I would like to report first on the scientific career of Einar Tandberg-Hanssen: how he became a Solar Physicist particularly interested in prominences. In the second part of my talk I will show what he brought to the French community from the science perspective.

Antarctic astronomical site-testing has been conducted using autonomous self-powered observatories for more than a decade (the AASTO at South Pole, the AASTINO at Dome C, and PLATO at Dome A/Dome F). More recently autonomous (PLATO) observatories have been developed and deployed to support small-scale scientific instruments, such as HEAT, a 0.6 m aperture terahertz telescope at Ridge A, and AST3, a 0.5 m optical telescope array at Dome A. This paper reviews the evolution of autonomous Antarctic astronomical observatories, and discusses the requirements and implications for observatories that will be needed for future larger-scale facilities.

We review recent observational and theoretical results on the fine structure and dynamics of solar prominences, beginning with an overview of prominence classifications, the proposal of possible new “funnel prominence” classification, and a discussion of the recent “solar tornado” findings. We then focus on quiescent prominences to review formation, down-flow dynamics, and the “prominence bubble” phenomena. We show new observations of the prominence bubble Rayleigh-Taylor instability triggered by a Kelvin-Helmholtz shear flow instability occurring along the bubble boundary. Finally we review recent studies on plasma composition of bubbles, emphasizing that differential emission measure (DEM) analysis offers a more quantitative analysis than photometric comparisons. In conclusion, we discuss the relation of prominences to coronal magnetic flux ropes, proposing that prominences can be understood as partially ionized condensations of plasma forming the return flow of a general magneto-thermal convection in the corona.

Over the past decade, a growing number of deep imaging surveys have started to provide meaningful constraints on the population of extrasolar giant planets at large orbital separation. Primary targets for these surveys have been carefully selected based on their age, distance and spectral type, and often on their membership to young nearby associations where all stars share common kinematics, photometric and spectroscopic properties. The next step is a wider statistical analysis of the frequency and properties of low mass companions as a function of stellar mass and orbital separation. In late 2009, we initiated a coordinated European Large Program using angular differential imaging in the H band (1.66 μm) with NaCo at the VLT. Our aim is to provide a comprehensive and statistically significant study of the occurrence of extrasolar giant planets and brown dwarfs at large (5-500 AU) orbital separation around ~150 young, nearby stars, a large fraction of which have never been observed at very deep contrast. The survey has now been completed and we present the data analysis and detection limits for the observed sample, for which we reach the planetary-mass domain at separations of ≳50 AU on average. We also present the results of the statistical analysis that has been performed over the 75 targets newly observed at high-contrast. We discuss the details of the statistical analysis and the physical constraints that our survey provides for the frequency and formation scenario of planetary mass companions at large separation.

Ultra-Luminous X-ray sources are accreting black holes that might represent strong evidence of the Intermediate Mass Black Holes (IMBH), proposed to exist by theoretical studies but with no firm detection (as a class) so far. We analyze the best X-ray timing and spectral data from the ULX in NGC 5408 provided by XMM-Newton. The main goal is to study the broad-band noise variability of the source. We found an anti-correlation of the fractional root-mean square variability versus the intensity of the source, similar to black-hole binaries during hard states.

Radio pulsars are fascinating and extremely useful objects. Despite our on-going difficulties in understanding the details of their emission physics, they can be used as precise cosmic clocks in a wide-range of experiments – in particular for probing gravitational physics. While the reader should consult the contributions to these proceedings to learn more about this exciting field of discovering, exploiting and understanding pulsars, we will concentrate here on on the usage of pulsars as gravity labs.

We present our effort to detect and characterize transiting systems with small exoplanets. First we present our on-going project to detect transiting exoplanets around late-type stars. As many authors point out, late-type stars can host potentially habitable rocky planets, whose transits are detectable with 2-meter class telescopes. We aim at detecting (small-sized) transiting exoplanets around M-type stars and are conducting a survey using the Okayama 1.88m telescope. We introduce our campaign at Okayama. Next we discuss the characterization of small-sized exoplanets. We focus on the measurement of the spin-orbit angle, the angle between the stellar spin axis and planetary orbital axis. The spin-orbit relations are of great importance in discussing planetary formations, evolutions, and migrations. To this point, the Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect, an apparent radial velocity anomaly during a planetary transit, has been mainly investigated to measure the projected spin-orbit angles. However, as the size of the transiting planet becomes smaller, the detection of the RM effect becomes challenging because of the small RM signal. We have newly developed a technique to investigate spin-orbit relations for smaller planets by combining Kepler's ultra-precise photometry and spectroscopic measurements. We show that, contrary to planetary systems with close-in giant planets, most of the systems with small-sized planets (including Earth-sized ones) have smaller spin-orbit angles, which implies a different evolutional history of the planetary systems. We also discuss future prospects on the detection and characterization of smaller transiting exoplanets.

Wide-field far-infrared/submillimeter continuum maps of molecular clouds by the Herschel Space Observatory GBS and HOBYS surveys are revealing the star-forming substructures that lead to star formation in dense gas. In particular, these maps have revealed the central role in clouds of filaments, likely formed through turbulent motions. These filaments appear to be non-isothermal and fragment into cores only when their column densities exceed a stability threshold. Organizations of filament networks suggest the relative role of turbulence and gravity can be traced in different parts of a cloud, and filament intersections may lead to larger amounts of mass flow that form the precursors of high-mass stars or clusters.

The First Billion Years is one of the largest and most comprehensive cosmological, hydrodynamical simulation of the early Universe to date. It studies the formation of the first proto-galaxies down to redshift 6, and provides the path of the evolution from proto-galaxies to the observed galaxy population at redshift 4. It also provides predictions for future observations.

A brief review is given of the major results from the last twenty years of astronomical site-testing in Antarctica. Suggestions are made for how to resolve some outstanding questions, such as the infrared sky background at Antarctic sites other than South Pole station.

Sunspot observations inspired solar dynamo theory and continue to do so. Simply counting them established the sunspot cycle and its period. Latitudinal distributions introduced the tough constraint that the source of sunspots moves equator-ward as the cycle progresses. Observations of Hale's polarity law mandated hemispheric asymmetry. How much more can sunspots tell us about the solar dynamo? We draw attention to a few outstanding questions raised by inherent sunspot properties. Namely, how to explain sunspot rotation rates, the incoherence of follower spots, the longitudinal spacing of sunspot groups, and brightness trends within a given sunspot cycle. After reviewing the first several topics, we then present new results on the brightness of sunspots in Cycle 24 as observed with the Helioseismic Magnetic Imager (HMI). We compare these results to the sunspot brightness observed in Cycle 23 with the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI). Next, we compare the minimum intensities of five sunspots simultaneously observed by the Hinode Solar Optical Telescope Spectropolarimeter (SOT-SP) and HMI to verify that the minimum brightness of sunspot umbrae correlates well to the maximum field strength. We then examine 90 and 52 sunspots in the north and south hemisphere, respectively, from 2010 - 2012. Finally, we conclude that the average maximum field strengths of umbra 40 Carrington Rotations into Cycle 24 are 2690 Gauss, virtually indistinguishable from the 2660 Gauss value observed at a similar time in Cycle 23 with MDI.

I have analysed the pumping scheme of 1720-MHz OH masers in great detail.

One of the Milky Way's fundamental parameters is the distance of the Sun from the Galactic Center, R0. This article reviews the various ways of estimating R0, placing special emphasis on methods that have become possible recently. In particular, we focus on the geometric distance estimate made possible thanks to observations of individual stellar orbits around the massive black hole at the center of the Galaxy. The specific issues of concern there are the degeneracies with other parameters, most importantly the mass of the black hole and the definition of the reference frame. The current uncertainty is nevertheless only a few percent, with error bars shrinking every year.

Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations can provide the positions of compact radio sources with an accuracy of order 50 micro-arcseconds. This is sufficient to measure the trigonometric parallax and proper motions of any object within 500 pc of the Sun to better than a few percent. Because they are magnetically active, young stars are often associated with compact radio emission detectable using VLBI techniques. Here we show how VLBI observations have already constrained the distance to the most often studied nearby regions of star formation (Taurus, Ophiuchus, Orion, etc.) and have started to provide information about their internal structure and kinematics. We will then briefly describe a large project, the ‘Gould's Belt Distances Survey,’ which has been designed to provide a detailed view of star formation in the solar neighborhood using VLBI observations.

The High Time Resolution Universe survey for pulsars and transients is the first truly all-sky pulsar survey, taking place at the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia and the Effelsberg Radio Telescope in Germany. Utilising multibeam receivers with custom built all-digital recorders the survey targets the fastest millisecond pulsars and radio transients on timescales of 64 μs to a few seconds. The new multibeam digital filter-bank system at has a factor of eight improvement in frequency resolution over previous Parkes multibeam surveys, allowing us to probe further into the Galactic plane for short duration signals. The survey is split into low, mid and high Galactic latitude regions. The mid-latitude portion of the southern hemisphere survey is now completed, discovering 107 previously unknown pulsars, including 26 millisecond pulsars. To date, the total number of discoveries in the combined survey is 135 and 29 MSPs These discoveries include the first magnetar to be discovered by it's radio emission, unusual low-mass binaries, gamma-ray pulsars and pulsars suitable for pulsar timing array experiments.

We carried out the first seeing measurements at Dome Fuji in the 2010–2011 austral summer. From these observations, we found that the summer seeing at Dome Fuji was 1.2″ (mean), 1.1″ (median), 0.83″ (25th percentile) and 1.5″ (75th percentile), respectively. We also found that the seeing changed continuously and had a minimum around 0.7″ at ~18:00 hours daily. We compared the seeing with some weather parameters obtained from the 16 m mast, and found that the seeing had good correlations with atmosphere temperature and wind shear. These results suggest that the seeing is degraded by turbulence near the surface boundary layer. Because the data were obtained only over a short duration in summer, the general characteristics of Dome Fuji's seeing could not be evaluated. We plan to observe the seeing in winter with a stand-alone DIMM telescope. This new DIMM, which we named the Dome Fuji Differential Image Motion Monitor (DF–DIMM), will be installed at Dome Fuji in January 2013.

We point out the difficulties in carrying out direct numerical simulation of the solar dynamo problem and argue that kinematic mean-field models are our best theoretical tools at present for explaining various aspects of the solar cycle in detail. The most promising kinematic mean-field model is the flux transport dynamo model, in which the toroidal field is produced by differential rotation in the tachocline, the poloidal field is produced by the Babcock–Leighton mechanism at the solar surface and the meridional circulation plays a crucial role. Depending on whether the diffusivity is high or low, either the diffusivity or the meridional circulation provides the main transport mechanism for the poloidal field to reach the bottom of the convection zone from the top. We point out that the high-diffusivity flux transport dynamo model is consistent with various aspects of observational data. The irregularities of the solar cycle are primarily produced by fluctuations in the Babcock–Leighton mechanism and in the meridional circulation. We summarize recent work on the fluctuations of meridional circulation in the flux transport dynamo, leading to explanations of such things as the Waldmeier effect.

Galactic gravitational microlensing is a powerful technique to detect extrasolar planets at large orbital distances from their stars, from giant down to Earth-mass planets. We report a statistical analysis (Cassan et al. 2012) that combines six years of microlensing observations gathered between 2002 to 2007 by the PLANET and OGLE collaborations. From these data, we estimate the frequency of cool extrasolar planets, with masses ranging from 5 Earths to 10 Jupiters and orbits between 0.5 to 10 Astronomical Units. We find that in average, one in six stars has a Jupiter-like gas giant as companion planet, that about half the stars are orbited by a Neptune-like giant, and two-thirds are associated to super-Earths. Our study also suggests that planets should be ubiquitous throughout the Galaxy. Current deployment of wide-field imagers and possible space-based observations onboard ESA spacecraft EUCLID will soon allow a large increase of the number of monitored microlensing events. These new observatories should provide in a near future a more detailed view on planet abundance as a function of mass.

CO clouds can be non-self-gravitating in high pressure environments, while most should be strongly self-gravitating at low metallicities and ambient pressures. In the LMC, which is HI-rich, GMC formation and destruction should generally include molecule formation and destruction. In M51, which is CO-rich, GMCs grow by coalescence. The Milky Way is between these two situations. In all cases, large clouds form by accretion of gas and smaller clouds independently of the presence of molecules. GMCs in the Milky Way are analogous to dust lanes and spurs in other galaxies. The virial parameter α usually decreases monotonically with increasing cloud mass in surveys, which implies that small scale structure is formed by turbulence. Hierarchies of sequences with decreasing α should be present in cloud complexes from sub-solar masses up to the ambient Jeans mass (107M⊙).

The microquasar GX 339-4 experienced an outburst in 2010. We focus on observations that are quasi-simultaneous with those made by INTEGRAL and RXTE in March–April 2010 with radio, NIR, optical and UV data. X-ray transients are extreme systems, often harboring a black hole, known to emit throughout the whole electromagnetic spectrum in outburst. We studied the source evolution and correlated changes in all wavelengths. The bolometric flux increased from 0.8 to 2.9 × 10−8 erg cm−2 s−1 while the relative contribution of the hot medium decreased. The radio, NIR and optical emission from jets was detected and observed to fade as the source softened; reprocessing in the disc was strong at the end.