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The existence of star-to-star light-element abundance variations in massive Galactic and extragalactic star clusters has fairly recently superseded the traditional paradigm of individual clusters hosting stars with the same age, and uniform chemical composition. Several scenarios have been put forward to explain the origin of this multiple stellar population phenomenon, but so far all have failed to reproduce the whole range of key observations. Complementary to high-resolution spectroscopy, which has first revealed and characterized chemically the presence of multiple populations in Galactic globular clusters, photometry has been instrumental in investigating this phenomenon in much larger samples of stars—adding a number of crucial observational constraints and correlations with global cluster properties—and in the discovery and characterization of multiple populations also in Magellanic Clouds' intermediate-age clusters. The purpose of this review is to present the theoretical underpinning and application of the photometric techniques devised to identify and study multiple populations in resolved star clusters. These methods have played and continue to play a crucial role in advancing our knowledge of the cluster multiple population phenomenon, and promise to extend the scope of these investigations to resolved clusters even beyond the Local Group, with the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formal division of the distance indicators into primary and secondary leads to difficulties in description of methods which can actually be used in two ways: with, and without the support of the other methods for scaling. Thus instead of concentrating on the scaling requirement we concentrate on all methods of distance determination to extragalactic sources which are designated, at least formally, to use for individual sources. Among those, the Supernovae Ia is clearly the leader due to its enormous success in determination of the expansion rate of the Universe. However, new methods are rapidly developing, and there is also a progress in more traditional methods. We give a general overview of the methods but we mostly concentrate on the most recent developments in each field, and future expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The location of the lower Main Sequence in the Colour Magnitude Diagram, the magnitude of the Red Clump and the magnitude of the tip of the Red Giant Branch are three popular stellar distance indicators. With the present observational capabilities they can be applied to reach distances ranging from the Galactic Disk and Halo populations, to galaxies beyond the Local Group. The techniques devised to exploit these distance indicators are presented, together with a discussion of their calibration, the main sources of systematic errors and the predicted impact of the results from the GAIA mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stellar Astrophysics and in particular stellar evolutionary computations are extremely important to face a wealth of astrophysical problems, but they are also extremely demanding in terms of computing power and data storage. The Bag of Stellar Tracks and Isochrones (BaSTI) database is a theoretical astrophysical catalogue that collects fundamental data sets involving stars formation and evolution. To create this database it is necessary to run a large number of stellar evolutionary computations. The Grid technology seems to be a promising answer to data storage and processing needs of the BaSTI catalogue. In the framework of the EGEE Grid infrastructure, we managed to run a number of experiments aimed at designing and defining an application specific environment for the stellar simulation software and its interaction with the BaSTI database. Our successful implementation demonstrates that the “gridification” of stellar evolution code is not only possible but also even extremely convenient in terms of data processing speed and data sharing, and it can be a valuable instrument to support Astrophysical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NGC 6791 is a well studied open cluster that it is so close to us that can be imaged down to very faint luminosities. The main-sequence turn-off age (∼8 Gyr) and the age derived from the termination of the white dwarf cooling sequence (∼6 Gyr) are very different. One possible explanation is that as white dwarfs cool, one of the ashes of helium burning, 22Ne, sinks in the deep interior of these stars. At lower temperatures, white dwarfs are expected to crystallize and phase separation of the main constituents of the core of a typical white dwarf (12C and 16O) is expected to occur. This sequence of events is expected to introduce long delays in the cooling times, but has not hitherto been proven. Here we report that, as theoretically anticipated, physical separation processes occur in the cores of white dwarfs, resolving the age discrepancy for NGC 6791. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Old-aged stellar distance indicators are present in all Galactic structures (halo, bulge, disk) and in galaxies of all Hubble types and, thus, are immensely powerful tools for understanding our Universe. Here we present a comprehensive review for three primary standard candles from Population II: (i) RR Lyrae type variables (RRL), (ii) type II Cepheid variables (T2C), and (iii) the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB). The discovery and use of these distance indicators is placed in historical context before describing their theoretical foundations and demonstrating their observational applications across multiple wavelengths. The methods used to establish the absolute scale for each standard candle is described with a discussion of the observational systematics. We conclude by looking forward to the suite of new observational facilities anticipated over the next decade; these have both a broader wavelength coverage and larger apertures than current facilities. We anticipate future advancements in our theoretical understanding and observational application of these stellar populations as they apply to the Galactic and extragalactic distance scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here we review the efforts of a number of recent results that use old tracers to understand the build up of the Galaxy. Details that lead directly to using these old tracers to measure distances are discussed. We concentrate on the following: (1) the structure and evolution of the Galactic bulge and inner Galaxy constrained from the dynamics of individual stars residing therein; (2) the spatial structure of the old Galactic bulge through photometric observations of RR Lyrae-type stars; (3) the three-dimensional structure, stellar density, mass, chemical composition, and age of the Milky Way bulge as traced by its old stellar populations; (4) an overview of RR Lyrae stars known in the ultra-faint dwarfs and their relation to the Galactic halo; and (5) different approaches for estimating absolute and relative cluster ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]