No Arabic abstract
Radio observations of cool stellar systems provide unique information on their magnetic fields, high-energy processes, and chemistry. Buoyed by powerful new instruments (e.g. ALMA, JVLA, LOFAR), advances in related fields (e.g., the Gaia astrometric revolution), and above all a renewed interest in the relevant stellar astrophysics, stellar radio astronomy is experiencing a renaissance. In this splinter session, participants took stock of the present state of stellar radio astronomy to chart a course for the fields future.
Cool, evolved stars are the main source of chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium (ISM), and understanding their mass loss and structure offers a unique opportunity to study the cycle of matter in the Universe. Pulsation, convection, and other dynamic processes in cool evolved stars create an atmosphere where molecules and dust can form, including those necessary to the formation of life (e.g.~Carbon-bearing molecules). Understanding the structure and composition of these stars is thus vital to several aspects of stellar astrophysics, ranging from ISM studies to modeling young galaxies and exoplanet research. Recent modeling efforts and increasingly precise observations now reveal that our understanding of cool stars photospheric, chromospheric, and atmospheric structures is limited by inadequate knowledge of the dynamic and chemical processes at work. Here we outline promising scientific opportunities for the next decade. We identify and discuss the following main opportunities: (1) identify and model the physical processes that must be included in current 1D and 3D atmosphere models of cool, evolved stars; (2) refine our understanding of photospheric, chromospheric, and outer atmospheric regions of cool evolved stars, their properties and parameters, through high-resolution spectroscopic observations, and interferometric observations at high angular resolution; (3) include the neglected role of chromospheric activity in the mass loss process of red giant branch and red super giant stars, and understand the role played by their magnetic fields; (4) identify the important shaping mechanisms for planetary nebulae and their relation with the parent asymptotic giant branch stars.
The ARGO-YBJ experiment has been in stable data taking for 5 years at the YangBaJing Cosmic Ray Observatory (Tibet, P.R. China, 4300 m a.s.l., 606 g/cm$^2$). With a duty-cycle greater than 86% the detector collected about 5$times $10$^{11}$ events in a wide energy range, from few hundreds GeV up to about 10 PeV. A number of open problems in cosmic ray physics has been faced exploiting different analyses. In this paper we summarize the latest results in cosmic ray physics and in gamma-ray astronomy.
The standard $Lambda$ Cold Dark Matter cosmological model provides an amazing description of a wide range of astrophysical and astronomical data. However, there are a few big open questions, that make the standard model look like a first-order approximation to a more realistic scenario that still needs to be fully understood. In this Letter of Interest we will list a few important goals that need to be addressed in the next decade, also taking into account the current discordances present between the different cosmological probes, as the Hubble constant $H_0$ value, the $sigma_8 - S_8$ tension, and the anomalies present in the Planck results. Finally, we will give an overview of upgraded experiments and next-generation space-missions and facilities on Earth, that will be of crucial importance to address all these questions.
Over the past 20 years, KASCADE and its extension KASCADE-Grande were dedicated to measure high-energy cosmic rays with primary energies of 100 TeV to 1 EeV. The data accumulation was fully completed and all experimental components were dismantled, though the analysis of the high-quality data is still continued. E.g., we investigated the validity of the hadronic interaction model of the new SIBYLL version 2.3c. We also published a new result of a search for large-scale anisotropies performed with the KASCADE-Grande data. Investigation of the attenuation length of the muon in the atmosphere is also updated with the predictions of the SIBYLL 2.3 interaction model. We investigated, in addition, the muon content of high-energy air showers and compared them to all post-LHC interaction models. In this contribution, the new and updated results from KASCADE-Grande will be presented. An update of the web-based data center KCDC offering the original scientific data from KASCADE-Grande to the public will be briefly discussed as well.
Over the past decade, research in resolved stellar populations has made great strides in exploring the nature of dark matter, in unraveling the star formation, chemical enrichment, and dynamical histories of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, and in probing fundamental physics from general relativity to the structure of stars. Large surveys have been particularly important to the biggest of these discoveries. In the coming decade, current and planned surveys will push these research areas still further through a large variety of discovery spaces, giving us unprecedented views into the low surface brightness Universe, the high surface brightness Universe, the 3D motions of stars, the time domain, and the chemical abundances of stellar populations. These discovery spaces will be opened by a diverse range of facilities, including the continuing Gaia mission, imaging machines like LSST and WFIRST, massively multiplexed spectroscopic platforms like DESI, Subaru-PFS, and MSE, and telescopes with high sensitivity and spatial resolution like JWST, the ELTs, and LUVOIR. We do not know which of these facilities will prove most critical for resolved stellar populations research in the next decade. We can predict, however, that their chance of success will be maximized by granting use of the data to broad communities, that many scientific discoveries will draw on a combination of data from them, and that advances in computing will enable increasingly sophisticated analyses of the large and complex datasets that they will produce. We recommend that Astro2020 1) acknowledge the critical role that data archives will play for stellar populations and other science in the next decade, 2) recognize the opportunity that advances in computing will bring for survey data analysis, and 3) consider investments in Science Platform technology to bring these opportunities to fruition.