Stark broadening theories and calculations have been extensively developed for about 50 years. The theory can now be considered as mature for many applications, especially for accurate spectroscopic diagnostics and modelling. This requires the knowledge of numerous collisional line profiles, especially for very low abundant atoms and ions which are used as probes for modern spectroscopic diagnostics in astrophysics. Nowadays, the access to such data via an on line database becomes essential. STARK-B (http://stark-b.obspm.fr) is a collaborative project between the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade and the Laboratoire d’Étude du Rayonnement et de la matière en Astrophysique (LERMA). It is a database of calculated widths and shifts of isolated lines of atoms and ions due to electron and ion collisions (impacts). It is devoted to modelling and spectroscopic diagnostics of stellar atmospheres and envelopes, laboratory plasmas, laser equipments and technological plasmas. Hence, the domain of temperatures and densities covered by the tables is wide and depends on the ionization degree of the considered ion. The STARK-B database is a part of VAMDC (Virtual Atomic and Molecular Data Centre, http://www.vamdc.eu), which is an European Union funded collaboration between groups involved in the generation and use of atomic and molecular data. VAMDC aims to build a secure, documented, flexible and interoperable e-science environment-based interface to existing atomic and molecular data.

The annihilations of WIMPs can lead to the production of very-high energy (VHE) γ-rays in the final state. These VHE γ-rays may be detected by Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) like the H.E.S.S. instrument. We review here the search for such annihilations towards the Galactic Center and the Canis Major overdensity. Constraints on the velocity-weighted cross-sections ⟨σv⟩ of WIMPs are computed within the framework of supersymmetric and Kaluza-Klein extensions of the Standard Model of Particle Physics.

When the most primitive types of meteorite (chondrites) and interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) formed in the solar protoplanetary disk (solar nebula), all of them incorporated at least two types of presolar material: interstellar organic matter and circumstellar grains. The organic matter probably formed in the protosolar molecular cloud. To date, 10 types of circumstellar grain have been found and their isotopic compositions show that they formed around RGB/AGB stars, supernovae and, possibly, novae and WR stars. It has been proposed that interstellar silicates are also present in IDPs, but the evidence for this is less compelling.
The range of isotopic compositions exhibited by the circumstellar grains require a minimum of 35–40 stellar sources, suggesting that they are a fairly representative sample of circumstellar dust production in the Galaxy. In general, the relative abundances of circumstellar grains from different sources are similar to what is expected from astronomical estimates provided that the contribution from supernovae is relatively small. The one exception is graphite grains from AGB stars that are highly depleted.
Collisional erosion, radiation damage and sputtering are all expected to affect grains in the ISM on relatively short timescales. Yet, for reasons that are unclear, examination of the circumstellar grains has found little evidence for any of these processes.
The circumstellar grains also provide information about grain nucleation and growth in stellar winds. For instance, only graphite grains from AGB stars seem to have formed by heterogeneous nucleation. Graphite and SiC grains from AGB stars as large as 10–20 µm have been found in meteorites, probably requiring regions of high gas density rather than the usual assumption of uniformly expanding outflows. However, few graphite and SiC grains have similar C isotopic compositions, suggesting that they tend to form at different stages of AGB evolution.

We simulated the data outputs of the first Japanese astrometry satellite Nano-JASMINE,which is scheduled to be launched by the Cyclone-4 rocket in August 2011. The simulationswere carried out using existing stellar catalogues such as the Hipparcos catalogue, theTycho catalogue, and the Guide Star catalogue version 2.3. Several statics are shown suchas the number of stars those will be measured distances using annual aberrationobservations. The method for determining the initial direction of the satellite’s spinaxis has also been discussed. In this case, the frequency of bright stars observed by thesatellite is an important factor.

High- and low-density tracer molecules have been observed in (Ultra-) Luminous Infrared Galaxies in order to initiatemulti-molecule multi-transition studies to evaluate the physical and chemical environment of the nuclear medium and the ongoing nuclear activity. The data, augmented with data available in the literature, are presented in Baan et al. (2007), which also presents a first order analysis. Here, we present the chemical analysis of the J = 1–0 transition lines of HCN, HNC, and HCO+.

The cooling of baryons in the centers of dark matter halos leads to a more concentrated dark matter distribution. This effect has traditionally been calculated using the model of adiabatic contraction, which assumes spherical symmetry, while in hierarchical formation scenarios halos grow via multiple violent mergers. We test the adiabatic contraction model in high-resolution cosmological simulations and find that the dissipation of gas indeed increases the density of dark matter and steepens its radial profile compared to the case without cooling. Although the standard model systematically overpredicts the increase of dark matter density, a simple modification of the assumed invariant from M(r)r to $M(\bar{r})r$, where $\bar{r}$ is the orbit-averaged particle position, reproduces the simulated profiles within 10%.

We present a Bayesian method that simultaneously takes all available observables for a given star, their uncertainties and prior knowledge like the initial mass function into account to determine probability distributions of the stellar parameters based on grids of stellar evolutionary models. This allows to homogeneously analyse stars, to determine stellar parameters including robust uncertainties and to identify stars that cannot be reproduced by current stellar models. Our code is available through an easy-to-use web-interface.

In this paper, we consider the inverse problem of restoring an unknown signal or image, knowing the transformation suffered by the unknowns. More specifically we deal with transformations described by a linear model linking the unknown signal to an unnoisy version of the data. The measured data are generally corrupted by noise. This aspect of the problem is presented in the introduction for general models. In Section 2, we introduce the linear models, and some examples of linear inverse problems are presented. The specificities of the inverse problems are briefly mentionned and shown on a simple example. In Section 3, we give some information on classical distances or divergences. Indeed, an inverse problem is generally solved by minimizing a discrepancy function (divergence or distance) between the measured data and the model (here linear) of such data. Section 4 deals with the likelihood maximization and with their links with divergences minimization. The physical constraints on the solution are indicated and the Split Gradient Method (SGM) is detailed in Section 5. A constraint on the inferior bound of the solution is introduced at first; the positivity constraint is a particular case of such a constraint. We show how to obtain strictly, the multiplicative form of the algorithms. In a second step, the so-called flux constraint is introduced, and a complete algorithmic form is given. In Section 6 we give some brief information on acceleration method of such algorithms. A conclusion is given in Section 7.

We demonstrate the eclipsing binary detection performance of the Gaia variability analysis and processing pipeline using Hipparcos data. The automated pipeline classifies 1 067 (0.9%) of the 118 204 Hipparcos sources as eclipsing binary candidates. The detection rate amounts to 89% (732 sources) in a subset of 819 visually confirmed eclipsing binaries, with the period correctly identified for 80% of them, and double or half periods obtained in 6% of the cases.

The role of Venus and Mercury transits is crucial to know the past history of the solar diameter. Through the W parameter, the logarithmic derivative of the radius with respect to the luminosity, the past values of the solar luminosity can be recovered. The black drop phenomenon affects the evaluation of the instants of internal and external contacts between the planetary disk and the solar limb. With these observed instants compared with the ephemerides the value of the solar diameter is recovered. The black drop and seeing effects are overcome with two fitting circles, to Venus and to the Sun, drawn in the undistorted part of the image. The corrections of ephemerides due to the atmospheric refraction will also be taken into account. The forthcoming transit of Venus will allow an accuracy on the diameter of the Sun better than 0.01 arcsec, with good images of the ingress and of the egress taken each second. Chinese solar observatories are in the optimal conditions to obtain valuable data for the measurement of the solar diameter with the Venus transit of 5/6 June 2012 with an unprecedented accuracy, and with absolute calibration given by the ephemerides.

We review recent examples where the synergy between radio and X-ray observations has led to substantial progress in understanding astronomical systems. The sub-arcsecond imaging capabilities of the Chandra X-ray observatory provides a 100-fold improvement for comparing X-ray and radio structures. We specifically discuss examples which provide insight into the outflow of material and energy from pulsars and supernovae, the centers of clusters of galaxies, and the nuclei of quasars.

Ice grains are ejected whenever gases are flowing from gas-laden amorphous ice upon its warming-up. We elucidated the mechanism of gas trapping when flowing onto a gas-free ice layer. The observations on ice grain ejection from comets, Enceladus, Triton and the Martian South Polar region are explained as well.

In this contribution we briefly introduce a mechanism for short gamma ray burst emissiondifferent from the usually assumed compact objects binary merger progenitor model. It isbased on the energy release in the central regions of neutron stars. This energy injectionmay be due to internal self-annihilation of dark matter gravitationally accreted from thegalactic halo. We explain how this effect may trigger its full or partial conversion intoa quark star and, in such a case, induce a gamma ray burst with isotropic equivalentenergies in agreement with those measured experimentally. Additionally, we show how theejection of the outer crust in such events may be accelerated enough to produce Lorentzfactors over those required for gamma ray emission.

The frequency of planets in binaries is an important issue in the field of extrasolar planet studies, because of its relevance in the estimate of the global planet population of our Galaxy and the clues it can give to our understanding of planet formation and evolution. Here we present an update of the results discussed in Bonavita & Desidera (2007) (hereafter BD07), where we reported the outcomes of our literature search for binaries and multiple systems among the sample with uniform detectability (UD) defined by Fischer & Valenti (2005) (hereafter FV05).

Long hypothesized to be the origin of planetary systems, disks around newly formed stars have been studied in detail in the last twenty years. Most, if not all stars form surrounded by a disk, with typical masses of 0.001–0.3 M๏ and up to several hundred AU. Molecular emission lines show the gas to be in Keplerian rotation, with most species (but not H2) frozen out onto dust grains in the cold and dense disk interior. The fraction of stars with disks decreases from > 80% at < 1 Myr to < 10% at 10 Myr. The disk “half-life" is 2–3 Myr, with the inner and outer disks disappearing nearly simultaneously. There is a small but distinct populations of disks with cleared-out inner regions, so-called cold or transitional disks, explained by photoevaporation, planet formation, or binarity. Inside the disks, planet formation begins, with clear observational evidence for the growth of dust grains to sizes of a few cm at least.

A new description of the halo's dynamics is introduced. The response of haloes interacting with the accretion and the tidal field is described analytically in the non-linear and secular regime via a perturbative approach. It relates the dynamical properties of a population of such objects to the statistics of their environment. The latter are deduced from cosmological simulations and first results on the anisotropy of accretion, its kinematic properties and the two-point correlation of the tidal field and the density flux of mass are described. This approach should allow to predict the statistical properties of the dark matter tracers within the galaxy (e.g. Lensing, X Emission) or conversely, use these observational probes to constrain the characteristics of haloes' environments.

The technique of pupil densification bridges the gap existing betweenconventionnal optical astronomy observing techniques and opticalinterferometry: it indeed leads to the concept of hypertelescope: an instrument that can provide direct images at the focus of an interferometer.The hypertelescope is the open sesame for high dynamic imaging with aninterferometer: indeed, the elementary remapping of the pupil operated by adensifier not only maximizes the dynamic range and the signal to noise ratioof images but also makes the interferometer compatible with most existingcoronagraphic devices.Moreover, a careful discussion about field of view show that for a dilutedarray, the pupil densification preserves all the relevant high angular resolution information collected by the interferometer and therefore inducesno field loss.

We have used the new broadband capabilities of the Mopra telescope to map the distribution of 26 different molecular transitions in an approximately 1 degree square region of the southern Galactic plane (the G333/RCW106 giant molecular cloud complex). The aim is to addresss observationally some of the key questions about the dynamical processes surrounding massive star formation (e.g. massive stellar winds and large-scale galactic flows) and their relative importance in regulating the star formation process. These dynamical processes help drive the turbulent motions, which are ubiquitous in giant molecular clouds (GMCs). The multi-molecular line nature of this survey is what distinguishes it from similar surveys and is crucial for gaining a clear picture of the energetics and dynamics of the gas. Investigating and understanding the chemistry of this region is a necessary part of the project if the molecular line observations are to be interpreted physically.

Energy, and more generally conserved charges, is a subtle issue in general relativity and it is subject to controversy. Indeed, there aremany different definitions in the literature and in some cases they do not all give the same charges. For example, as emphasized byGibbons, et al. (2005), not even in four dimensions do all authors obtain the same expression for the energy of Kerr-AdS black holes and some of these expressions are in disagreement with the first law of black hole thermodynamics. I adopted in [arXiv:0705.0484] the method formulated by Regge & Teitelboim (1974). Based on the Hamiltonian formulation of gravitation, it associates to each asymptotic Killing vector a conserved charge without having to make any arbitrary choice. The charge is then expressed as a surface integral over a 2-sphere at spatial infinity. I investigate here conserved charges and asymptotic symmetries in both asymptotically flat and AdS spaces in arbitrary spacetime dimensions. The study is presented in general coordinates, including the ellipsoidal coordinates that are well adapted to the Kerr solution.

We review the theories and the observations relevant for the formation of low-mass stars, particularly emphasizing the aspects that Herschel will contribute to develop.