The parametric dependence of terrestrial planetary atmospheric circulations and climates on characteristic parameters is studied. A simplified general circulation model—PUMA is employed to investigate the dynamic effects of planetary rotation rate and equator-to-pole temperature difference on the circulation and climate of terrestrial planetary atmospheres. Five different types of circulation regime are identified by mapping the experimental results in a 2-D parameter space defined by thermal Rossby number and frictional Taylor number. The effect of the transfer and redistribution of radiative energy is studied by building up a new two-band semi-gray radiative-convective scheme, which is capable of modelling greenhouse and anti-greenhouse effects while keeping the tunable parameters as few as possible. The results will provide insights into predicting the habitability of terrestrial exoplanets.

A visualization of 3D structures and cosmic flows is presented using information from the Extragalactic Distance Database V8k redshift catalog and peculiar velocities from the Cosmicflows-1 survey. Structures within a volume bounded at 8000 km s−1 on the cardinal Supergalactic axes are explored in terms of both displaying the positions of the 30,124 galaxies of the catalog and its reconstructed luminosity density field, corrected to account for growing incompleteness with increasing distance. Cosmography of the local Universe is discussed with the intent to identify the most prominent structures, including voids, galaxy clusters, filaments, and walls. The mapping also benefits from precise distance measures provided through the Cosmicflows-1 observational program. Three-dimensional visualizations of the coherent flows of galaxies in the nearby Universe are presented, using recent results based on reconstruction of cosmic flows with the Wiener filter approach. The three major components of the Milky Way's motion, namely expulsion from the Local Void, infall toward the Virgo Cluster, and the bulk flow of the historic Local Supercluster toward the Great Attractor are illustrated using different visualization techniques and analyzed in light of the cosmography derived from the V8k redshift and Cosmicflows-1 distance catalogs.

Targeting quasar candidates is always an important task for large spectroscopic sky survey projects. Astronomers never give up thinking out effective approaches to separate quasars from stars. The previous methods on this issue almost belong to supervised methods or color-color cut. In this work, we compare the performance of a supervised method – Support Vector Machine (SVM)– with that of an unsupervised method one-class SVM. The performance of SVM is better than that of one-class SVM. But one-class SVM is an unsupervised algorithm which is helpful to recognize rare or mysterious objects. Combining supervised methods with unsupervised methods is effective to improve the performance of a single classifier.

Solar coronal cavities are regions of rarefied density and elliptical cross-section. The Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter (CoMP) obtains daily full-Sun coronal observations in linear polarization, allowing a systematic analysis of the coronal magnetic field in polar-crown prominence cavities. These cavities commonly possess a characteristic “lagomorphic” signature in linear polarization that may be explained by a magnetic flux-rope model. We analyze the spatial relation between the EUV cavity and the CoMP linear polarization signature.

We present the statistical properties of molecular clumps in the Galactic center 50 km s−1 molecular cloud based on observations of the CS J = 1 − 0 emission line with the Nobeyama Millimeter Array. The CMF and size spectrum for the whole cloud can be described by power laws of dN/dM ∝ M−2.6 ± 0.1 and dN/dR ∝ R−5.9±0.3, respectively. The CMF observed in the interacting part with the Sgr A East steepens to dN/dM ∝ M−4.0±0.2. On the other hand, the interaction presumably truncates the size spectrum on the larger side of R ∼ 0.4 pc.

The physical modeling of the accretion disk boundary layer, the region where the disk meets the surface of the accreting star, usually relies on the assumption that angular momentum transport is opposite to the radial angular frequency gradient of the disk. The standard model for turbulent shear viscosity, widely adopted in astrophysics, satisfies this assumption by construction. However, this behavior is not supported by numerical simulations of turbulent magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) accretion disks, which show that angular momentum transport driven by the magnetorotational instability is inefficient in this inner disk region. I will discuss the results of a recent study on the generation of hydromagnetic stresses and energy density in the boundary layer around a weakly magnetized star. Our findings suggest that although magnetic energy density can be significantly amplified in this region, angular momentum transport is rather inefficient. This seems consistent with the results obtained in numerical simulations and suggests that the detailed structure of turbulent MHD boundary layers could differ appreciably from those derived within the standard framework of turbulent shear viscosity.

High precision astrometry on radio pulsars can provide model-independent estimates of their distances and velocities. Such estimates serve to calibrate models of the Galactic electron density distribution, thereby improving distance estimates for the entire pulsar population. They can provide independent astrometric information for precision pulse timing, reducing the number of fit parameters and thus potentially improving the sensitivity of pulsar timing arrays to the gravitational wave background. Individual neutron stars also serve as laboratories for astrophysics. For example, distances to highly luminous recycled pulsars identified by the Fermi gamma ray space telescope will constrain their energetics and may serve to probe the equation of state for nuclear matter at extremes of density and pressure. Here we provide an update on ongoing astrometry programs with the Very Long Baseline Array and the scientific results from these efforts.

The Class II 6.7-GHz methanol maser is a tracer of high mass young stellar objects. We present results of a 44-GHz class I methanol maser and 22-GHz water maser survey using the KVN (Korean VLBI Network) 21-m single dish radio telescopes towards 284 6.7-GHz maser sites. Class I methanol maser and water maser emission is detected towards 116 (41%) and 136 (48%) sources, respectively. About 50 sources have a peak flux density higher than 10 Jy at 44-GHz. They are candidates for VLBI studies using the KVN.

Lense-Thirring QPO model is a promising model to explain QPO phenomena (Ingram et al. (2009)). In this model the QPO results from Lense-Thirring precession of a optical translucent inner hot flow in a truncated disc geometry. Now we check this model with different types QPO (see (Belloni et al. (2011)) for a recent review) of black hole transient (BHT) GX 339-4 2010 outburst and suggest type C QPOs are mainly coincident with this model prediction while type B QPOs are not.

We present preliminary results of a search for 22 GHz water masers toward 1400 star-forming regions seen in the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey (BGPS) using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). The BGPS is a blind survey of the Northern Galactic plane in 1.1 mm thermal dust emission that has cataloged star-forming regions at all evolutionary stages. Further information is required to determine the stage of each BGPS source. Since water masers are produced by outflows from low and high-mass star forming regions, their presence is a key component of determining whether the BGPS sources are forming stars and which evolutionary stage they are in. We present preliminary detection statistics, basic properties of the water masers, and correlations with physical properties determined from the 1.1 mm emission and ammonia observations obtained concurrently with the water masers on the GBT.

Magnetic field relaxation is determined by both the field's geometry and its topology. For relaxation processes, however, it turns out that its topology is a much more stringent constraint. As quantifier for the topology we use magnetic helicity and test whether it is a stronger condition than the linking of field lines. Further, we search for evidence of other topological invariants, which give rise to further restrictions in the field's relaxation. We find that magnetic helicity is the sole determinant in most cases. Nevertheless, we see evidence for restrictions not captured through magnetic helicity.

Mass transfer is very common in binary evolution and it dominates the evolutionary fate of binaries. Two crucial problems i.e. dynamical mass transfer and common envelope evolution, are not well understood yet. Here we focus on the first problem, and systematically show the critical mass ratio for dynamical mass transfer when the donor stars are still on the main sequence (MS).

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are among cosmology's most useful tools for measuring extragalactic distances. Their intrinsic brightness, MV=−19.2 mag, and precision, σ=0.12 mag, make for a unique combination to precisely probe cosmic expansion from the nearby to the high-redshift Universe. I describe the current state of the art for measuring distances to SNe Ia—focusing on the current challenges which ultimately limit their precision—as well as prospects for further refinement. I also highlight cosmological applications where they have been especially valuable, and briefly review some future projects which plan to exploit SNe Ia.

We present a framework to investigate sample selection effects on the observed BH - bulge relation and its evolution with redshift. We particularly discuss an active fraction bias and a luminosity bias. Applying our framework to literature studies, we cannot find statistically significant evidence for an evolving BH-bulge relation.

Clouds play a significant role for the energy budget in planetary atmospheres. They can scatter incident stellar radiation back to space, effectively cooling the surface of terrestrial planets. On the other hand, they may contribute to the atmospheric greenhouse effect by trapping outgoing thermal radiation. For exoplanets near the outer boundary of the habitable zone, condensation of CO2 can occur due to the low atmospheric temperatures. These CO2 ice clouds may play an important role for the surface temperature and, therefore, for the question of habitability of those planets. However, the optical properties of CO2 ice crystals differ significantly from those of water droplets or water ice particles. Except for a small number of strong absorption bands, they are almost transparent with respect to absorption. Instead, they are highly effective scatterers at long and short wavelengths. Therefore, the climatic effect of a CO2 ice cloud will depend on how much incident stellar radiation is scattered to space in comparison to the amount of thermal radiation scattered back towards the planetary surface. This contribution aims at the potential greenhouse effect of CO2 ice particles. Their scattering and absorption properties are calculated for assumed particle size distributions with different effective radii and particle densities. An accurate radiative transfer model is used to determine the atmospheric radiation field affected by such CO2 particles. These results are compared to less detailed radiative transfer schemes employed in previous studies.

We have compiled a sample of 106 lesser-known cores from the Herschel Galactic Cold Cloud Cores Key Program (Juvela, M. et al. 2007). Based on the assumption, that these represent the crowd of the cold cores in the galaxy well, we have started a deep individual investigation, beginning with a ground-based follow-up and molecular line measurement at IRAM 30m telescope. We present the methods and calculated values of the most important parameters on a selected source: the G130.38+11.25 molecular cloud, which is part of the L1340.

We present some preliminary results from our investigation of giant planetary core formation using numerical simulations with the Lagrangian Integrator for Planetary Accretion and Dynamics (LIPAD) by Levison et al. (2012). LIPAD couples dynamics with collisional evolution, including fragmentation. We start with a cold planetesimal disk using particles of a few kilometres in size. Our simulations show growth from kilometre-sized planetesimals to several Earth-mass sized embryos (tens of thousands of kilometers) can occur. However, these embryos may not be large enough to start runaway gas accretion necessary to build the envelopes of gas giant planets.

The poster was made of 323 average prominence magnetic fields reported on 24 synoptic maps. The paper first resumes the methods for the field derivation, and the different results of the whole program of these second generation Hanle effect observations. From their conclusions, it was possible to derive a unique field vector for each of the 323 prominences. The maps put in evidence a large scale structure of the prominence magnetic field, probably distorted by the differential rotation, which leads to a systematically small angle (on the order of 30°) between the field vector and the prominence long axis.

I give a brief overview of recent results from self-consistent modeling of electron-positrons cascades in pulsar polar caps. These results strongly suggest that the pulsar magnetosphere is a more complex system than was assumed before.