Amendment application in a multi-contaminated mine soil: Effects on soil enzymatic activities and ecotoxicological characteristics

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-2412-4Several amendments were tested on soils obtained from an arsenopyrite mine, further planted with Arrhenatherum elatius and Festuca curvifolia, in order to assess their ability to improve soil's ecotoxicological characteristics. The properties used to assess the effects were: soil enzymatic activities (dehydrogenase, β-glucosidase, acid phosphatase, urease, protease and cellulase), terrestrial bioassays (Eisenia fetida mortality and avoidance behaviour), and aquatic bioassays using a soil leachate (Daphnia magna immobilisation and Vibrio fischeri bioluminescence inhibition). The treatment with FeSO4 1 % w/w was able to reduce extractable As in soil, but increased the extractable Cu, Mn and Zn concentrations, as a consequence of the decrease in soil pH, in relation to the unamended soil, from 5.0 to 3.4, respectively. As a consequence, this treatment had a detrimental effect in some of the soil enzymatic activities (e.g. dehydrogenase, acid phosphatase, urease and cellulase), did not allow plant growth, induced E. fetida mortality in the highest concentration tested (100 % w/w), and its soil leachate was very toxic towards D. magna and V. fischeri. The combined application of FeSO4 1 % w/w with other treatments (e.g. CaCO3 1 % w/w and paper mill 1 % w/w) allowed a decrease in extractable As and metals, and a soil pH value closer to neutrality. As a consequence, dehydrogenase activity, plant growth and some of the bioassays identified those as better soil treatments to this type of multi-contaminated soi

The morphometric acclimation to depth explains the long-term resilience of the seagrass Cymodocea nodosa in a shallow tidal lagoon

Cadiz Bay is a shallow mesotidal lagoon with extensive populations of the seagrass Cymodocea nodosa at intertidal and shallow subtidal elevations. This work aims to understand the mechanisms behind the resilience of this species to gradual sea level rise by studying its acclimation capacity to depth along the shallow littoral, and therefore, to gradual variations in the light environment. To address this objective, these populations have been monitored seasonally over a 10 year period, representing the longest seasonal database available in the literature for this species. The monitoring included populations at 0.4, -0.08 and -0.5 m LAT. The results show that C. nodosa has a strong seasonality for demographic and shoot dynamic properties - with longer shoots and larger growth in summer (high temperature) than in winter (low temperature), but also some losses. Moreover, shoots have different leaf morphometry depending on depth, with small and dense shoots in the intertidal areas (0.4 m) and sparse large shoots in the subtidal ones (-0.08 and 0.5 m). These differences in morphometry and shoot dynamic properties, combined with the differences in shoot density, explain the lack of differences in meadow production balance (i.e. meadow growth - meadow losses) between the intertidal (0.4 m) and the deepest population (-0.5 m), supporting the long term resilience of Cymodocea nodosa in Cadiz Bay. This study contributes to the understanding of the mechanisms behind seagrass stability and resilience, which is particularly important towards predicting the effects of climate change on these key coastal ecosystems, and also highlights the value of continuous long-term monitoring efforts to evaluate seagrass trajectories

Unconventional experimental technologies used for phase change materials (PCM) characterization: part2 morphological and structural characterization, physico-chemical stability and mechanical properties

Due to the high interest of appropriate characterization of PCM and hybrid PCM composites, different research centres and universities are using several material characterization techniques not commonly used with PCM, to study the structure and morphology of these materials. Likewise, physico-chemical stability is a crucial parameter for the performance of latent storage materials during time and its evaluation has been done by using molecular spectroscopy, chemiluminiscence or calorimetric tests. Atomic force microscopy and nanoindentation are also reported to characterize hybrid PCM composites

Gaia Early Data Release 3: Summary of the contents and survey properties

Brown, A., et al. (Gaia Collaboration). This article has an erratum: [https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202039657e][Context] We present the early installment of the third Gaia data release, Gaia EDR3, consisting of astrometry and photometry for 1.8 billion sources brighter than magnitude 21, complemented with the list of radial velocities from Gaia DR2. [Aims] A summary of the contents of Gaia EDR3 is presented, accompanied by a discussion on the differences with respect to Gaia DR2 and an overview of the main limitations which are present in the survey. Recommendations are made on the responsible use of Gaia EDR3 results. [Methods] The raw data collected with the Gaia instruments during the first 34 months of the mission have been processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium and turned into this early third data release, which represents a major advance with respect to Gaia DR2 in terms of astrometric and photometric precision, accuracy, and homogeneity. Results. Gaia EDR3 contains celestial positions and the apparent brightness in G for approximately 1.8 billion sources. For 1.5 billion of those sources, parallaxes, proper motions, and the (GBP - GRP) colour are also available. The passbands for G, GBP, and GRP are provided as part of the release. For ease of use, the 7 million radial velocities from Gaia DR2 are included in this release, after the removal of a small number of spurious values. New radial velocities will appear as part of Gaia DR3. Finally, Gaia EDR3 represents an updated materialisation of the celestial reference frame (CRF) in the optical, the Gaia-CRF3, which is based solely on extragalactic sources. The creation of the source list for Gaia EDR3 includes enhancements that make it more robust with respect to high proper motion stars, and the disturbing effects of spurious and partially resolved sources. The source list is largely the same as that for Gaia DR2, but it does feature new sources and there are some notable changes. The source list will not change for Gaia DR3. [Conclusions] Gaia EDR3 represents a significant advance over Gaia DR2, with parallax precisions increased by 30 per cent, proper motion precisions increased by a factor of 2, and the systematic errors in the astrometry suppressed by 30-40% for the parallaxes and by a factor ~2.5 for the proper motions. The photometry also features increased precision, but above all much better homogeneity across colour, magnitude, and celestial position. A single passband for G, GBP, and GRP is valid over the entire magnitude and colour range, with no systematics above the 1% levelThe Gaia mission and data processing have financially been supported by, in alphabetical order by country: the Algerian Centre de Recherche en Astronomie, Astrophysique et Géophysique of Bouzareah Observatory; the Austrian Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF) Hertha Firnberg Programme through grants T359, P20046, and P23737; the BELgian federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) through various PROgramme de Développement d’Expériences scientifiques (PRODEX) grants and the Polish Academy of Sciences – Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek through grant VS.091.16N, and the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS); the Brazil-France exchange programmes Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Coordenação de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) – Comité Français d’Evaluation de la Coopération Universitaire et Scientifique avec le Brésil (COFECUB); the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) through grants 11573054 and 11703065 and the China Scholarship Council through grant 201806040200; the Tenure Track Pilot Programme of the Croatian Science Foundation and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and the project TTP-2018-07-1171 “Mining the Variable Sky”, with the funds of the Croatian-Swiss Research Programme; the Czech-Republic Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports through grant LG 15010 and INTER-EXCELLENCE grant LTAUSA18093, and the Czech Space Office through ESA PECS contract 98058; the Danish Ministry of Science; the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research through grant IUT40-1; the European Commission’s Sixth Framework Programme through the European Leadership in Space Astrometry (ELSA) Marie Curie Research Training Network (MRTN-CT-2006-033481), through Marie Curie project PIOF-GA-2009-255267 (Space AsteroSeismology & RR Lyrae stars, SAS-RRL), and through a Marie Curie Transfer-of-Knowledge (ToK) fellowship (MTKD-CT-2004-014188); the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme through grant FP7-606740 (FP7-SPACE-2013-1) for the Gaia European Network for Improved data User Services (GENIUS) and through grant 264895 for the Gaia Research for European Astronomy Training (GREAT-ITN) network; the European Research Council (ERC) through grants 320360 and 647208 and through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation and excellent science programmes through Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant 745617 as well as grants 670519 (Mixing and Angular Momentum tranSport of massIvE stars – MAMSIE), 687378 (Small Bodies: Near and Far), 682115 (Using the Magellanic Clouds to Understand the Interaction of Galaxies), and 695099 (A sub-percent distance scale from binaries and Cepheids – CepBin); the European Science Foundation (ESF), in the framework of the Gaia Research for European Astronomy Training Research Network Programme (GREAT-ESF); the European Space Agency (ESA) in the framework of the Gaia project, through the Plan for European Cooperating States (PECS) programme through grants for Slovenia, through contracts C98090 and 4000106398/12/NL/KML for Hungary, and through contract 4000115263/15/NL/IB for Germany; the Academy of Finland and the Magnus Ehrnrooth Foundation; the French Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) through grant ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 for the “Investissements d’avenir” programme, through grant ANR-15-CE31-0007 for project “Modelling the Milky Way in the Gaia era” (MOD4Gaia), through grant ANR-14-CE33-0014-01 for project “The Milky Way disc formation in the Gaia era” (ARCHEOGAL), and through grant ANR-15-CE31-0012-01 for project “Unlocking the potential of Cepheids as primary distance calibrators” (UnlockCepheids), the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and its SNO Gaia of the Institut des Sciences de l’Univers (INSU), the “Action Fédératrice Gaia” of the Observatoire de Paris, the Région de Franche-Comté, and the Programme National de Gravitation, Références, Astronomie, et Métrologie (GRAM) of CNRS/INSU with the Institut National Polytechnique (INP) and the Institut National de Physique nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) co-funded by CNES; the German Aerospace Agency (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., DLR) through grants 50QG0501, 50QG0601, 50QG0602, 50QG0701, 50QG0901, 50QG1001, 50QG1101, 50QG1401, 50QG1402, 50QG1403, 50QG1404, and 50QG1904 and the Centre for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) at the Technische Universität (TU) Dresden for generous allocations of computer time; the Hungarian Academy of Sciences through the Lendület Programme grants LP2014-17 and LP2018-7 and through the Premium Postdoctoral Research Programme (L. Molnár), and the Hungarian National Research, Development, and Innovation Office (NKFIH) through grant KH_18-130405; the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) through a Royal Society – SFI University Research Fellowship (M. Fraser); the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) through grant 848/16; the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) through contracts I/037/08/0, I/058/10/0, 2014-025-R.0, 2014-025-R.1.2015, and 2018-24-HH.0 to the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), contract 2014-049-R.0/1/2 to INAF forthe Space Science Data Centre (SSDC, formerly known as the ASI Science Data Center, ASDC), contracts I/008/10/0, 2013/030/I.0, 2013-030-I.0.1-2015, and 2016-17-I.0 to the Aerospace Logistics Technology Engineering Company (ALTEC S.p.A.), INAF, and the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research (Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca) through the Premiale project “MIning The Cosmos Big Data and Innovative Italian Technology for Frontier Astrophysics and Cosmology” (MITiC); the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) through grant NWO-M-614.061.414, through a VICI grant (A.H.), and through a Spinoza prize (A.H.), and the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA); the Polish National Science Centre through HARMONIA grant 2018/06/M/ST9/00311, DAINA grant 2017/27/L/ST9/03221, and PRELUDIUM grant 2017/25/N/ST9/01253, and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSW) through grant DIR/WK/2018/12; the Portugese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through grants SFRH/BPD/74697/2010 and SFRH/BD/128840/2017 and the Strategic Programme UID/FIS/00099/2019 for CENTRA; the Slovenian Research Agency through grant P1-0188; the Spanish Ministry of Economy (MINECO/FEDER, UE) through grants ESP2016-80079-C2-1-R, ESP2016-80079-C2-2-R, RTI2018-095076-B-C21, RTI2018-095076-B-C22, BES-2016-078499, and BES-2017-083126 and the Juan de la Cierva formación 2015 grant FJCI-2015-2671, the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports through grant FPU16/03827, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) through grant AYA2017-89841P for project “Estudio de las propiedades de los fósiles estelares en el entorno del Grupo Local” and through grant TIN2015-65316-P for project “Computación de Altas Prestaciones VII”, the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence Programme of the Spanish Government through grant SEV2015-0493, the Institute of Cosmos Sciences University of Barcelona (ICCUB, Unidad de Excelencia “María de Maeztu”) through grants MDM-2014-0369 and CEX2019-000918-M, the University of Barcelona’s official doctoral programme for the development of an R+D+i project through an Ajuts de Personal Investigador en Formació (APIF) grant, the Spanish Virtual Observatory through project AyA2017-84089, the Galician Regional Government, Xunta de Galicia, through grants ED431B-2018/42 and ED481A-2019/155, support received from the Centro de Investigación en Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (CITIC) funded by the Xunta de Galicia, the Xunta de Galicia and the Centros Singulares de Investigación de Galicia for the period 2016-2019 through CITIC, the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) / Fondo Europeo de Desenvolvemento Rexional (FEDER) for the Galicia 2014-2020 Programme through grant ED431G-2019/01, the Red Española de Supercomputación (RES) computer resources at MareNostrum, the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) through activities AECT-2016-1-0006, AECT-2016-2-0013, AECT-2016-3-0011, and AECT-2017-1-0020, the Departament d’Innovació, Universitats i Empresa de la Generalitat de Catalunya through grant 2014-SGR-1051 for project “Models de Programació i Entorns d’Execució Parallels” (MPEXPAR), and Ramon y Cajal Fellowship RYC2018-025968-I; the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA/Rymdstyrelsen); the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation through the Mesures d’Accompagnement, the Swiss Activités Nationales Complémentaires, and the Swiss National Science Foundation; the United Kingdom Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), the United Kingdom Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), and the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA) through the following grants to the University of Bristol, the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Leicester, the Mullard Space Sciences Laboratory of University College London, and the United Kingdom Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL): PP/D006511/1, PP/D006546/1, PP/D006570/1, ST/I000852/1, ST/J005045/1, ST/K00056X/1, ST/K000209/1, ST/K000756/1, ST/L006561/1, ST/N000595/1, ST/N000641/1, ST/N000978/1, ST/N001117/1, ST/S000089/1, ST/S000976/1, ST/S001123/1, ST/S001948/1, ST/S002103/1, and ST/V000969/1. This work made use of the following software: Astropy, a community-developed core Python package for Astronomy (Astropy Collaboration 2013, 2018, http://www.astropy.org), IPython (Pérez & Granger 2007, https://ipython.org/), Jupyter (https://jupyter.org/), Matplotlib (Hunter 2007, https://matplotlib.org), SciPy (Virtanen et al. 2020, https://www.scipy.org), NumPy (Harris et al. 2020, https://numpy.org), and TOPCAT (Taylor 2005, http://www.starlink.ac.uk/topcat/). This work has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System. We thank the referee, Andy Casey, for a careful reading of the manuscript

Gaia Early Data Release 3: The Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars

Smart, R. L., et al. (Gaia Collaboration)[Aims] We produce a clean and well-characterised catalogue of objects within 100 pc of the Sun from the Gaia Early Data Release 3. We characterise the catalogue through comparisons to the full data release, external catalogues, and simulations. We carry out a first analysis of the science that is possible with this sample to demonstrate its potential and best practices for its use. [Methods] Theselection of objects within 100 pc from the full catalogue used selected training sets, machine-learning procedures, astrometric quantities, and solution quality indicators to determine a probability that the astrometric solution is reliable. The training set construction exploited the astrometric data, quality flags, and external photometry. For all candidates we calculated distance posterior probability densities using Bayesian procedures and mock catalogues to define priors. Any object with reliable astrometry and a non-zero probability of being within 100 pc is included in the catalogue. [Results] We have produced a catalogue of 331 312 objects that we estimate contains at least 92% of stars of stellar type M9 within 100 pc of the Sun. We estimate that 9% of the stars in this catalogue probably lie outside 100 pc, but when the distance probability function is used, a correct treatment of this contamination is possible. We produced luminosity functions with a high signal-to-noise ratio for the main-sequence stars, giants, and white dwarfs. We examined in detail the Hyades cluster, the white dwarf population, and wide-binary systems and produced candidate lists for all three samples. We detected local manifestations of several streams, superclusters, and halo objects, in which we identified 12 members of Gaia Enceladus. We present the first direct parallaxes of five objects in multiple systems within 10 pc of the Sun. [Conclusions] We provide the community with a large, well-characterised catalogue of objects in the solar neighbourhood. This is a primary benchmark for measuring and understanding fundamental parameters and descriptive functions in astronomy.The Gaia mission and data processing have financially been supported by, in alphabetical order by country: the Algerian Centre de Recherche en Astronomie, Astrophysique et Géophysique of Bouzareah Observatory; the Austrian Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF) Hertha Firnberg Programme through grants T359, P20046, and P23737; the BELgian federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) through various PROgramme de Développement d’Expériences scientifiques (PRODEX) grants and the Polish Academy of Sciences – Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek through grant VS.091.16N, and the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS); the Brazil-France exchange programmes Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Coordenação de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) – Comité Français d’Evaluation de la Coopération Universitaire et Scientifique avec le Brésil (COFECUB); the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) through grants 11573054 and 11703065 and the China Scholarship Council through grant 201806040200; the Tenure Track Pilot Programme of the Croatian Science Foundation and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and the project TTP-2018-07-1171 “Mining the Variable Sky”, with the funds of the Croatian-Swiss Research Programme; the Czech-Republic Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports through grant LG 15010 and INTER-EXCELLENCE grant LTAUSA18093, and the Czech Space Office through ESA PECS contract 98058; the Danish Ministry of Science; the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research through grant IUT40-1; the European Commission’s Sixth Framework Programme through the European Leadership in Space Astrometry (ELSA) Marie Curie Research Training Network (MRTN-CT-2006-033481), through Marie Curie project PIOF-GA-2009-255267 (Space AsteroSeismology & RR Lyrae stars, SAS-RRL), and through a Marie Curie Transfer-of-Knowledge (ToK) fellowship (MTKD-CT-2004-014188); the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme through grant FP7-606740 (FP7-SPACE-2013-1) for the Gaia European Network for Improved data User Services (GENIUS) and through grant 264895 for the Gaia Research for European Astronomy Training (GREAT-ITN) network; the European Research Council (ERC) through grants 320360 and 647208 and through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation and excellent science programmes through Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant 745617 as well as grants 670519 (Mixing and Angular Momentum tranSport of massIvE stars – MAMSIE), 687378 (Small Bodies: Near and Far), 682115 (Using the Magellanic Clouds to Understand the Interaction of Galaxies), and 695099 (A sub-percent distance scale from binaries and Cepheids – CepBin); the European Science Foundation (ESF), in the framework of the Gaia Research for European Astronomy Training Research Network Programme (GREAT-ESF); the European Space Agency (ESA) in the framework of the Gaia project, through the Plan for European Cooperating States (PECS) programme through grants for Slovenia, through contracts C98090 and 4000106398/12/NL/KML for Hungary, and through contract 4000115263/15/NL/IB for Germany; the Academy of Finland and the Magnus Ehrnrooth Foundation; the French Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) through grant ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 for the “Investissements d’avenir” programme, through grant ANR-15-CE31-0007 for project “Modelling the Milky Way in the Gaia era” (MOD4Gaia), through grant ANR-14-CE33-0014-01 for project “The Milky Way disc formation in the Gaia era” (ARCHEOGAL), and through grant ANR-15-CE31-0012-01 for project “Unlocking the potential of Cepheids as primary distance calibrators” (UnlockCepheids), the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and its SNO Gaia of the Institut des Sciences de l’Univers (INSU), the “Action Fédératrice Gaia” of the Observatoire de Paris, the Région de Franche-Comté, and the Programme National de Gravitation, Références, Astronomie,et Métrologie (GRAM) of CNRS/INSU with the Institut National Polytechnique (INP) and the Institut National de Physique nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) co-funded by CNES; the German Aerospace Agency (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., DLR) through grants 50QG0501, 50QG0601, 50QG0602, 50QG0701, 50QG0901, 50QG1001, 50QG1101, 50QG1401, 50QG1402, 50QG1403, 50QG1404, and 50QG1904 and the Centre for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) at the Technische Universität (TU) Dresden for generous allocations of computer time; the Hungarian Academy of Sciences through the Lendület Programme grants LP2014-17 and LP2018-7 and through the Premium Postdoctoral Research Programme (L. Molnár), and the Hungarian National Research, Development, and Innovation Office (NKFIH) through grant KH_18-130405; the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) through a Royal Society - SFI University Research Fellowship (M. Fraser); the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) through grant 848/16; the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) through contracts I/037/08/0, I/058/10/0, 2014-025-R.0, 2014-025-R.1.2015, and 2018-24-HH.0 to the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), contract 2014-049-R.0/1/2 to INAF for the Space Science Data Centre (SSDC, formerly known as the ASI Science Data Center, ASDC), contracts I/008/10/0, 2013/030/I.0, 2013-030-I.0.1-2015, and 2016-17-I.0 to the Aerospace Logistics Technology Engineering Company (ALTEC S.p.A.), INAF, and the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research (Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca) through the Premiale project “MIning The Cosmos Big Data and Innovative Italian Technology for Frontier Astrophysics and Cosmology” (MITiC); the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) through grant NWO-M-614.061.414, through a VICI grant (A. Helmi), and through a Spinoza prize (A. Helmi), and the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA); the Polish National Science Centre through HARMONIA grant 2018/06/M/ST9/00311, DAINA grant 2017/27/L/ST9/03221, and PRELUDIUM grant 2017/25/N/ST9/01253, and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSW) through grant DIR/WK/2018/12; the Portugese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through grants SFRH/BPD/74697/2010 and SFRH/BD/128840/2017 and the Strategic Programme UID/FIS/00099/2019 for CENTRA; the Slovenian Research Agency through grant P1-0188; the Spanish Ministry of Economy (MINECO/FEDER, UE) through grants ESP2016-80079-C2-1-R, ESP2016-80079-C2-2-R, RTI2018-095076-B-C21, RTI2018-095076-B-C22, BES-2016-078499, and BES-2017-083126 and the Juan de la Cierva formación 2015 grant FJCI-2015-2671, the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports through grant FPU16/03827, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) through grant AYA2017-89841P for project “Estudio de las propiedades de los fósiles estelares en el entorno del Grupo Local” and through grant TIN2015-65316-P for project “Computación de Altas Prestaciones VII”, the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence Programme of the Spanish Government through grant SEV2015-0493, the Institute of Cosmos Sciences University of Barcelona (ICCUB, Unidad de Excelencia “María de Maeztu”) through grants MDM-2014-0369 and CEX2019-000918-M, the University of Barcelona’s official doctoral programme for the development of an R+D+i project through an Ajuts de Personal Investigador en Formació (APIF) grant, the Spanish Virtual Observatory through project AyA2017-84089, the Galician Regional Government, Xunta de Galicia, through grants ED431B-2018/42 and ED481A-2019/155, support received from the Centro de Investigación en Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (CITIC) funded by the Xunta de Galicia, the Xunta de Galicia and the Centros Singulares de Investigación de Galicia for the period 2016-2019 through CITIC, the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) / Fondo Europeo de Desenvolvemento Rexional (FEDER) for the Galicia 2014-2020 Programme through grant ED431G-2019/01, the Red Española de Supercomputación (RES) computer resources at MareNostrum, the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) through activities AECT-2016-1-0006, AECT-2016-2-0013, AECT-2016-3-0011, and AECT-2017-1-0020, the Departament d’Innovació, Universitats i Empresa de la Generalitat de Catalunya through grant 2014-SGR-1051 for project “Models de Programació i Entorns d’Execució Parallels” (MPEXPAR), and Ramon y Cajal Fellowship RYC2018-025968-I; the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA/Rymdstyrelsen); the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation through the Mesures d’Accompagnement, the Swiss Activités Nationales Complémentaires, and the Swiss National Science Foundation; the United Kingdom Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), the United Kingdom Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), and the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA) through the following grants to the University of Bristol, the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Leicester, the Mullard Space Sciences Laboratory of University College London, and the United Kingdom Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL): PP/D006511/1, PP/D006546/1, PP/D006570/1, ST/I000852/1, ST/J005045/1, ST/K00056X/1, ST/K000209/1, ST/K000756/1, ST/L006561/1, ST/N000595/1, ST/N000641/1, ST/N000978/1, ST/N001117/1, ST/S000089/1, ST/S000976/1, ST/S001123/1, ST/S001948/1, ST/S002103/1, and ST/V000969/1

Gaia Early Data Release 3: Summary of the contents and survey properties

ABSTRACT: Context. We present the early installment of the third Gaia data release, Gaia EDR3, consisting of astrometry and photometry for 1.8 billion sources brighter than magnitude 21, complemented with the list of radial velocities from Gaia DR2. Aims. A summary of the contents of Gaia EDR3 is presented, accompanied by a discussion on the differences with respect to Gaia DR2 and an overview of the main limitations which are present in the survey. Recommendations are made on the responsible use of Gaia EDR3 results. Methods. The raw data collected with the Gaia instruments during the first 34 months of the mission have been processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium and turned into this early third data release, which represents a major advance with respect to Gaia DR2 in terms of astrometric and photometric precision, accuracy, and homogeneity. Results. Gaia EDR3 contains celestial positions and the apparent brightness in G for approximately 1.8 billion sources. For 1.5 billion of those sources, parallaxes, proper motions, and the (GBP ? GRP) colour are also available. The passbands for G, GBP, and GRP are provided as part of the release. For ease of use, the 7 million radial velocities from Gaia DR2 are included in this release, after the removal of a small number of spurious values. New radial velocities will appear as part of Gaia DR3. Finally, Gaia EDR3 represents an updated materialisation of the celestial reference frame (CRF) in the optical, the Gaia-CRF3, which is based solely on extragalactic sources. The creation of the source list for Gaia EDR3 includes enhancements that make it more robust with respect to high proper motion stars, and the disturbing effects of spurious and partially resolved sources. The source list is largely the same as that for Gaia DR2, but it does feature new sources and there are some notable changes. The source list will not change for Gaia DR3. Conclusions. Gaia EDR3 represents a significant advance over Gaia DR2, with parallax precisions increased by 30 per cent, proper motion precisions increased by a factor of 2, and the systematic errors in the astrometry suppressed by 30-40% for the parallaxes and by a factor ~2.5 for the proper motions. The photometry also features increased precision, but above all much better homogeneity across colour, magnitude, and celestial position. A single passband for G, GBP, and GRP is valid over the entire magnitude and colour range, with no systematics above the 1% levelThe Gaia mission and data processing have financially been supported by ; the Spanish Ministry of Economy (MINECO/FEDER, UE) through grants ESP2016-80079-C2-1-R, ESP2016-80079-C2-2-R, RTI2018-095076-B-C21, RTI2018-095076-B-C22, BES-2016-078499, and BES-2017-083126 and the Juan de la Cierva formación 2015 grant FJCI-2015-2671, the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports through grant FPU16/03827, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) through grant AYA2017-89841P for project “Estudio de las propiedades de los fósiles estelares en el entorno del Grupo Local” and through grant TIN2015-65316-P for project “Computación de Altas Prestaciones VII

Unconventional experimental technologies used for phase change materials (PCM) characterization: part 2 – morphological and structural characterization, physico-chemical stability and mechanical properties

Due to the high interest of appropriate characterization of PCM and hybrid PCM composites, different research centres and universities are using several material characterization techniques not commonly used with PCM, to study the structure and morphology of these materials. Likewise, physico-chemical stability is a crucial parameter for the performance of latent storage materials during time and its evaluation has been done by using molecular spectroscopy, chemiluminiscence or calorimetric tests. Atomic force microscopy and nanoindentation are also reported to characterize hybrid PCM composites. Other chemical aspects studied are related with the compatibility of the PCM and its container and also considered in this compilation of characterization work.The work is partially funded by the European Union (COST Action COST TU0802) and the Spanish government (ENE2011- 28269-C03-01, ENE2011-28269-C03-02 and ENE2011-22722). The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group GREA (2014 SGR 123) and their research group DIOPMA (2014 SGR 1543). Aran Solé would like to thank the Departament d’Universitats, Recerca i Societat de la Informació de la Generalitat de Catalunya for her research fellowship

Gaia Early Data Release 3: The celestial reference frame (Gaia-CRF3)

Context. Gaia-CRF3 is the celestial reference frame for positions and proper motions in the third release of data from the Gaia mission, Gaia DR3 (and for the early third release, Gaia EDR3, which contains identical astrometric results). The reference frame is defined by the positions and proper motions at epoch 2016.0 for a specific set of extragalactic sources in the (E)DR3 catalogue. Aims. We describe the construction of Gaia-CRF3 and its properties in terms of the distributions in magnitude, colour, and astrometric quality. Methods. Compact extragalactic sources in Gaia DR3 were identified by positional cross-matching with 17 external catalogues of quasi-stellar objects (QSO) and active galactic nuclei (AGN), followed by astrometric filtering designed to remove stellar contaminants. Selecting a clean sample was favoured over including a higher number of extragalactic sources. For the final sample, the random and systematic errors in the proper motions are analysed, as well as the radio-optical offsets in position for sources in the third realisation of the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF3). Results. Gaia-CRF3 comprises about 1.6 million QSO-like sources, of which 1.2 million have five-parameter astrometric solutions in Gaia DR3 and 0.4 million have six-parameter solutions. The sources span the magnitude range G = 13-21 with a peak density at 20.6 mag, at which the typical positional uncertainty is about 1 mas. The proper motions show systematic errors on the level of 12 μas yr-1 on angular scales greater than 15 deg. For the 3142 optical counterparts of ICRF3 sources in the S/X frequency bands, the median offset from the radio positions is about 0.5 mas, but it exceeds 4 mas in either coordinate for 127 sources. We outline the future of Gaia-CRF in the next Gaia data releases. Appendices give further details on the external catalogues used, how to extract information about the Gaia-CRF3 sources, potential (Galactic) confusion sources, and the estimation of the spin and orientation of an astrometric solution

Gaia Data Release 3: Mapping the asymmetric disc of the Milky Way

With the most recent Gaia data release the number of sources with complete 6D phase space information (position and velocity) has increased to well over 33 million stars, while stellar astrophysical parameters are provided for more than 470 million sources, in addition to the identification of over 11 million variable stars. Using the astrophysical parameters and variability classifications provided in Gaia DR3, we select various stellar populations to explore and identify non-axisymmetric features in the disc of the Milky Way in both configuration and velocity space. Using more about 580 thousand sources identified as hot OB stars, together with 988 known open clusters younger than 100 million years, we map the spiral structure associated with star formation 4-5 kpc from the Sun. We select over 2800 Classical Cepheids younger than 200 million years, which show spiral features extending as far as 10 kpc from the Sun in the outer disc. We also identify more than 8.7 million sources on the red giant branch (RGB), of which 5.7 million have line-of-sight velocities, allowing the velocity field of the Milky Way to be mapped as far as 8 kpc from the Sun, including the inner disc. The spiral structure revealed by the young populations is consistent with recent results using Gaia EDR3 astrometry and source lists based on near infrared photometry, showing the Local (Orion) arm to be at least 8 kpc long, and an outer arm consistent with what is seen in HI surveys, which seems to be a continuation of the Perseus arm into the third quadrant. Meanwhile, the subset of RGB stars with velocities clearly reveals the large scale kinematic signature of the bar in the inner disc, as well as evidence of streaming motions in the outer disc that might be associated with spiral arms or bar resonances. (abridged