A well-focused research program over the past decade has shown that the South Pole has many remarkable characteristics that are particularly favorable for astronomy. These include the very cold, dry atmosphere and the vanishingly small free-air turbulence. Dome C, site of the new French/Italian station Concordia, has all of these attributes plus the added advantage of very low ground-level wind speeds. Higher on the plateau, locations such as the 4200 m high Dome A may well represent the ultimate ground based astronomical observing sites.

A Working Group has been created to study the feasibility of ACMSA: Antarctic Center for Millimetric and Sub-millimetric Astrophysics, an international facility based at Dome Concordia (Dome C).

A large single-dish submillimeter-wave telescope equipped with a focal plane array containing ~ 104 bolometers and costing about $120M could locate most protogalaxies in the southern sky within a year of operation.

The primary limitation to the performance of any large ground-based telescope is the atmospheric properties of its site, particularly the sky emission and the turbulence structure. There are several sites on the Antarctic plateau (South Pole, Dome C and Dome A) for which the increase in infrared sensitivity relative to a mid-latitude site should be as much as two orders of magnitude. The unique turbulent structure above Dome C indicates that an extremely large telescope equipped with only a natural guide star adaptive optics system should achieve equivalent resolution to a mid-latitude extremely large telescope with a multi-conjugate multi-laser guide star system.

We present a simple design for a 16 metre, wide-field, fixed-axis, all-reflective, low cost f/4 Schmidt telescope to take advantage of the unique advantages of Antarctica as an Optical/IR site.

The unique properties of atmospheric turbulence in atmosphere above the Antarctic plateau offer some compelling advantages for astronomical adaptive optics and interferometry. The shallow nature of the turbulent layer at the South Pole results in low scintillation and large angular coherence (Marks et al. 1996, 1999; Lloyd, Oppenheimer, & Graham 2002; Lloyd et al. 2003). Recent wintertime SODAR measurements at Dome C indicate that similar conditions exist at Dome C, but that the turbulent layer is likely both weaker and shallower. This paper discusses the outcomes of such conditions on the atmospheric properties for astronomy. Particularly due to the low wind speed at Dome C, the atmospheric properties are highly favorable for adaptive optics and interferometry. The resulting long coherence time enables adaptive optics at visible wavelengths, and the large angular coherence results in a useful field of view as a result.

The Antarctic Planet Interferometer (API) is a concept for an infrared interferometer located at the best accessible site on Earth. Infrared interferometry is strongly effected by both the strength and vertical distribution of thermal and water vapor turbulence. The combination of low temperature, low wind speed, low elevation turbulence, and low precipitable water vapor make the Concordia base at Antarctic Dome C the best accessible site on Earth for infrared interferometry. The improvements in interferometer sensitivity with respect to other terrestrial sites are dramatic; an interferometer with two meter class telescopes could make unique infrared measurements of extra solar planets that might otherwise only be possible with a space-based interferometer.

If we concentrate our attention on the study and the evolution of star forming processes rather than on the large scale structure, from the recent use of Large Telescopes in this context there are many examples of great interest. These include the study of the early phases of aggregation of matter (stellar and planet formation), and the late phases of disaggregation during stellar evolution. In Fig 1, a spectacular example is shown of a high resolution image of an edge-on circumstellar disk of a young star (HR4796A), with respect to previous less resolved information (C.Telesco et al, Proc SPIE 4834, 101, 2002). A recent hypothesis of a Large Infrared Telescope called GTA (Grande Telescopio Antartico) has been proposed to the PNRA (Italian Plan for Antarctic Researches). This will require the following characteristics: high angular resolution in the mid-IR domain (large aperture); very high sensitivity (mainly due to the cold, dry conditions of the site); extreme simplicity in design and operational modes. The telescope will be a survey instrument and will be used almost without human intervention. The project examines the construction of a third tower at Dome C with the telescope configured to work in quasi-drift-scan without moving the enclosure and with a limited tracking time. In Fig 1, a sketch of the tower hosting the telescope is shown (M.F-T. et al, Proc SPIE 4836, 165, 2002). A study will be developed to determine the optimum configurations for observing in different bands, from the optical to the sub-mm range, with a refurbishment of the telescope and instrumentation during the summer break.

Selected regions of the southern molecular cloud complex, the Coalsack are being imaged at sub-millimeter wavelengths using the Antarctic Sub-millimeter Telescope and Remote Observatory (AST/RO) located at the South Pole.

The austral summer of 2002/03 marked the beginning of a new era for helioseismology from South Pole with the running of an experiment to seismically probe the solar atmosphere.

Massive stars have profound effects on their surroundings, influencing them by their energetic stellar winds, and finally by supernova explosions. We present a CO 2-1 map of the surroundings of the Wolf-Rayet star WR16, taken with AST/RO at the South Pole, which shows some of these effects.

On examining the historical development of astrophysical science at the bottom of the world from the early 20th century until today we find three temporally overlapping eras of which each has a rather distinct beginning. These are the eras of Astrogeology, High Energy Astrophysics and Photon Astronomy.

CMB studies from the Antarctic Plateau are presented.

We could observe the Earth as an extra-solar planet, viewing Earthshine on the dark side of the Moon, at the Pole, in winter.

The details of the formation of the first objects, stars and galaxies and their subsequent evolution remain a cosmological unknown. Few observational probes of these processes exist. The Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB) originates from this era and measurements of its anisotropy can provide information to test models of both galaxy evolution and the growth of primordial structure. Such measurements should provide a sensitive probe of the large-scale variation in protogalaxy density at redshifts, z ~ 0.5-3, while optical galaxy surveys provide complementary information at z < 0.5 and Lyman alpha absorption forest studies and Cosmic Microwave Background measurements add information at higher redshifts.

We describe our project for a small and compact telescope, based on the TRT design, for wide-field observations from Dome C on the Antarctic Plateau, and discuss the main scientific goals.

A sub-millimeter Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) was used at the South Pole to acquire wide frequency span (300 GHz < v < 2 THz) measurements of the atmospheric opacity, T(V). Comparisons were made with other ongoing measurements to allow inference of typical wintertime observing statistics.

The new observing and reduction techniques available to astronomers have led to remarkable changes in the field of double and multiple stars. New classes of companions, such as brown dwarfs and exoplanets, have been discovered. Binaries which previously constituted distinct classes are now observable by multiple techniques. With many long-baseline optical interferometers operational or planned, with improvements in other techniques, and with astrometric space-based missions in various states of planning and funding, the situation is likely to become more complicated. The result is greater understanding for the scientist, but greater challenges for the cataloger!

The “problem” is that purveyors of different techniques use different nomenclature, both in terms of root designation and component identifier. It is this latter inconsistency which causes the most confusion and is the topic of this Special Session.

This talk will illustrate some of the many designation ambiguities and summarize efforts made during the past few years to address this problem.

The Washington Multiplicity Catalog (WMC) project is an effort to address the often conflicting nomenclature schemes used by astronomers in different fields of double and multiple star research, by compiling a catalog of all known binary and multiple systems, then assigning a consistent (insofar as possible) component designation to each component. Components are treated in the same manner whether stellar or sub-stellar (e.g., brown dwarf, exosolar planet) in nature. This effort was begun shortly before the 2000 IAU General Assembly in Manchester, UK. A sample version of the planned catalog was presented at IAU Colloquium 191, held in Mérida, México in February 2003, and a modified version of this sample will be presented at the July 2003 GA in Sydney, Australia. Finally, if the nomenclature and catalog format are agreed upon, a full-sky version of the catalog will be created in time for the 2006 GA in Prague.

The WGD is a part of Commission 5 – Documentation and Astronomical Data. There is a president, vice-president, and over a dozen members world-wide.

One duty of the WG is to maintain and update a web-site which contains the IAU Recommendations for Nomenclature. These recommendations include suggestions for creating new names for objects and examples of improper nomenclature.