Dome C CONCORDIA offers very low infrared sky background conditions well suited to broad-band imaging surveys beyond 2.3 μm. I briefly describe the scientific interest of extending the recent 2 μm surveys in this spectal range, and the main lines of a project that would eventually lead to a large facility aimed at high angular resolution imaging and spectro-imaging (AMIDST project), with a first step dedicated to monitoring the IR sky background emission (AIRBUS experiment).

Synoptic sky surveys are opening up exciting opportunities in time domain astronomy. Gaiawill make a great contribution to this field. A crucial factor for good scientific returnsis real-time classification of transients, in order to optimize their follow-up. We havebeen developing infrastructure towards this end starting from the completed Palomar-Quest(PQ) survey, and the ongoing Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey (CRTS). CRTS has beenconsistently producing transients for almost three years now. We describe here the effortsrelated to transient classification and event dissemination. Many of the technologies andmethodologies we are developing may benefit Gaia.

To date, over 30 multiple exoplanet systems are known, and 28% of stars with planets show significant evidence of a second companion. I briefly review these 30 systems individually, broadly grouping them into five categories: 1) systems with 3 or more giant (M sin i> 0.2 MJup) planets, 2) systems with two giant planets in mean motion resonance (MMR), 3) systems with two giant planets not in MMR but whose dynamical evolution is affected by planet-planet interactions, 4) highly hierarchical systems, having two giant planets with very large period ratios (>30:1), and 5) systems of “Super-Earths”, containing only planets with (M sin i< 20 M⊕). 
It now appears that eccentricities are not markedly higher among planets in known multiple planet systems, and that planets with M sin i< 1 MJup have lower eccentricities than more massive planets. The distribution of semimajor axes for planets in multi-planet systems does not show the 3-day pile-up or the 1 AU “jump” of the apparently-single planet distribution.

Stellar ages have traditionally been used to constrain cosmological models by setting lower limits to the age of the universe. We quickly review the basic cosmological concepts that underpin the derivation of a finite age, and the constraints given by the measure of cosmological parameters at a redshift z ∼ 1000. The most direct way of measuring stellar ages through the abundance of radioactive elements is shown to suffer from systematics in the evaluation of the production ratios, to the extent that the constrains are less stringent that previously thought. The discrepancy between the ages of the oldest stars and the cosmologically inferred age of the universe may well be dominated by systematc effects in the predicted evolution of low-mass stars.

KIDA (for KInetic Database for Astrochemistry) is a project initiated by different communities in order to 1) improve the interaction between astrochemists and physico-chemists and 2) simplify the work of modeling the chemistry of astrophysical environments. KIDA was designed to group at the same place and with the same format all gas-phase chemical reactions useful for astrochemical simulations of the interstellar medium and planetary atmospheres. From KIDA, a subset of chemical reactions has been extracted for the cold and dense interstellar medium: kida.uva.2001.

Aromatic carbon, in some form, has been an essential ingredient by and large in allmodels of the extinction curve, since the original proposal to attribute the bump at 217.5nm to “astronomical graphite”. This aromatic carbon is most naturally identified, in up todate models, with a population of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), free and/orclustered. In all models, this PAH population accounts for the far–UV nonlinear rise inthe extinction curve, contributes to the bump and possibly part of the large set ofunidentified, discrete absorption features in the visible (the Diffuse InterstellarBands). We review the current state of our understanding of the contribution of PAHs tointerstellar extinction, and what constraints can be imposed on the PAH population byfitting extinction models to observations.

We explore the possibility of detecting Super Earths via transit timing variations with the satellite CoRoT.

Two-dimensional models of rapidly rotating stars are already unavoidable for the interpretation of interferometric or asteroseismic data of this kind of stars. When combined with time evolution, they will allow the including of a more accurate physics for the computation of element transport and the determination of surface abundances. In addition, modeling the evolution of rotation will improve gyrochronology. Presently, two-dimensional ESTER models predict the structure and the large-scale flows (differential rotation and meridional circulation) of stars with mass larger than 1.7 M⊙ at any rotation rate. Main sequence evolution can be mimicked by varying the hydrogen content of the convective core. Models have been successfully tested on half a dozen of nearby fast rotating stars observed with optical or infra-red interferometers. They are now the right tool to investigate the oscillation spectrum of early-type fast rotators.

The radio galaxy RC J0311+0507 was investigated in the “Big Trio” project, which aims tosearch for distant radio galaxies. Optical spectroscopy performed at the 6-m telescopemeasured its redshift as 4.514. The source is one of the most luminous objects in the highredshift Universe having L  ≈  3 × 1029W Hz-1 at 500 MHz, thatsuggests the presence of a super massive black hole with a mass of about1010 M⊙ inside the parent galaxy. Mechanisms ofthe formation of galaxies with black holes of such masses in the early stage of theUniverse is not yet clear. Based on a collection of deep images taken in 10 optical andinfrared bands we started a photometric study of the environment of this radio galaxy todetect possible neighborhood.

The Penn State/Toruń Centre for Astronomy Search for Planets Around Evolved Stars is a high-accuracy radial velocity (RV) survey aiming at planet detection around giant stars. It is based on observations obtained with the 9.2 m Hobby-Eberly Telescope. As proper interpretation of high accuracy RV data for red giants requires complete spectral analysis of targets we perform spectral modeling of all stars included in the survey. Typically, rotation velocities and metallicities are determined in addition to stellar luminosities and temperatures, which allows us to estimate stellar ages and masses. Here we present preliminary results of metallicity studies in our sample. We search for a metallicity dependence similar to that for dwarfs by comparing our results for a sample of 22 giants earlier than K5 showing significant RV variations with a control sample of 58 relatively RV-stable stars.

We first review the nonrelativistic Lagrangian theory as a framework for the MOND equation. Obstructions to a relativistic version of it are discussed leading up to TeVeS, a relativistic tensor-vector-scalar field theory which displays both MOND and Newtonian limits. The whys for its particular structure are discussed and its achievements so far are summarized.

Hot super-Earths are exoplanets with masses ≤10 M⊕ and orbital periods ≤20 days. Around 8 hot super-Earths have been discovered in the neighborhood of the Solar System. In this lecture, we review the mechanisms for the formation of hot super-Earths, and dynamical effects that play important roles in sculpting the architecture of multiple planetary systems. Two example systems (HD 40307 and GJ 436) are presented to show the formation and evolution of hot super-Earths or Neptunes.

In order to prepare the theoretical interpretation of the oscillation frequencies detected by CoRoT, comparisons of results from standard stellar models by the ESTA group have proven to be very useful. The next issue which is briefly addressed here is “what are the additional physical processes that must be included in stellar models computed with different evolutionary codes for the next comparison exercises?” We therefore discuss the impact on oscillation frequencies of several physical processes which are still poorly understood and/or poorly modelled but cannot be fully discarded.

This contribution describes our solar project at theAntarctic sites of Baia Terranova, South Pole and Dome-C. The project is based on a multi-level helioseismology analysis, aimed to study, for the first time, the local properties of the solar atmosphere. In addition, we plan to detect the presence of Alfvèn waves in and around the active regions, as an energy transfer vehicle from sunspots towards the corona. The technology used is the well known compact, stable, relatively unexpensive and still improving MOF (Magneto-Optical Filter).

Coronal “EIT wave” is a large-scale wavelike phenomenon propagating across the major part of the Sun. Debates are being continued regarding a more suitable name for it, its source driver, and its nature. “EIT waves” have been widely explained in terms of fast-mode waves, despite that the model contradicts with many observational features. Two-types of EUV waves were predicted 10 years ago. With the recent high-cadence observations, mainly from SDO/AIA telescope, more and more evidence has been revealed in favor of the two-wave model. In this paper, after summarizing different names used for EIT waves in the literature, we show how the community are getting close to reaching a consensus on the nature of EIT waves.

We present a new, fully-funded ground-based instrument designed to measurethe B-mode polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The conceptis based on three independent sub-systems operating at 90, 150 and 220 GHz,each comprising a telescope and a focal plane of horn-coupled background-limited bolometers. This highly-sensitive experiment, planned to be based at Dome C station in Antarctica, is optimised to produce very low systematiceffects. It will allow the detection of the CMB polarization over angular multipoles 20<l<1000accurately enough to measure the B-mode signature from gravitationalwaves to a lensing-confusion-limited tensor-to-scalar ratio r ~ 0.005.

N-body simulations find a universal structure for the halos whichresult from the nonlinear growth of Gaussian-random-noise densityfluctuations in the CDM universe. This talk summarized our attempts toderive and explain this universal structure by analyticalapproximation and simplified models. As an example, we show here thata 1D spherical infall model involving a fluid approximation derivedfrom the Boltzmann equation can explain not only the halo density profilebut its phase-space density profile, as well.

In this paper we present a short review of statistical properties of extrasolar planets, and of the core-accretion model and some of its extensions. We also present results of population synthesis models based on extended core-accretion planet formation models (taking into account disk structure and evolution and migration of the protoplanet, see Alibert et al. 2005a). The population synthesis is carried out by calculating the evolution of many disk-protoplanet systems, assuming initial conditions (in particular disk mass, disk lifetime and metallicity of the system) taken from observations. Taking into account the observational bias introduced by radial velocity surveys, we statistically compare the results of our models and the population of known extrasolar planets. We show that our models are able to quantitatively reproduce the mass and semimajor axes of extrasolar planets around solar type stars. Finally, we discuss the effect of the mass of the central star on the planet formation process and on the final planetary population.

MIRI, the mid-IR instrument of JWST (James Webb Space Telescope),will include a coronagraphic device for which the ultimate goal isthe detection and caracterization of extrasolar planets aroundnearby stars. In this paper, we describe the optical concept ofMIRI and the instrumental choices that were made in phase A and Bregarding the coronagraphic system. Finally, we will presentnumerical simulations that we carried out to evaluate thecapability for detecting extrasolar giant gazeous planets.