A view of access management from Europe

A view on the current situation for AAI in Europe with a particular focus on the UK and developments within the UK Access Management Federation and e-Infrastructure Programme that are relevant to the research community. The session will focus on practical lessons and map out where the future lies from the JISC’s perspective

Optical Cartography of the Northern Galactic Plane

Counting stars as a means of studying the structure of the Milky Way has a long history, which has progressed significantly with the undertaking of large-area surveys. Photographic surveys have been supplanted with the advent of CCD technology by digital surveys, which provide improved data quality allowing better calibration and fainter limits to be probed reliably. The INT/WFC Photometric H Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane (IPHAS) provides broad-band r0 and i0 photometry down to 20th magnitude at Galactic latitudes jbj < 5 . In this work I make use of the opportunity that IPHAS photometry provides to create stellar number density maps of the Northern Galactic Plane. I produce preliminary maps which are used to identify and exclude poor quality data during the preparation of the second data release of the survey (DR2). By crossmatching IPHAS against the AAVSO Photometric All-Sky Survey (APASS), I derive transformations between the two photometric systems, and measure the per-IPHAS- field magnitude shifts needed to bring the two surveys in line before a global calibration can be applied. Repeating the crossmatching approach between IPHAS and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), I derive transformations between the two surveys and assess their agreement before and after global photometric calibration, in order to gauge the improvement achieved. The effects of incompleteness begin to affect the fainter end of any photometric survey as a consequence of confusion and sensitivity limits. I present the application of artificial source insertion on every broad-band IPHAS DR2 image in order to measure the impact of incompleteness across the entire survey. These measurements are used to construct incompleteness-corrected density maps down to magnitude limits of r0 . 19 and i0 . 18 at an angular resolution of 1 arcminute. These maps represent a unique data product which has applications in studies of Galactic structure and extinction. I perform a cluster search on the i0-band density map, which in addition to returning 71 known clusters, identifies 29 overdensities unassociated with any known clusters. I compare the stellar densities given by my maps to those in simulated versions of the Milky Way generated by models of Galactic population synthesis. I examine the Gaia Universe Model Snapshot (GUMS), a catalogue which predicts the sky as may be observed by the Gaia mission. In order to make meaningful comparisons between GUMS and IPHAS I determine transformations between the two photometric surveys. The results of the comparison are mixed. I also make use of the 2003 Besan con model of Galactic population synthesis to generate catalogues of synthetic photometry along three sightlines in the IPHAS footprint in order to test different 3D extinction prescriptions. The lowest Galactic longitudes (` 30 ) prove to be particularly challenging to emulate, suggesting 3D mapping of optical extinction in the Galactic Plane is not yet a mature art. The main problem appears to be one of underprediction of the obscuration

First results of an Hα based search of classical Be stars in the Perseus Arm and beyond

We investigate a region of the Galactic plane, between 120° ≤ l ≤ 140° and-1° ≤ b≤+4°, and uncover a population of moderately reddened (E(B-V) ~ 1) classical Be stars within and beyond the Perseus and Outer Arms. 370 candidate emission-line stars (13≲r≲16) selected from the Isaac Newton Telescope Photometric Ha Survey of the Northern Galactic plane have been followed up spectroscopically. A subset of these, 67 stars with properties consistent with those of classical Be stars, have been observed at sufficient spectral resolution (δλ ≈ 2-4 Å) at blue wavelengths to narrow down their spectral types. We determine these to a precision estimated to be ±1 subtype and then we measure reddenings via spectral energy distribution fitting with reference to appropriate model atmospheres. Corrections for contribution to colour excess from circumstellar discs are made using an established scaling to Ha emission equivalent width. Spectroscopic parallaxes are obtained after luminosity class has been constrained via estimates of distances to neighbouring A/F stars with similar reddenings. Overwhelmingly, the stars in the sample are confirmed as luminous classical Be stars at heliocentric distances ranging from 2 kpc up to ~12 kpc. However, the errors are presently too large to enable the cumulative distribution function with respect to distance to distinguish between models placing the stars exclusively in spiral arms, or in a smooth exponentially declining distribution.Peer reviewe

Calibrated and completeness-corrected optical stellar density maps of the Northern Galactic Plane

© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal Astronomical Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Following on from the second release of calibrated photometry from IPHAS, the INT/WFC Photometric Hα Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane, we present incompleteness-corrected stellar density maps in the r and i photometric bands. These have been computed to a range of limiting magnitudes reaching to 20th magnitude in r and 19th in i (Vega system), and with different angular resolutions – the highest resolution available being 1 arcmin2. The maps obtained cover 94 per cent of the 1800 square degree IPHAS footprint, spanning the Galactic latitude range, −5◦ < b < +5◦, north of the celestial equator. The corrections for incompleteness, due to confusion and sensitivity loss at the faint limit, have been deduced by the method of artificial source injection. The presentation of this method is preceded by a discussion of other more approximate methods of determining completeness. Our method takes full account of position-dependent seeing and source ellipticity in the survey data base. The application of the star counts to testing reddened Galactic disc models is previewed by a comparison with predicted counts along three constant-longitude cuts at 30◦, 90◦ and 175◦: some overprediction of the most heavily reddened 30◦ counts is found, alongside good agreement at 90◦ and 175◦. KeyPeer reviewedFinal Published versio

A 3D extinction map of the northern Galactic plane based on IPHAS photometry

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. ©: 2014 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present a 3D map of extinction in the northern Galactic plane derived using photometry from the INT/WFC Photometric Hα Survey of the northern Galactic plane. The map has fine angular (~10 arcmin) and distance (100 pc) sampling allied to a significant depth (≳5 kpc). We construct the map using a method based on a hierarchical Bayesian model described in a previous article by Sale. In addition to mean extinction, we also measure differential extinction, which arises from the fractal nature of the interstellar medium, and show that it will be the dominant source of uncertainty in estimates of extinction to some arbitrary position. The method applied also furnishes us with photometric estimates of the distance, extinction, effective temperature, surface gravity, and mass for ~38 million stars. Both the extinction map and the catalogue of stellar parameters are made publicly available via http://www.iphas.org/extinction.Peer reviewe

The ionized nebula surrounding the red supergiant W26 in Westerlund 1

We present Hα images of an ionized nebula surrounding the M2-5Ia red supergiant (RSG) W26 in the massive star cluster Westerlund 1. The nebula consists of a circumstellar shell or ring ∼0.1 pc in diameter and a triangular nebula ∼0.2 pc from the star that in high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope images shows a complex filamentary structure. The excitation mechanism of both regions is unclear since RSGs are too cool to produce ionizing photons and we consider various possibilities. The presence of the nebula, high stellar luminosity and spectral variability suggests that W26 is a highly evolved RSG experiencing extreme levels of mass-loss. As the only known example of an ionized nebula surrounding an RSG W26 deserves further attention to improve our understanding of the final evolutionary stages of massive stars

A and F stars as probes of outer Galactic disc kinematics

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2018 Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.Previous studies of the rotation law in the outer Galactic disc have mainly used gas tracers or clump giants. Here, we explore A and F stars as alternatives: these provide a much denser sampling in the outer disc than gas tracers and have experienced significantly less velocity scattering than older clump giants. This first investigation confirms the suitability of A stars in this role. Our work is based on spectroscopy of ~1300 photometrically selected stars in the red calcium-triplet region, chosen to mitigate against the effects of interstellar extinction. The stars are located in two low Galactic latitude sightlines, at longitudes L = 118°, sampling strong Galactic rotation shear, and L = 178°, near the anticentre. With the use of Markov Chain Monte Carlo parameter fitting, stellar parameters and radial velocities are measured, and distances computed. The obtained trend of radial velocity with distance is inconsistent with existing flat or slowly rising rotation laws from gas tracers (Brand & Blitz 1993; Reid et al. 2014). Instead, our results fit in with those obtained by Huang et al. (2016) from disc clump giants that favoured rising circular speeds. An alternative interpretation in terms of spiral arm perturbation is not straight forward. We assess the role that undetected binaries in the sample and distance error may have in introducing bias, and show that the former is a minor factor. The random errors in our trend of circular velocity are within ±5 kms-1.Peer reviewe

The second data release of the INT Photometric Ha Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane (IPHAS DR2)

The INT/WFC Photometric Hα Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane (IPHAS) is a 1800 deg2 imaging survey covering Galactic latitudes |b| < 5° and longitudes ℓ = 30°–215° in the r, i, and Hα filters using the Wide Field Camera (WFC) on the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) in La Palma. We present the first quality-controlled and globally calibrated source catalogue derived from the survey, providing single-epoch photometry for 219 million unique sources across 92 per cent of the footprint. The observations were carried out between 2003 and 2012 at a median seeing of 1.1 arcsec (sampled at 0.33 arcsec pixel−1) and to a mean 5σ depth of 21.2 (r), 20.0 (i), and 20.3 (Hα) in the Vega magnitude system. We explain the data reduction and quality control procedures, describe and test the global re-calibration, and detail the construction of the new catalogue. We show that the new calibration is accurate to 0.03 mag (root mean square) and recommend a series of quality criteria to select accurate data from the catalogue. Finally, we demonstrate the ability of the catalogue's unique (r − Hα, r − i) diagram to (i) characterize stellar populations and extinction regimes towards different Galactic sightlines and (ii) select and quantify Hα emission-line objects. IPHAS is the first survey to offer comprehensive CCD photometry of point sources across the Galactic plane at visible wavelengths, providing the much-needed counterpart to recent infrared surveys

A search for white dwarfs in the Galactic plane: : the field and the open cluster population

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The Version of Record [R. Raddi, et al, ‘A search for white dwarfs in the Galactic plane: the field and the open cluster population’, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 457 (2): 1988-2004, first published online 5 February 2016] is available online at doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw042. © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We investigated the prospects for systematic searches of white dwarfs at low Galactic latitudes, using the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) H$\alpha$ Photometric Survey of the Galactic plane and Bulge (VPHAS+). We targeted 17 white dwarf candidates along sightlines of known open clusters, aiming to identify potential cluster members. We confirmed all the 17 white dwarf candidates from blue/optical spectroscopy, and we suggest five of them to be likely cluster members. We estimated progenitor ages and masses for the candidate cluster members, and compared our findings to those for other cluster white dwarfs. A white dwarf in NGC 3532 is the most massive known cluster member (1.13 M$_{\odot}$), likely with an oxygen-neon core, for which we estimate an $8.8_{-4.3}^{+1.2}$ M$_{\odot}$ progenitor, close to the mass-divide between white dwarf and neutron star progenitors. A cluster member in Ruprecht 131 is a magnetic white dwarf, whose progenitor mass exceeded 2-3 M$_{\odot}$. We stress that wider searches, and improved cluster distances and ages derived from data of the ESA Gaia mission, will advance the understanding of the mass-loss processes for low- to intermediate-mass stars.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

A small-N cross-sectional study of British unions' environmental attitudes and activism - and the prospect of a green-led renewal

Unions understand the environmental agenda as a technocentric one but also believe it can function as a vehicle for renewal. It is developing slowly, with unions behaving cautiously—resources are scarce. Although popular with members, there is limited evidence that it is effective as a recruitment tool and whilst employers are willing to work in partnership with unions on it, this may confer only phony insider status. Overall, the agenda has limited appeal to the types of employees and employers unions must recruit in order to grow. Identifying a clear environmental premium for members may help