This chapter is a review of the dynamics of two-planet systems. It includes the study of averaged models of both secular and resonant planetary configurations. The introduction describes our understanding of long-term planetary behavior and stability. The next section introduces the presently known sample of 31 extra-solar systems and the classification of these systems with respect to their dynamical behavior. Their secular dynamics are described in Section 3, where we also introduce the main techniques commonly used for exploring dynamical features. We conclude this section by describing the effects of the proximity of a secular system to mean-motion resonances. Finally, phenomena related to mean-motion resonances are presented in Section 4.

Accretion disks are pivotal elements in the formation and earlyevolution of solar-like stars. On top of supplying the raw material,their internal conditions also regulate the formation of planets.Their study therefore holds the key to solve this long standingmystery: how did our Solar System form? This chapter focuses onobservational studies of the circumstellar environment, and inparticular of circumstellar disks, associated with pre-main sequencesolar-like stars. The direct measurement of disk parameters poses anobvious challenge: at the distance of the typical star forming regions( e.g. ~140 pc for Taurus), a planetary system like ours (withdiameter ≅50 AU out to Pluto, but excluding the Kuiper belt which could extend much farther out) subtends only 0.35''. Yetits surface brightness is low in comparison to the bright central starand high angular and high contrast imaging techniques are required ifone hopes to resolve and measure these protoplanetary disks. Fortunately, capable instruments providing 0.1'' resolution or betterand high contrast have been available for just about 10 yearsnow. They are covering a large part of the electromagnetic spectrum,from the UV/Optical with HST and the near-infrared from ground-basedadaptive optics systems, to the millimetric range with long-baselineradio interferometers. It is therefore not surprising that ourknowledge of the structure of the disks surrounding low-mass stars hasmade a gigantic leap forward in the last decade. In the following pages we will attempt to describe, in a historicalperpective, the road that led to the idea that most solar-like starsare surrounded by an accretion disk at one point in their early lifeand how, nowadays, their structural and physical parameters can beestimated from direct observations. We will follow by a shortdiscussion of a few of the constraints available regarding theevolution and dissipation of these disks. This last topic isparticularly relevant today to understand the mechanism leading to theformation of planets.

Assuming that the extended emission (EE) with broad dynamic range is a common property ofshort duration bursts, we propose a two-jet model which can describe both short mainepisode of hard spectra emission, specific for short bursts, and softer spectra EE by thedifferent off axis position of the observer. The model involves a short-duration jet,which is powered by heating due to νν̅ annihilation, and a long-lived Blandford–Znajek (BZ)jet with a significantly narrow opening angle. We also discuss observational tests oftwo-jet model.

We studied the stellar populations of Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy using HST/WFPC2 imaging of 7 galaxy fields. Our observations reach the oldest main-sequence turn-off, revealing distinct stars formation episodes and allowing us to address the evolution of this prototype dwarf spheroidal galaxy known to have experienced an extended history of star formation. From our HST data, spatial gradients in the stellar content of Fornax emerge with greater clarity. The outermost fields show only stars with ages between 7–12Gyr, while the intermediate region hosts a stellar population between 4–10Gyr, and stars younger of 2 Gyr are found in the innermost fields. A clearly visible gap in the subgiant branch points to bimodality in the main star formation episode. Our observations also indicate that the inner clump detected by Coleman et al. (2004) is characterized by the presence of young stars with age about 1.8 Gyr.

There is a strong connection between the formation of a disk galaxy and the properties of the interstellar medium (ISM). Theoretical work has typically either focused on the cosmological buildup of a galaxy with a relatively crude model for the gas physics, or examined local processes in the ISM and ignored the global evolution of the galaxy itself. Here, I briefly review what has been learned from both of these approaches, and what can be done to bridge the gap between them. I argue that cosmological simulations need to learn from observational and theoretical work on local ISM properties and adopt more sophisticated models for the processes that they cannot resolve. Since the ISM is still incompletely understood, there are a number of reasonable approaches for these “subgrid" models, and I will discuss the strengths and limitations of each.

The number of experiments on-board Lomonosov spacecraft are preparing now at SINP MSU inco-operation with other organisations. The main idea of Lomonosov mission is to studyextreme astrophysical phenomena, such as cosmic gamma-ray bursts and ultra-high energycosmic rays. These phenomena connect with processes occurred in very distant astrophysicalobjects of the Early Universe and give us information about first stages of Universeevolution. Thus, the Lomonosov mission scientific equipment includes several instrumentsfor gamma-ray burst observation in optics, ultra-violet, X-rays and gamma-rays and thewide aperture telescope for ultra-high energy particle study by detection of ionisationlight along its tracks in the atmosphere. The main parameters and a brief description ofthese instruments are presented.

Dome C CONCORDIA is the best ground site to perform deep, large scale, diffraction limited imaging surveys in the thermal infrared, in particular in the Kd and L bands. A first iteration of a roadmap that could lead to the set up of a dedicated survey telescope (AMIDST concept) is briefly outlined.

This paper reviews the overall principles of astronomical spectrographs and the design rules that cover low, medium, and high spectral resolution instruments. Several examples of spectrograph designs are described that are easy to build and are optimised for amateur telescopes. Results are given for each of these instruments. Despite the modest size of amateur telescopes, we show that high performance spectrographs in the hands of amateur astronomers provide access to some specialised areas where the amateur could contribute to useful astrophysical work.

In this paper we examine the effects introduced in the luminosityfunction of white dwarf stars by a change of the gravitationalconstant during the life of the Universe. A decrease of G inducesthe expansion of the star and accelerates its cooling. This effecthas noticeable effects on the luminosity function and can be used toset upper bounds on the rate of change of G. Preliminary resultsindicate that Ġ/G ≤ 10-13 yr-1. These values are thebest ever obtained and will improve as the white dwarf luminosityfunction will improve.

Magnetic fields have been detected at the surface of many stars, where they are responsible for various activity phenomena, and presumably they are present also in their deep interior. They channel stellar winds to large distance, thus increasing the loss of angular momentum. In stably stratified radiation zones, they tend to impose uniform rotation, and may thus interfere with the rotational mixing operating in these regions and influence the evolution of the host star. Moreover, certain magnetic configurations are known to be unstable, and they could produce some mixing of their own. We shall discuss these problems in the light of the latest developments.

Opening address and brief overview and aims of the Conference.

In this brief review we discuss how some of our basic understanding of chemical processes in interstellar medium has received a boost from the Herschel Space Observatory. With Herschel in operations for over 1 year, it is still early to discuss the full impact of new results and instead I demonstrate the new science enabled by near-complete spectroscopic access to sub-millimeter to far-infrared wavelengths.

In-depth analysis of eclipsing binary (EB) observational data collected for several decades can inform us about a lot of astrophysically interesting processes taking place in the systems. We have developed a wide-ranging method for the phenomenological modelling of eclipsing binary phase curves that enables us to combine even very disparate sources of phase information. This approach is appropriate for the processing of both standard photometric series of eclipses and data from photometric surveys of all kind. We conclude that mid-eclipse times, determined using the latest version of our “hi-fi” phenomenological light curve models, as well as their accuracy, are nearly the same as the values obtained using much more complex standard physical EB models.

With the aid of stellar atmosphere models, we derive iron abundances [Fe/H] from the OGLE B, V, I photometry on the Magellanic Cloud Cepheids. We show that in both clouds the average metallicities of the first overtone variables are lower than those of the fundamental ones (by ~0.2 and ~0.3 dex in the LMC and SMC, respectively). Consequently, there is a correlation between the overall [Fe/H] and luminosity; the lower luminosity stars tend to be also of lower metallicity. These metallicity dependencies are concordant with the ones derived for the two types of double-mode Cepheids from pulsation theory. Yet another support of this dichotomy comes from the evolution theories that require lower metallicities for blue-looping low-luminosity stars than for high-luminosity ones. We also comment on the possibility of using period-luminosity-color relations to derive more accurate metallicities.

ArTeMiS is a bolometer camera that will be installed at the APEX submillimeter telescope in Chile in 2010. This instrument will be a powerful tool for scientists with its three focal planes that will operate simultaneously in background limited conditions at 200, 350 and 450 microns (5760 pixels in total). A prototype called p-ArTeMiS has been tested at APEX in 2007 and thanks to its good performances, the team has been able to conduct scientific projects in star formation and on debris disks. This paper summarises the details of the ArTeMiS project, with a description of the detectors, the optics, the cryogenics and the electronics. We will also present the undergoing studies at CEA on detectors for the future submillimeter space missions.

Observations of the interstellar medium (ISM) reveal its fractalstructure over a large range of scales. The quantitative description shows that the ISM consists mainly of surfaces, so that the stellar UV-radiation can deeply penetrate intothe ISM and in consequence dominates its physical and chemical conditions. Thus, the bulk of the ISM can be identified as photon dominated regions (PDRs). A simple model with the proper fractal characteristics is that of an ensemble of spherical clumps with a power-law mass spectrum and a power-law mass-size relation. Hence, we model the FIR line emission of the molecular gasby the integrated emission of such an ensemble, calculating the emission of individual clumps with the KOSMA-τ PDR code. This clumpy PDR-model, with observationally constrained parameters, is fitted to the CO, [C i], and [O i] emission along the Galactic plane as observed by the FIRAS instrument abord the COBE satellite. The FIR line intensity distribution with Galactic longitude is reproduced within factors of about 2. The predicted [C ii] 158 μm line intensity and FIR continuum emission also coincide with the observations.

Betelgeuse, the bright red supergiant (RSG) in Orion, is a runaway star. Its supersonic motion through the interstellar medium has resulted in the formation of a bow shock, a cometary structure pointing in the direction of motion. We present the first 3D hydrodynamic simulations of the formation and evolution of Betelgeuse’s bow shock. We show that the bow shock morphology depends substantially on the growth timescale for Rayleigh-Taylor versus Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities. We discuss our models in light of the recent Herschel, GALEX and VLA observations. If the mass in the bow shock shell is low (~few  × 10-3M⊙), as seems to be implied by the AKARI and Herschel observations, then Betelgeuse’s bow shock is very young and is unlikely to have reached a steady state. The circular, smooth bow shock shell is consistent with this conclusion. We further discuss the implications of our results, in particular, the possibility that Betelgeuse may have only recently entered the RSG phase.

Multi-epoch, high-resolution (R ∼ 50 000) optical spectrosco-py of the O-type (O9 III – IV) star HD 152246 suggests that it is a triple system where a close inner pair (Aa–Ab) with a circular orbit and a period of 6 days is in a 53–d eccentric orbit (e = 0.68) with a third component Ac. The mass ratios for the inner and outer system are 0.10 and 0.96, respectively. The strengths of various He lines classify Aa and Ac as late O-type stars while Ab is invisible in our spectra.

The PAMELA satellite-borne experiment was launched from the Baikonur launch site on the 15th of June 2006. Since July 2006 it is daily delivering to ground 16 GBytes of data. The instrument is composed by a magnetic spectrometer, a time-of-flight system, a silicon-tungsten electromagnetic calorimeter, a neutron detector and anticoincidence scintillators. The primary scientific goal is to searching for evidence of dark matter particle annihilations studying antiparticles fluxes. Preliminary results concerning antiproton-proton and positron-electron ratios are presented.

We focus our analysis on an event which occurred at the W-limb on May 30, 2003. The dynamical behavior of the filament, including damped oscillations, was investigated with the CDS and EIT (SoHO) experiments, as well as with Hα filtergrams (movies). The eruptive phase is analyzed taking into account the approximate phasing with other eruptive phenomena occurring at the same time or before, called homologous flares and eruptions.