Fostered by the possibilities of multi-dimensional computational modeling, in particular the advent of three-dimensional (3D) simulations, our understanding of the neutrino-driven explosion mechanism of core-collapse supernovae (SNe) has experienced remarkable progress over the past decade. First self-consistent, first-principle models have shown successful explosions in 3D, and even failed cases may be cured by moderate changes of the microphysics inside the neutron star (NS), better grid resolution, or more detailed progenitor conditions at the onset of core collapse, in particular large-scale perturbations in the convective Si and O burning shells. 3D simulations have also achieved to follow neutrino-driven explosions continuously from the initiation of the blast wave, through the shock breakout from the progenitor surface, into the radioactively powered evolution of the SN, and towards the free expansion phase of the emerging remnant. Here we present results from such simulations, which form the basis for direct comparisons with observations of SNe and SN remnants in order to derive constraints on the still disputed explosion mechanism. It is shown that predictions based on hydrodynamic instabilities and mixing processes associated with neutrino-driven explosions yield good agreement with measured NS kicks, light-curve properties of SN 1987A and asymmetries of iron and 44Ti distributions observed in SN 1987A and Cassiopeia A.

The CHaMP project has identified a uniform sample of 303 massive (20–8000 M⊙), dense (200–30,000 cm−3) molecular clumps in a large sector of the southern Milky Way that includes much of the Carina Arm. These are the kinds of clumps that are likely to be the precursors to IRDCs, large stellar clusters, and massive stars. We report new results of the physical conditions in these clouds based on the J=1 → 0 emission at 3mm from the HCN molecule. Analysis of the HCN emission from these clumps reveals that the physical conditions in the gas (i.e., the excitation temperature, optical depth, and column density) do not follow the molecular line emissivity in a straightforward way. This means that large fractions of the molecular material involved in massive cluster formation, while not completely“dark”, are under-luminous and easily missed in certain studies.

In this work, we analysed the physical parameters of the spotless actives regions observed during solar minimum 23 – 24 (2007 – 2010). The study was based on radio maps at 17 GHz obtained by the Nobeyama Radioheliograph (NoRH) and magnetograms provided by the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). The results shows that the spotless active regions presents the same radio characteristics of a ordinary one, they can live in the solar surface for long periods (>10 days), and also can present small flares.

Due to limitations in available instrumentation and observation time, a spectroscopic determination of distance is not feasible for all objects in the sky. Therefore statistical methods that estimate redshifts, based on photometric measurement are of tremendous importance to many astrophysical questions. Determining cosmological parameters and understanding evolutionary processes in the universe are just two examples. When perform astrophysical analyses, it is necessary to treat the uncertainties of the estimates correctly. Over-simplification of results and the usage of wrong tools to evaluate the performance of probabilistic redshift estimates were commonly found in the literature. We present proper tools for evaluating uncertain redshift estimates and discuss the necessity of multimodal redshift distributions.

Circumstellar envelopes (CEs) around evolved stars are an active site for the production of molecules. After evolving through the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB), proto-planetary nebula (PPN), to planetary nebula (PN) phases, CEs ultimately merge with the interstellar medium (ISM). The study of molecules in PNe, therefore, is essential to understanding the transition from stellar to interstellar materials. So far, over 20 molecular species have been discovered in PNe. The molecular composition of PNe is rather different from those of AGB and PPNe, suggesting that the molecules synthesized in PN progenitors have been heavily processed by strong ultraviolet radiation from the central star. Intriguingly, fullerenes and complex organic compounds having aromatic and aliphatic structures can be rapidly formed and largely survive during the PPN/PN evolution. The similar molecular compositions in PNe and diffuse clouds as well as the detection of C60+ in the ISM reinforce the view that the mass-loss from PNe can significantly enrich the ISM with molecular species, some of which may be responsible for the diffuse interstellar bands. In this contribution, I briefly summarize some recent observations of molecules in PNe, with emphasis on their implications on circumstellar chemistry.

I present an overview of observational efforts across the electromagnetic spectrum to identify and study tidal disruption flares (TDFs), when a star wanders too close to a super-massive black hole and is torn apart by tidal forces. In particular I will focus on four unexpected surprises that challenge the most basic analytic picture of these events: 1) large inferred radii for the optical/UV-emitting material; 2) the ubiquity of outflows, detected at radio, X-ray, and UV wavelengths, ranging from speeds of 100 km/s to near the speed of light; 3) the peculiar atomic abundances observed in the UV and optical spectra of these objects; and, 4) the preference for these events to occur in post-starburst galaxies.

21-cm cosmology is a powerful new probe of the intergalactic medium at redshifts 20 ≳ z ≳ 6 corresponding to the Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization. Current observations of the highly-redshifted 21-cm transition are limited by the dynamic range they can achieve against foreground sources of low-frequency (<200 MHz) of radio emission. We used the Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array (OVRO-LWA) to generate a series of new modern high-fidelity sky maps that capture emission on angular scales ranging from tens of degrees to ∼15 arcmin, and frequencies between 36 and 73 MHz. These sky maps were generated from the application of Tikhonov-regularized m-mode analysis imaging, which is a new interferometric imaging technique that is uniquely suited for low-frequency, wide-field, drift-scanning interferometers.

Simultaneously and coherently studying the large-scale magnetic field and the stellar pulsations of a massive star provides strong complementary diagnostics suitable for detailed stellar modelling. This hybrid method is called magneto-asteroseismology and permits the determination of the internal structure and conditions within magnetic massive pulsators, for example the effect of magnetism on non-standard mixing processes. Here, we overview this technique, its requirements, and list the currently known suitable stars to apply the method.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is scheduled for launch in 2018. To operate and observe efficiently, JWST will rely on various external astrometric and photometric catalogues, in particular the HST Guide Star Catalog (GSC), for instance to locate sources accurately on the sky. The incorporation of the Gaia astrometric catalog will improve the absolute astrometry of the GSC and is therefore relevant for JWST operations. We outline how the JWST Science and Operations Center hosted at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) intends to use the Gaia survey results to improve upon operational aspects such as the guiding and the geometric focal plane characterisation of JWST.

I describe recent advances in the formulation and modeling of relativistic stellar dynamics around a massive black hole, and the implications for the rates of infall (e.g. tidal disruption) and inspiral (e.g. gradual decay by gravitational wave emission) processes, and their branching ratios.

Here I discuss progress in both the theory and practice of data analysis for the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), focusing on techniques to calibrate the instrumental response and preserve the spectral smoothness that is essential to separating the cosmological 21 cm signal from foregrounds that are five orders of magnitude brighter. I explain how mis-calibration can create ruinous spectral structure and how we take advantage of HERA’s highly-redundant configuration for calibration. This proceeding draws from a talk I gave on October 3, 2017. Slides for it and all my talks are available at joshdillon.net.

The all-sky Planck catalogue of Galactic Cold Clumps (PGCC) allows an almost unbiased study of the early phases of star-formation in our Galaxy. Several thousand of the clumps have also distance estimates allowing a determination of mass and density. The nature of Planck cold clumps varies from IRDCs to tiny nearby cold clouds with masses ranging from one to several tens of thousands solar masses. Some of the clumps are embedded in GMCs, others are isolated. Some are close or even very close to OB associations, while others lay far from any UV luminous objects. The small scale clustering of nearby PGCCs was studied with the improved Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) method identifying groups in 3D space, locating also massive cold cloud clusters eg. PGCCMST G210.6-19.5 in LDN 1641.

We derive and compare kinematic parameters of the Galaxy using the PMA and Gaia TGAS data. Two methods are used in calculations: evaluation of the Ogorodnikov-Milne model (OMM) parameters by the least square method (LSM) and a decomposition on a set of vector spherical harmonics (VSH). We trace dependencies on the distance of the derived parameters including the Oort constants A and B and the rotational velocity of the Galaxy Vrot at the Solar distance for the common sample of stars of mixed spectral composition of the PMA and TGAS catalogues. The distances were obtained from the TGAS parallaxes or from reduced proper motions for fainter stars.

The A, B and Vrot parameters derived from proper motions of both catalogues used show identical behaviour but the values are systematically shifted by about 0.5 mas/yr.

The Oort B parameter derived from the PMA sample of red giants shows gradual decrease with increasing the distance while the Oort A has a minimum at about 2 kpc and then gradually increases.

As for models chosen for calculations, first, we confirm conclusions of other authors about the existence of extra-model harmonics in the stellar velocity field. Secondly, not all parameters of the OMM are statistically significant, and the set of parameters depends on the stellar sample used.

Gamma ray lines are expected to be emitted as part of the afterglow of supernova explosions, because radioactive decay of freshly synthesised nuclei occurs. Significant radioactive gamma ray line emission is expected from 56Ni and 44Ti decay on time scales of the initial explosion (56Ni, τ ~days) and the young supernova remnant (44Ti,τ ~90 years). Less specific, and rather informative for the supernova population as a whole, are lessons from longer lived isotopes such as 26Al and 60Fe. From isotopes of elements heavier than iron group elements, any interesting gamma-ray line emission is too faint to be observable. Measurements with space-based gamma-ray telescopes have obtained interesting gamma ray line emissions from two core collapse events, Cas A and SN1987A, and one thermonuclear event, SN2014J. We discuss INTEGRAL data from all above isotopes, including all line and continuum signatures from these two objects, and the surveys for more supernovae, that have been performed by gamma ray spectrometry. Our objective here is to illustrate what can be learned from gamma-ray line emission properties about the explosions and their astrophysics.

In the modern galaxy surveys photometric redshifts play a central role in a broad range of studies, from gravitational lensing and dark matter distribution to galaxy evolution. Using a dataset of ~ 25,000 galaxies from the second data release of the Kilo Degree Survey (KiDS) we obtain photometric redshifts with five different methods: (i) Random forest, (ii) Multi Layer Perceptron with Quasi Newton Algorithm, (iii) Multi Layer Perceptron with an optimization network based on the Levenberg-Marquardt learning rule, (iv) the Bayesian Photometric Redshift model (or BPZ) and (v) a classical SED template fitting procedure (Le Phare). We show how SED fitting techniques could provide useful information on the galaxy spectral type which can be used to improve the capability of machine learning methods constraining systematic errors and reduce the occurrence of catastrophic outliers. We use such classification to train specialized regression estimators, by demonstrating that such hybrid approach, involving SED fitting and machine learning in a single collaborative framework, is capable to improve the overall prediction accuracy of photometric redshifts.

Observations with powerful X-ray telescopes, such as XMM-Newton and Chandra, significantly advance our understanding of massive stars. Nearly all early-type stars are X-ray sources. Studies of their X-ray emission provide important diagnostics of stellar winds. High-resolution X-ray spectra of O-type stars are well explained when stellar wind clumping is taking into account, providing further support to a modern picture of stellar winds as non-stationary, inhomogeneous outflows. X-ray variability is detected from such winds, on time scales likely associated with stellar rotation. High-resolution X-ray spectroscopy indicates that the winds of late O-type stars are predominantly in a hot phase. Consequently, X-rays provide the best observational window to study these winds. X-ray spectroscopy of evolved, Wolf-Rayet type, stars allows to probe their powerful metal enhanced winds, while the mechanisms responsible for the X-ray emission of these stars are not yet understood.

The formation process(es) of fullerenes in space is still uncertain and several mechanisms have been proposed in the literature. In particular, the most accepted idea to explain the simultaneous presence of fullerenes and PAH-like emission in the H-rich circumstellar envelopes of PNe is that these molecular species may be formed from the photochemical processing of a carbonaceous compound with a mixture of aromatic and aliphatic structures, which should be a major constituent of their circumstellar envelopes. Here we present seeing-limited narrow-band mid-IR GTC/CanariCam images of the fullerene-containing PN IC 418. The narrow-band images cover the 9−13, 11.3, and 17.4 μm emission features (and their adjacent continua) in this extended PN. We study the relative sub-arcsecond spatial distribution of the nebula in these filters with the intention of getting some clues about the formation process of fullerenes in H-rich circumstellar environments.

An exoplanet transiting in front of the disk of its parent star may hide a dark starspot causing a detectable change in the light curve, that allows to infer physical characteristics of the spot such as size and intensity. We have analysed the Kepler Space Telescope observations of the star Kepler-71 in order to search for variabilities in 28 transit light curves. Kepler-71 is a star with 0.923 M⊙ and 0.816 R⊙ orbited by the hot Jupiter planet Kepler-71b with radius of 1.0452 RJ. The physical parameters of the starspots are determined by fitting the data with a model that simulates planetary transits and enables the inclusion of spots on the stellar surface with different sizes, intensities, and positions. The results show that Kepler-71 is a very active star, with several spot detections, with a mean value of 6 spots per transit with size 0.6 RP and 0.5 IC, as a function of stellar intensity at disk center (maximum value).

The catalog of 38,000 chromospherically active RAVE dwarfs represents one of the largest samples of young active solar-like and later-type single field stars in the Solar neighbourhood. It was established from the unbiased magnitude limited RAVE Survey using an unsupervised stellar classification algorithm based merely on stellar fluxes (Ca II infrared triplet). Using a newly-calibrated age-activity relation, ~15,000 active stars are estimated to be younger than 1 Gyr. Almost 2000 stars are presumably younger than ~100 Myr and possibly still in the pre-main sequence phase, the latter being supported by their significant offset from the main sequence in the NUV − V versus J − K space. 16,000 stars from the sample have positional and velocity vectors available (using TGAS parallaxes and proper motions and radial velocities from RAVE).