Studying the non-Gaussianity (NG) of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is an extremely powerful tool to investigate the properties of the very early Universe. The Planck nominal mission CMB maps yielded unprecedented constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity providing with the highest precision test of the standard model of inflation. Planck's high sensitivity also allowed to find evidence for the first time of the late-time non-Gaussianity arising from the Lensing-Integrated Sachs Wolfe (ISW) cross correlation. In this talk I will give details on the Planck data analysis and I will discuss the theoretical implications of the results.

In this work we present high resolution spectroscopic data of the giant star-forming region of N11, obtained with the GIRAFFE instrument at the Very Large Telescope. By using this data set, we find that most of the Hα emission lines profiles in this complex can be fitted by a single Gaussian, however, multiple emission line profiles can be observed in the central region of N11. By adding all the spectra, we derive the integrated Hα profile of this complex, which displays a width (σ) of about 12 km s−1 (corrected by instrumental and thermal width). We find that a single Gaussian fit on the integrated Hα profile leaves remaining wings, which can be fitted by a secondary broad Gaussian component. In addition, we find high velocity features, which spatially correlate with soft diffuse X-ray emission.

We investigate the resolved star formation properties of a sample of 45 massive galaxies (M* > 1011 M⊙) within a redshift range of 1.5 ⩽ z ⩽ 3 detected in the GOODS NICMOS Survey (Conselice et al. 2011), a HST H160-band imaging program. We derive the star formation rate as a function of radius using rest frame UV data from deep z850 ACS imaging. The star formation present at high redshift is then extrapolated to z = 0, and we examine the stellar mass produced in individual regions within each galaxy. We also construct new stellar mass profiles of the in situ stellar mass at high redshift from Sérsic fits to rest-frame optical, H160-band, data. We combine the two stellar mass profiles to produce an evolved stellar mass profile. We then fit a new Sérsic profile to the evolved profile, from which we examine what effect the resulting stellar mass distribution added via star formation has on the structure and size of each individual galaxy.

We describe the preliminary design of a magnetograph and visible-light imager instrument to study the solar dynamo processes through observations of the solar surface magnetic field distribution. The instrument will provide measurements of the vector magnetic field and of the line-of-sight velocity in the solar photosphere. As the magnetic field anchored at the solar surface produces most of the structures and energetic events in the upper solar atmosphere and significantly influences the heliosphere, the development of this instrument plays an important role in reaching the scientific goals of The Atmospheric and Space Science Coordination (CEA) at the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE). In particular, the CEA's space weather program will benefit most from the development of this technology. We expect that this project will be the starting point to establish a strong research program on Solar Physics in Brazil. Our main aim is acquiring progressively the know-how to build state-of-the-art solar vector magnetograph and visible-light imagers for space-based platforms to contribute to the efforts of the solar-terrestrial physics community to address the main unanswered questions on how our nearby Star works.

We have used the Wide Field Spectrograph on the Australian National University 2.3-m telescope to perform the integral field spectroscopy for a sample of the Galactic planetary nebulae. The spatially resolved velocity distributions of the Hα emission line were used to determine the kinematic features and nebular orientations. Our findings show that some bulge planetary nebulae toward the Galactic center have a particular orientation.

Field stars provide important constraints for the late stages of stars' angular momentum evolution. We measured rotation periods ranging from 0.1 to 150 days for approximately 450 mid-to-late M dwarfs using photometry from the MEarth transiting planet survey. We use parallaxes, proper motions, and radial velocities to calculate galactic kinematics for these solar neighborhood M dwarfs. The velocity dispersions increase towards longer rotation periods, indicating that there is a relationship between rotation and age for these stars.

We review the most standard impact monitoring techniques. Linear methods are the fastest approach but their applicability regime is limited because of the chaotic dynamics of near-Earth asteroids. Among nonlinear methods, Monte Carlo algorithms are the most reliable ones but also most computationally intensive and so unpractical for routine impact monitoring. In the last 15 years, the Line of Variations method has been the most successful technique thanks to its computational efficiency and capability of detecting low probability events deep in the nonlinear regime. We also present some more recent techniques developed to deal with the new challenges arising in the impact hazard assessment problem. In particular, we describe keyhole maps as a tool to go beyond strongly scattering encounters and how to account for nongravitational perturbations, especially the Yarkovsky effect, when their contribution is the main source of prediction uncertainty. Finally, we discuss systematic ranging to deal with the short-term hazard assessment problem for newly discovered asteroids, when only a short observed arc is available thus leading to severe degeneracies in the orbit estimation process.

Several narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s) have now been detected in gamma rays, providing firm evidence that at least some of this class of active galactic nuclei (AGN) produce relativistic jets. The presence of jets in NLS1s is surprising, as these sources are typified by comparatively small black hole masses and near- or super-Eddington accretion rates. This challenges the current understanding of the conditions necessary for jet production. Comparing the properties of the jets in NLS1s with those in more familiar jetted systems is thus essential to improve jet production models. We present early results from our campaign to monitor the kinematics and polarization of the parsec-scale jets in a sample of 15 NLS1s through multifrequency observations with the Very Long Baseline Array. These observations are complemented by fast-cadence 15 GHz monitoring with the Owens Valley Radio Observatory 40 m telescope and optical spectroscopic monitoring with with the 2 m class telescope at the Guillermo Haro Astrophysics Observatory in Cananea, Mexico.

The Gaussian Kinematic Formula (GKF, see Adler and Taylor (2007,2011)) is an extremely powerful tool allowing for explicit analytic predictions of expected values of Minkowski functionals under realistic experimental conditions for cosmological data collections. In this paper, we implement Minkowski functionals on multipoles and needlet components of CMB fields, thus allowing a better control of cosmic variance and extraction of information on both harmonic and real domains; we then exploit the GKF to provide their expected values on spherical maps, in the presence of arbitrary sky masks, and under nonGaussian circumstances.

Local early-type galaxies (ETGs), despite typically being associated to old stellar populations and passive evolution, have been in some cases observed to present peculiarities in their stellar structure, like disks and shells (e.g., Kormendy et al.1997, Rix, Carollo & Freeman 1999). Moreover, it has been observed that ETGs with such tidal features may present UV emission (Rampazzo et al.2007, Salim & Rich 2010). These properties make them relevant constraints to galaxy formation models. We are analysing the structure of nearby ETGs observed in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G; Sheth et al.2010), which comprises the largest mid-IR survey of galaxies in the local Universe. We perform a 2D GALFIT decomposition of the 3.6μm images of 146 ETGs and examine their residual images. We identify tidal features in 17% of these, suggesting that a non-negligible ETGs fraction may have experienced (after the formation of the bulk of their stellar budget) merger events that have left signatures (Canalizo et al.2007). For 6 of these peculiar ETGs, we also applied GALFIT decomposition to public GALEX/UV and SDSS/optical images. With measurements in multiple bands, we applied SED fitting techniques to estimate star formation rates (SFR) and stellar masses for the galaxies and their tidal features. We find that these 6 peculiar ETGs present masses in agreement with the population of non-peculiar ETGs. However, SFRs are higher than what has been measured for the average ETG population (Shapiro et al.2010, SDSS MPA-JHU catalog). Based on the Kaviraj (2010) relation, we find that for these peculiar ETGs the estimated age of the most recent star formation event is less than 3Gyrs. Despite this indication of recent star formation, we have not found evidence of prominent UV emission in the tidal features (Marino et al.2010). We are currently extending our work to the full sample of peculiar ETGs identified in our sample.

X-ray observations of pre-main sequence (pre-MS) stars of M-type probe coronal emission and offer a means to investigate magnetic activity at the stellar-substellar boundary. Recent observations of main sequence (MS) stars at this boundary display a decrease in fractional X-ray luminosity (LX/Lbol) by almost two orders of magnitude for spectral types M7 and later. We investigate magnetic activity and search for a decrease in X-ray emission in the pre-MS progenitors of these MS stars. We present XMM-Newton X-ray observations and preliminary results for ~10 nearby (30-70 pc), very low mass pre-MS stars in the relatively unexplored age range of 10-30 Myr. We compare the fractional X-ray luminosities of these 10-30 Myr old stars to younger (1-3 Myr) pre-MS brown dwarfs and find no dependence on spectral type or age suggesting that X-ray activity declines at an age later than ~30 Myr in these very low-mass stars.

We discuss the interplay of gravity and radiation in a static, spherically symmetric spacetime. Because of the spacetime curvature, balance between radiation pressure from spherical star and effective force of gravity may be established in a particular distance from the star surface, on so-called Eddington capture sphere. This is in contrast with the Newtonian scenario, for which Eddington luminosity of the radiation assures gravity-radiation balance at any radius. We explore properties of this relativistic equilibrium and the dynamics of test particles under radiation influence in the strong gravity regime.

Deflection missions to near-Earth asteroids will encounter non-negligible uncertainties in the physical and orbital parameters of the target object. In order to reliably assess future impact threat mitigation operations such uncertainties have to be quantified and incorporated into the mission design. The implementation of deflection demonstration missions offers the great opportunity to test our current understanding of deflection relevant uncertainties and their consequences, e.g., regarding kinetic impacts on asteroid surfaces. In this contribution, we discuss the role of uncertainties in the NEOTωIST asteroid deflection demonstration concept, a low-cost kinetic impactor design elaborated in the framework of the NEOShield project. The aim of NEOTωIST is to change the spin state of a known and well characterized near-Earth object, in this case the asteroid (25143) Itokawa. Fast events such as the production of the impact crater and ejecta are studied via cube-sat chasers and a flyby vehicle. Long term changes, for instance, in the asteroid's spin and orbit, can be assessed using ground based observations. We find that such a mission can indeed provide valuable constraints on mitigation relevant parameters. Furthermore, the here proposed kinetic impact scenarios can be implemented within the next two decades without threatening Earth's safety.

Wolf-Rayet HII galaxies are local metal-poor star-forming galaxies, observed when the most massive stars are evolving from O stars to WR stars, making them template systems to study distant starbursts. We have been performing a program to investigate the interplay between massive stars and gas in WR HII galaxies using IFS. Here, we highlight some results from the first 3D spectroscopic study of Mrk 178, the closest metal-poor WR HII galaxy, focusing on the origin of the nebular HeII emission and the aperture effects on the detection of WR features.

DUSTPol is a dual-beam polarimeter that operates in optical wavelengths, and was built to promote the study of linear polarimetry with smaller telescopes. DUSTPol's performance has demonstrated low instrumental polarization at 0.05 ± 0.02%. This poster presents commissioning results as well as early science observations, and describes software used for data reduction. Recent polarimetric results of RS CVn systems and Wolf-Rayet stars, discussed herein, indicate shape and interaction parameters. By promoting the development of similar polarimeters at other institutions, DUSTPol will serve to establish new collaborative surveys of cool active stars, as well as systems showing evidence of containing complex stellar environments.

We have used the broadband backend available at the ATCA to study the fast interstellar scintillation (ISS) of quasar PKS 1257–326, resolving the core shift as a function of frequency on scales less than 10 microarcseconds. In this short paper we discuss the jet direction implied from the microarcsecond-scale core shift in PKS 1257–326.

Circumstellar disks are the sites of planet formation, and the very high incidence of extrasolar planets implies that most of them actually form planetary systems. Studying the structure and evolution of protoplanetary disks can thus place important constraints on the conditions, timescales, and mechanisms associated with the planet formation process. In this review, we discuss observational results from infrared and submillimeter wavelength studies. We review disk lifetimes, transition objects, disk demographics, and highlight a few remarkable results from ALMA Early Science observations. We finish with a brief discussion of ALMA's potential to transform the field in near future.

The global shape, or topology, of the universe is not constrained by the equations of General Relativity, which only describe the local universe. As a consequence, the boundaries of space are not fixed and topologies different from the trivial infinite Euclidean space are possible. The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is the most efficient tool to study topology and test alternative models. Multi-connected topologies, such as the 3-torus, are of great interest because they are anisotropic and allow us to test a possible violation of isotropy in CMB data. We show that the correlation function of the coefficients of the expansion of the temperature and polarization anisotropies in spherical harmonics encodes a topological signature. This signature can be used to distinguish an infinite space from a multi-connected space on sizes larger than the diameter of the last scattering surface (DLSS). With the help of the Kullback-Leibler divergence, we set the size of the edge of the biggest distinguishable torus with CMB temperature fluctuations and E-modes of polarization to 1.15 DLSS. CMB temperature fluctuations allow us to detect universes bigger than the observable universe, whereas E-modes are efficient to detect universes smaller than the observable universe.

The jet of BL Lac displays transverse patterns that propagate downstream superluminally. We suggest that they are transverse Alfvén waves propagating on the longitudinal component of a helical magnetic field. The speed of the wave adds relativistically to the speed of the beam, and the apparent speed of the pattern is greater than the beam speed. Models for the jet and the MHD waves give values for the Lorentz factor of the beam of 3–4.4 and pitch angle of the helical magnetic field of 43° - 65°. These are consistent with other estimates, if the beam and pattern speeds are allowed to differ.