summer 2003–2004. Daytime seeing has been monitored during 2$\frac{1}{2}$ months using a DIMM on the bright star Canopus, giving median value of 0.54 arcsec. An every-day best seeing period has been observed around 5 pm with seeing around 0.3 arcsec. First isoplanatic angle measurements, based on stellar scintillation, were also performed during the month of January 2004, and have given median value of 6.8 arcsec.


The astronomical seeing from the Antarctic high plateau site Dome C has been a matter of speculation for over a decade. During 2004 we made the first wintertime measurements of the seeing using a Multi Aperture Scintillation Sensor (MASS), a device that is well-suited for automated unattended operation. The mean seeing was found to be 0.27 arcsec, and the seeing is better than 0.15 arcsec for 25% of the time. These extraordinarily low levels of turbulence make Dome C a superb site for future optical and infrared telescopes.

The high Antarctic plateau is considered as the best observing site on Earth in the sub-mm and mm bands. Dome C is one of the most elevated all-year-round station in this continent. Due to its peculiar location, it is also characterized by low wind speeds and very low precipitable water vapor contents. Some experiments have been brought there since 1995 and some ancillary data have been recorded. We report here the actual status of the site quality knowledge in the sub-mm and mm bands.

The atmospheric boundary layer contribution to the total seeing at Dome C is presented in this paper. With a mean value of 0.07'', this is one of the most stable boundary layer encountered. We discuss the temporal evolution of this part of the atmosphere and its relationship with meteorological parameters. In winter, the combined effects of the low wind speeds and low inversion layer translate to the creation of little thermal turbulence above 30 m.

Dome C is one of the best sites on the Earth for carrying out sub-millimeter astronomical observations. Specifically, given the extremely dry atmosphere, the Tera-Hertz bands at 1000, 1300 and 1500 GHz, open up for a reasonable fraction of the time. Since these bands are presently almost not observable with ground based telescopes elsewhere on the Earth, observations in those bands have been only possible with airborne and/or satellite telescopes so far. This implies indeed that very few observations have been carried out in those bands, and with very reduced spatial and spectral resolutions, although some important molecular transitions fall there. In this contribution, we review the studies relevant to the Star Formation topics, which can be done in the three Tera-Hertz bands, and compare with existing and/or planned facilities. In particular, we consider the two proposed possibilities of a 12 m single dish operating in the three bands (ASO proposal: see Olmi contribution), and of an $3{\times} $ 2 m antennae interferometer operating at 1500 GHz (HEAT, a variation of the API proposal: see Swain contribution). In our opinion, the second possibility has a greater chance to provide really unique observations with respect to existing or planned facilities in the sub-millimeter range.

We launched a program to recover cosmic dust (micrometeorites) from Dome C surface snow near the French-Italian station CONCORDIA. The Dome C snow is uniquely shielded from both morainic debris and aeolian dust within the micrometeorite size range (≥25 μm). The average temperature at Dome C ranges from -20°C to -75°C throughout the year. Once trapped in a cold and clean snow, the micrometeorites are expected to stay much better preserved from mechanical constraints and less altered by terrestrial weathering than those of previous collections (mainly from Antarctic blue ice fields). We carried out 2 field expeditions in January 2000 and January 2002 using a new collection technique at Dome C. We successfully recovered micrometeorites from surface snow layers. By contrast with previous collections of micrometeorites, the particles from the CONCORDIA-Collection have suffered very little from terrestrial weathering. They have well constrained terrestrial ages. Their periods of fall overlap the ones of the particles found in the stratospheric interplanetary dust collections (IDPs) made by NASA. Because the precipitation rate is extremely low at Dome C, it is technically possible to exploit large areas (several tens of m2 year) of annual snow layers formed up to 3 centuries ago, which allows searching for cometary particles from historical meteor showers.

We present the scientific case for a high resolution spectro-imager in the mid-IR that would be dedicated to the mapping of H2 emission in its four lowest rotational transitions, at 28.2, 17.0, 12.3 and 9.7 micron with a spectral resolution ~104 sufficient to provide kinematical distances in galaxies. The proposed instrument on a 2 m-class telescope will be most sensitive to H2 line emission simultaneously extended and structured at small scale, in gas at temperatures higher than 80 K. Colder H2, which may contribute most of the baryonic dark matter in galaxies, will be traced by the emission of glitters of warm H2 heated, throughout the medium, by the dissipation of omnipresent turbulence. The main scientific objectives are to (i) directly measure the mass and temperature distribution of the warm H2, far from star forming regions, in particular in low metallicity environments where the traditional tracers of H2 (CO, dust emission) fail, (ii) trace the dissipation of turbulence in the perspective of building a global view of the star formation process in galaxies and (iii) trace baryonic dark matter in the form of cold H2 in a large sample of galaxies along the Hubble sequence.

The OASI group have been active in Antarctica since 1986: from the pioneering period, though the 2.62 m mm telescope activity at Terra Nova Bay to the first observing campaigns at Dome C. The group activity significantely contributed to the development of mm Italian Antarctic astronomy, acting as a pathfinder for present success and future development. The overall italian activity is characterised by interesting scientific results, obtained even when adequate funding was not available. The historical evolution of the italian mm activities in Antarctica will be illustrated and the perspective for future experiments will be reported.

Recent advances in bolometric detector technology have allowed submillimetre (submm) wavelength measurements to contribute important data to some of the most challenging questions in observational cosmology. The availability of large-format filled-array cameras during the next decade, however, promises to provide far-infrared (FIR) to millimetre (mm) observations with unprecedented imaging fidelity. The simultaneous increase in the telescope collecting area of new facilities, and their location at ground-based sites with the highest atmospheric transmission will provide observational data with greater sensitivity and resolution. With the opening of the Italian/French Concordia station at Dome C in Antarctica there is now an exciting opportunity to make unique FIR–submm wavelength observations (200–850 μm) through atmospheric windows that are almost open to space. The development of submm astronomy from Dome-C, undertaken with a phased-programme of increasingly larger telescopes, will make critical observations of the high-redshift universe. In particular, we argue that a long-term strategy for Dome C should include plans to construct a 30-m telescope with a large field-of-view (≥0.1 sq deg), designed and optimized to operate at ~200 μm. With such a single-dish facility it will be possible to resolve 100% of the population of galaxies that contribute to the integrated FIR-submm extragalactic background. In this paper we describe how a large-aperture submm telescope at Dome C will provide unique data to address fundamental questions and killer science regarding the evolutionary history, nature and large-scale distribution of the population of high-redshift optically-obscured starburst galaxies

The BaR-SPOrt experiment is designed to measure the E-mode power spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization (CMBP) in the multipole range 50 < l < 1000. In the current configuration at 32 GHz it can explore up to l = 400. Recent low frequency observations of the target region show that the synchrotron emission should not contamine the CMBP already at 32 GHz. A 6-month observation of a 6° × 6° sky area during the polar night, in ideal environmental conditions, will allow the Italian-French collaboration to both measure the E–mode power spectrum with appropriate sensitivity and perform important tests of the anomalous dust emission. The BaR-SPOrt 32 GHz instrument, now under test and ready for operations by Spring 2005, is proposed for 1–2 years Winter operations at Dome C.

In the current cosmological scenario, part of the linearly polarized emission of the CMB is expected to be rotational (B-modes). This component is due to tensor perturbations of the metric produced by primordial gravitational waves, which are generated a split-second after the Big Bang. The signal expected is of the order of ≲ 0.1 μK, well below the non-rotational component of the polarization signal (E-modes), and beyond the sensitivity of present generation instruments. New, more sensitive instruments are developed in several labs, with the goal to measure the B-modes. Control of systematics and foregrounds will be the key to make the results of these experiments believable. In this paper we shortly outline BRAIN, a bolometric interferometer devoted to B-modes research, and its pathfinder experiment, devoted to test the Dome-C site.


Magnetic fields emerging in the solar atmosphere control the structure, dynamics and heating of the solar corona. Those fields remain essentially unattainable with present low corona instrumentation. We present the most direct way of magnetic field remote measurements in the internal corona, namely visible and infrared coronal emission lines magnetometry and we explain why Dome C should be investigated as a likely outstanding site for such observations. We develop a strategy towards a large aperture coronal magnetometer at Dome C in the context of the other main instrumental projects underway for solar physics.

A large fraction of the energy released during solar flares is carried by accelerated electrons and ions. At present the most direct diagnostics of accelerated electrons are the radio emission produced from the microwave to the sub-millimeter domains by gyrosynchrotron emission and the hard X-ray/gamma-ray continuum from electron bremsstrahlung. These diagnostics have brought valuable information on the electron energetics, but the characteristics of relativistic electrons are still poorly known, although they provide the most stringent constraints for acceleration models. This is, at least partly, because radio diagnostics were usually obtained below 100 GHz and gamma-ray measurements were restricted to energies below 100 MeV. Recent radio observations in the 200–400 GHz range have revealed a new spectral component, the origin of which is not yet understood. Observations at higher frequencies are necessary in order to discriminate between different possibilities. Although solar observations in the far infrared domain have not yet been performed, this spectral region contains key information on both relativistic electrons and the response of the low atmosphere to energy deposition from the flare. The combination of observations obtained in the far infrared continuum (2–10 THz) with measurements of high energy gamma-rays (up to 500–600 MeV) will not suffer from the limitations of the present diagnostics and thus provide new constraints on acceleration and energy transport processes.

The SuperDARN (Super Dual Auroral Radar Network) experiment is a multi-national effort to develop chains of coherent HF radars world wide in order to obtain instantaneous large scale coverage of the magnetospheric plasma convection at high spatial and temporal resolution. We will review the scientific context of the experiment. The role of SuperDARN in our understanding of Sun-Earth relations will be emphasized through its numerous scientific objectives. The principle of the experiment will be described and specific capabilities and achievements presented, as well as its implication in the Space Weather program. Finally, the implementation of SuperDARN radars at Dome C is presented together with the prospective global extension of the network in both hemispheres.

We discuss in this paper the new science perspectives that a near infrared (NIR) spectropolarimeter installed on a 4 m class telescope at Dome C in Antartica would offer to the astrophysics community worldwide, in very diverse research fields such as stellar formation, extra solar planets, stellar magnetism and activity, asteroseismology, circumstellar environments, interstellar medium, galactic and extragalactic physics. We also propose an instrument concept with estimated performances, as well as an example 2-step scenario for the construction of this instrument.

Regarding its seeing properties or its photometric quality as well, the Dome C Concordia site is presented as being an intermediate solution between space and a good mountain observatory. This statement still needs somewhat further night time confirmation. If really true, as is more and more expected after the preliminary site testing campaigns (Aristidi et al. 2004; Storey et al. 2004), this opens extremely promising prospects for asteroseismology of solar-type stars, and also of any kind of star for which a continuous observation much longer than 12 hours is an important requirement.

Recent results of asteroseismology have been achieved on a growing list of solar-type stars thanks to high precision echelle spectrographs. These results indicates that Doppler measurements are more efficient from the ground than photometry for p-modes detections. A high precision spectrograph dedicated for Doppler asteroseismology based in Dome C will play an important and fundamental step in asteroseismology. Such an instrument coupled to an only 1-m class telescope will be able to reach a very high level of sensibility for p-mode detection on several tens of solar-type stars. Capabilities and expected performances in asteroseismology of a replica of the SOPHIE spectrograph (1.93-m OHP) based in Dome C are presented. Such an instrument is furthermore fully compatible and adapted for polarimetry studies and detection and characterization of extra-solar planets.