I review the recent progresses that have been obtained, especially through the use of high-resolution numerical simulations, on the dynamics of self-gravitating accretion discs. A coherent picture is emerging, where the disc dynamics is controlled by a small number of parameters that determine whether the disc is stable or unstable, whether the instability saturates in a self-regulated state or runs away into fragmentation, and whether the dynamics is local or global. I then apply these concepts to the case of AGN discs, discussing the implications of such evolution on the feeding of supermassive black holes. Nonfragmenting, self-gravitating discs appear to play a fundamental role in the process of formation of massive black hole seeds at high redshift ( 10–15) through direct gas collapse. On the other hand, the different cooling properties of the interstellar gas at low redshifts determine a radically different behaviour for the outskirts of the accretion discs feeding typical AGNs. Here the situation is much less clear from a theoretical point of view, and while several observational clues point to the important role of massive discs at a distance of roughly a parsec from their central black hole, their dynamics is still under debate.

The bipolarity of Supernova 1987A can be understood through its very early light curve from the CTIO 0.4 m telescope and IUE FES and following speckle observations of the “Mystery Spot”. These indicate a beam/jet of light/particles, with initial collimation factors >104and velocities >0.95 c, involving up to 10−5 M⊙interacting with circumstellar material. These can be produced by a model of pulsar emission from polarization currents induced/(modulated faster than c) beyond the pulsar light cylinder by the periodic electromagnetic field (supraluminally induced polarization currents (SLIP)). SLIP accounts for the disruption of supernova progenitors and their anomalous dimming at cosmological distances, jets from Sco X-1 and SS 433, the lack/presence of pulsations from the high-/low-luminosity low-mass X-ray binaries, and long/short gamma-ray bursts, and it predicts that their afterglows are thepulsedoptical-/near-infrared emission associated with these pulsars. SLIP may also account for the TeV e+/e−results from PAMELA and ATIC, the WMAP “Haze”/Fermi “Bubbles,” and ther-process. SLIP jets from SNe of the first stars may allow galaxies to form without dark matter and explain the peculiar nongravitational motions between pairs of distant galaxies observed by GALEX.

The current generation of flagship X-ray missions,ChandraandXMM-Newton, has changed our understanding of the so-called “cool-core” galaxy clusters and groups. Instead of the initial idea that the thermal gas is cooling and flowing toward the center, the new picture envisages a complex dynamical evolution of the intracluster medium (ICM) regulated by the radiative cooling and the nongravitational heating from the active galactic nucleus (AGN). Understanding the physics of the hot gas and its interplay with the relativistic plasma ejected by the AGN is key for understanding the growth and evolution of galaxies and their central black holes, the history of star formation, and the formation of large-scale structures. It has thus become clear that the feedback from the central black hole must be taken into account in any model of galaxy evolution. In this paper, we draw a qualitative picture of the current knowledge of the effects of the AGN feedback on the ICM by summarizing the recent results in this field.

This paper presents optical and Hαimaging for a large sample of LSB galaxies selected from the PSS-II catalogs (Schombert et al., 1992). As noted in previous work, LSB galaxies span a range of luminosities () and sizes (), although they are consistent in their irregular morphology. Their Hαluminosities (L(Hα)) range from 1036to 1041 ergs s−1(corresponding to a range in star formation, using canonical prescriptions, from 10−5to 1 yr−1). Although their optical colors are at the extreme blue edge for galaxies, they are similar to the colors of dwarf galaxies (Van Zee, 2001) and gas-rich irregulars (Hunter and Elmegreen, 2006). However, their star formation rates per unit stellar mass are a factor of ten less than other galaxies of the same baryonic mass, indicating that they are not simply quiescent versions of more active star-forming galaxies. This paper presents the data, reduction techniques, and new philosophy of data storage and presentation. Later papers in this series will explore the stellar population and star formation history of LSB galaxies using this dataset.

The balance of evidence indicates that individual galaxies and groups or clusters of galaxies are embedded in enormous distributions of cold, weakly interacting dark matter. These dark matter “halos” provide the scaffolding for all luminous structures in the universe, and their properties comprise an essential part of the current cosmological model. I review the internal properties of dark matter halos, focussing on the simple universal trends predicted by numerical simulations of structure formation. Simulations indicate that halos should all have roughly the same spherically averaged density profile and kinematic structure and predict simple distributions of shape, formation history, and substructure in density and kinematics, over an enormous range of halo mass and for all common variants of the concordance cosmology. I describe observational progress towards testing these predictions by measuring masses, shapes, profiles, and substructure in real halos using baryonic tracers or gravitational lensing. An important property of simulated halos (possibly the most important property) is their dynamical “age”, or degree of internal relaxation. I review recent gravitational lensing studies of galaxy clusters which will measure substructure and relaxation in a large sample of individual cluster halos, producing quantitative measures of age that are well matched to theoretical predictions.

We discuss the formation of dark matter caustics, and their possible detection by future dark matter experiments. The annual modulation expected in the recoil rate measured by a dark matter detector is discussed. We consider the example of dark matter particles with a Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution modified by a cold stream due to a nearby caustic. It is shown that the effect of the caustic flow is potentially detectable, even when the density enhancement due to the caustic is small. This makes the annual modulation effect an excellent probe of inner caustics. We also show that the phase of the annual modulation at low recoil energies does not constrain the particle mass unless the velocity distribution of particles in the solar neighborhood is known.

We are developing and operating the automatic telescope Aoyama Gakuin University Robotic Optical Monitor for Astrophysical objects (AROMA) in the Sagamihara Campus of Aoyama Gakuin University. AROMA is composed of two observational equipments, AROMA‐N and AROMA‐W. AROMA‐N is a 30‐cm aperture telescope system for rapid follow‐up observations of the optical afterglow of gamma‐ray bursts. Automatic analysis pipeline for AROMA‐N has been developed and is working. The other observational equipment AROMA‐W is a wide‐field observation system using multiple digital single‐lens reflex cameras. It covers a large FOV of about 35° × 25°. AROMAW provides photometric data in four bands with a limiting V magnitude of about 12‐13 mag. Software to analyze massive image data automatically is being developed. We plan to monitor the luminosities of all the stars in the FOV of AROMA‐W, detect optical transients, and trigger a follow‐up observation with AROMA‐N. We report on the development status and observational results of AROMA.

The Watcher robotic telescope was developed primarily to perform rapid optical follow‐up observations of Gamma‐Ray Bursts (GRBs). Secondary scientific goals include blazar monitoring and variable star studies. An automated photometry pipeline to rapidly analyse data from Watcher has been implemented. Details of the procedures to get image zero‐point, source instrumental measurement, and limiting magnitude are presented. Sources of uncertainty are assessed and the performance of the pipeline is tested by comparison with a number of catalogue sources.

We review models which generate a large non‐Gaussianity of the local form. We first briefly consider three models which generate the non‐Gaussianity either at or after the end of inflation; the curvaton scenario, modulated (p)reheating, and an inhomogeneous end of inflation. We then focus on ways of generating the non‐Gaussianity during inflation. We derive general conditions which a product or sum separable potential must satisfy in order to generate a large local bispectrum during slow‐roll inflation. As an application, we consider two‐field hybrid inflation. We then derive a formalism not based on slow roll which can be applied to models in which the slow‐roll parameters become large before inflation ends. An exactly soluble two‐field model is given in which this happens. Finally, we also consider further non‐Gaussian observables, a scale dependence of fNL and the trispectrum.

We report on the first observational phase of the Liverpool Quasar Lens Monitoring (LQLM) project. This mainly consisted of the optical follow‐up of three lensed quasars using the 2 m Liverpool Robotic Telescope. The observational subprogram started in January 2005 and was completed in July 2007. We also describe our photometric approaches (including two pipelines to extract accurate and reliable fluxes of images of lensed quasars), the performance of the telescope when taking modest nightly exposures of lens systems, and the main scientific results from the observed light curves. The LQLM archive and the current status of the project (second phase) are also outlined.