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In this Roadmap, we present a vision for the future of submillimetre and millimetre astronomy in the United Kingdom over the next decade and beyond. This Roadmap has been developed in response to the recommendation of the Astronomy Advisory Panel (AAP) of the STFC in the AAP Astronomy Roadmap 2022. In order to develop our stragetic priorities and recommendations, we surveyed the UK submillimetre and millimetre community to determine their key priorities for both the near-term and long-term future of the field. We further performed detailed reviews of UK leadership in submillimetre/millimetre science and instrumentation. Our key strategic priorities are as follows: 1. The UK must be a key partner in the forthcoming AtLAST telescope, for which it is essential that the UK remains a key partner in the JCMT in the intermediate term. 2. The UK must maintain, and if possible enhance, access to ALMA and aim to lead parts of instrument development for ALMA2040. Our strategic priorities complement one another: AtLAST (a 50m single-dish telescope) and an upgraded ALMA (a large configurable interferometric array) would be in synergy, not competition, with one another. Both have identified and are working towards the same overarching science goals, and both are required in order to fully address these goals., Comment: 91 pages plus cover, 38 figures. Submitted to the Science and Technology Facilities Council, August 2024. One figure corrected (v2); new appendix with STFC Q&A; corrected SMA access statement; updated references, acronyms & author list (v3)

The dynamical interactions between young binaries can perturb the material distribution of their circumstellar disks, and modify the planet formation process. In order to constrain the impact and nature of the binary interaction in the RW Aur system (bound or unbound), we analyzed the circumstellar material at 1.3 mm wavelengths, as observed at multiple epochs by ALMA. We analyzed the disk properties through parametric visibility modeling, and we used this information to constrain the dust morphology and the binary orbital period. We imaged the dust continuum emission of RW Aur with a resolution of 3 au, and we find that the radius enclosing 90% of the flux (R90%) is 19 au and 14 au for RW Aur A and B, respectively. By modeling the relative distance of the disks at each epoch, we find a consistent trend of movement for the disk of RW Aur B moving away from the disk of RW Aur A at an approximate rate of 3 mas/yr (about 0.5 au/yr in sky-projected distance). By combining ALMA astrometry, historical astrometry, and the dynamical masses of each star, we constrain the RW Aur binary stars to be most likely in a high-eccentricity elliptical orbit with a clockwise prograde orientation relative to RW Aur A, although low-eccentricity hyperbolic orbits are not ruled out by the astrometry. Our analysis does not exclude the possibility of a disk collision during the last interaction, which occurred $295_{-74}^{+21}$ yr ago relative to beginning of 2024. Evidence for the close interaction is found in a tentative warp of 6 deg in the inner 3 au of the disk of RW Aur A, in the brightness temperature of both disks, and in the morphology of the gas emission. A narrow ring that peaks at 6 au around RW Aur B is suggestive of captured material from the disk around RW Aur A., Comment: Accepted in A&A. All self-calibrated data and products are publicly available in https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12825068 . Short video summary in https://youtu.be/IOjEW8Vrj9Q

Substructures in disc density are ubiquitous in the bright extended discs that are observed with high resolution. These substructures are intimately linked to the physical mechanisms driving planet formation and disc evolution. Surveys of star-forming regions find that most discs are in fact compact, less luminous, and do not exhibit these same substructures. It remains unclear whether compact discs also have similar substructures or if they are featureless. This suggests that different planet formation and disc evolution mechanisms operate in these discs. We investigated evidence of substructure within two compact discs around the stars Sz 65 and Sz 66 using high angular resolution observations with ALMA at 1.3 mm. The two stars form a wide-binary system with 6.36 arcsec separation. The continuum observations achieve a synthesised beam major axis of 0.026 arcsec, equivalent to about 4.0 au, enabling a search for substructure on these spatial scales and a characterisation of the gas and dust disc sizes with high precision. We analysed the data in the image plane through an analysis of reconstructed images, as well as in the uv plane by modelling the visibilities and by an analysis of the 12CO emission line. Comparisons were made with high-resolution observations of compact discs and radially extended discs. We find evidence of substructure in the dust distribution of Sz 65, namely a shallow gap centred at approximately 20 au, with an emission ring exterior to it. Ninety percent of the measured continuum flux is found within 27 au, and the distance for 12CO is 142 au. The observations show that Sz 66 is very compact: 90 per cent of the continuum flux is contained within 16 au, and 48 au for the gas. While the overall prevalence and diversity of substructure in compact discs relative to larger discs is yet to be determined, we find evidence that substructures can exist in compact discs.

Recent studies on the planet-dominated regime of Type II migration showed that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, massive planets can migrate outwards. Using `fixed-planet' simulations these studies found a correlation between the sign of the torques acting on the planet and the parameter $K'$ (which describes the depth of the gap carved by the planet in the disc). We perform `live-planet' simulations exploring a range of $K'$ and disc mass values to test and extend these results. The excitation of planet eccentricity in live-planet simulations breaks the direct dependence of migration rate (rate of change of semi-major axis) on the torques imposed, an effect that `fixed-planet' simulations cannot treat. By disentangling the contribution to the torque due to the semi-major axis evolution from that due to the eccentricity evolution, we recover the relation between the magnitude and sign of migration and $K'$ and argue that this relation may be better expressed in terms of the related gap depth parameter $K$. We present a toy model in which the sign of planetary migration changes at a limiting value of $K$, through which we explore planets' migration in viscously evolving discs. The existence of the torque reversal shapes the planetary system's architecture by accumulating planets either at the stalling radius or in a band around it (defined by the interplay between the planet migration and the disc evolution). In either case, planets pile up in the area $1-10$ au, disfavouring hot Jupiter formation through Type II migration in the planet-dominated regime., Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Binary stars often move through an ambient medium from which they accrete material and angular momentum, as in triple-star systems, star-forming clouds, young globular clusters and in the centres of galaxies. A binary form of Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton accretion results whereby the accretion rate depends on the binary properties: the stellar masses and separation, and the relative wind speed. We present the results of simulations performed with the hydrodynamic code GANDALF, to determine the mass accretion rates over a range of binary separations, inclinations and mass ratios. When the binary separation is short, the binary system accretes like a single star, while accretion onto stars in wide binaries is barely affected by their companion. We investigate intermediate-separation systems in some detail, finding that as the binary separation is increased, accretion rates smoothly decrease from the rate equal to that of a single star to the rate expected from two isolated stars. The form of this decrease depends on the relative centre-of-mass velocity of the binary and the gas, with faster-moving binaries showing a shallower decrease. Accretion rates vary little with orbital inclination, except when the orbit is side-on and the stars pass through each others' wakes. The specific angular momentum accretion rate also depends on the inclination but is never sufficient to prevent the binary orbit from contracting. Our results may be applied to accretion onto protostars, pollution of stars in globular and nuclear clusters, and wind mass-transfer in multiple stellar systems., Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, accepted by MNRAS

Stellar magnetic activity decays over the main-sequence life of cool stars due to the stellar spin-down driven by magnetic braking. The evolution of chromospheric emission is well-studied for younger stars, but difficulties in determining the ages of older cool stars on the main sequence have complicated such studies for older stars in the past. Here we report on chromospheric Ca II H and K line measurements for 26 main-sequence cool stars with asteroseismic ages older than a gigayear and spectral types F and G. We find that for the G stars and the cooler F-type stars which still have convective envelopes the magnetic activity continues to decrease at stellar ages above one gigayear. Our magnetic activity measurements do not show evidence for a stalling of the magnetic braking mechanism, which has been reported for stellar rotation versus age for G and F type stars. We also find that the measured R'HK indicator value for the cool F stars in our sample is lower than predicted by common age-activity relations that are mainly calibrated on data from young stellar clusters. We conclude that, within individual spectral type bins, chromospheric magnetic activity correlates well with stellar age even for old stars., Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, accepted to MNRAS

The Galactic Centre contains a supermassive black hole with a mass of 4 million suns within an environment that differs markedly from that of the Galactic disk. While the black hole is essentially quiescent in the broader context of active galactic nuclei, X-ray observations have provided evidence for energetic outbursts from its surroundings. Also, while the levels of star formation in the Galactic Centre have been approximately constant over the last few hundred Myr, there is evidence of elevated short-duration bursts, strongly influenced by interaction of the black hole with the enhanced gas density present within the ring-like Central Molecular Zone at Galactic longitude |l| < 0.7 degrees and latitude |b| < 0.2 degrees. The inner 200 pc region is characterized by large amounts of warm molecular gas, a high cosmic ray ionization rate, unusual gas chemistry, enhanced synchrotron emission, and a multitude of radio-emitting magnetised filaments, the origin of which has not been established. Here we report radio imaging that reveals bipolar bubbles spanning 1 degree x 3 degrees (140 parsecs x 430 parsecs), extending above and below the Galactic plane and apparently associated with the Galactic Centre. The structure is edge-brightened and bounded, with symmetry implying creation by an energetic event in the Galactic Centre. We estimate the age of the bubbles to be a few million years, with a total energy of 7 x 10^52 ergs. We postulate that the progenitor event was a major contributor to the increased cosmic-ray density in the Galactic Centre, and is in turn the principal source of the relativistic particles required to power the synchrotron emission of the radio filaments within and in the vicinity of the bubble cavities., Comment: 25 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables, authors' version of a Letter published in Nature on 11 September 2019

New radio (MeerKAT and Parkes) and X-ray (XMM-Newton, Swift, Chandra, and NuSTAR) observations of PSR J1622-4950 indicate that the magnetar, in a quiescent state since at least early 2015, reactivated between 2017 March 19 and April 5. The radio flux density, while variable, is approximately 100x larger than during its dormant state. The X-ray flux one month after reactivation was at least 800x larger than during quiescence, and has been decaying exponentially on a 111+/-19 day timescale. This high-flux state, together with a radio-derived rotational ephemeris, enabled for the first time the detection of X-ray pulsations for this magnetar. At 5%, the 0.3-6 keV pulsed fraction is comparable to the smallest observed for magnetars. The overall pulsar geometry inferred from polarized radio emission appears to be broadly consistent with that determined 6-8 years earlier. However, rotating vector model fits suggest that we are now seeing radio emission from a different location in the magnetosphere than previously. This indicates a novel way in which radio emission from magnetars can differ from that of ordinary pulsars. The torque on the neutron star is varying rapidly and unsteadily, as is common for magnetars following outburst, having changed by a factor of 7 within six months of reactivation., Comment: Published in ApJ (2018 April 5); 13 pages, 4 figures

Protoplanetary discs around brown dwarfs and very low mass stars offer some of the best prospects for forming Earth-sized planets in their habitable zones. To this end, we study the nature of the disc around the very low mass star V410 X-ray 1, whose SED is indicative of an optically thick and very truncated dust disc, with our modelling suggesting an outer radius of only 0.6 au. We investigate two scenarios that could lead to such a truncation, and find that the observed SED is compatible with both. The first scenario involves the truncation of both the dust and gas in the disc, perhaps due to a previous dynamical interaction or the presence of an undetected companion. The second scenario involves the fact that a radial location of 0.6 au is close to the expected location of the H$_2$O snowline in the disc. As such, a combination of efficient dust growth, radial migration, and subsequent fragmentation within the snowline leads to an optically thick inner dust disc and larger, optically thin outer dust disc. We find that a firm measurement of the CO $J=2$--1 line flux would enable us to distinguish between these two scenarios, by enabling a measurement of the radial extent of gas in the disc. Many models we consider contain at least several Earth-masses of dust interior to 0.6 au, suggesting that V410 X-ray 1 could be a precursor to a system with tightly-packed inner planets, such as TRAPPIST-1., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The majority of stars form in a clustered environment. This has an impact on the evolution of surrounding protoplanetary discs (PPDs) due to either photoevaporation or tidal truncation. Consequently, the development of planets depends on formation environment. Here we present the first thorough investigation of tidally induced angular momentum loss in PPDs in the distant regime, partly motivated by claims in the literature for the importance of distant encounters in disc evolution. We employ both theoretical predictions and dynamical/hydrodynamical simulations in 2D and 3D. Our theoretical analysis is based on that of Ostriker (1994) and leads us to conclude that in the limit that the closest approach distance $x_{min} \gg r$, the radius of a particle ring, the fractional change in angular momentum scales as $(x_{min}/r)^{-5}$. This asymptotic limit ensures that the cumulative effect of distant encounters is minor in terms of its influence on disc evolution. The angular momentum transfer is dominated by the $m=2$ Lindblad resonance for closer encounters and by the $m=1$, $\omega = 0$ Lindblad resonance at large $x_{min}/r$. We contextualise these results by comparing expected angular momentum loss for the outer edge of a PPD due to distant and close encounters. Contrary to the suggestions of previous works we do not find that distant encounters contribute significantly to angular momentum loss in PPDs. We define an upper limit for closest approach distance where interactions are significant as a function of arbitrary host to perturber mass ratio $M_2/M_1$., Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures

The paper presents new high angular resolution ALMA 1.3 mm dust continuum observations of the protoplanetary system AS 209 in the Ophiuchus star forming region. The dust continuum emission is characterized by a main central core and two prominent rings at $r = 75\,$au and $r = 130\,$au intervaled by two gaps at at $r = 62\,$au and $r = 103\,$au. The two gaps have different widths and depths, with the inner one being narrower and shallower. We determined the surface density of the millimeter dust grains using the 3D radiative transfer disk code \textsc{dali}. According to our fiducial model the inner gap is partially filled with millimeter grains while the outer gap is largely devoid of dust. The inferred surface density is compared to 3D hydrodynamical simulations (FARGO-3D) of planet-disk interaction. The outer dust gap is consistent with the presence of a giant planet ($M_{\rm planet} \sim 0.8\,M_{\rm Staturn}$); the planet is responsible for the gap opening and for the pile-up of dust at the outer edge of the planet orbit. The simulations also show that the same planet can give origin to the inner gap at $r = 62\,$au. The relative position of the two dust gaps is close to the 2:1 resonance and we have investigated the possibility of a second planet inside the inner gap. The resulting surface density (including location, width and depth of the two dust gaps) are in agreement with the observations. The properties of the inner gap pose a strong constraint to the mass of the inner planet ($M_{\rm planet} < 0.1\,M_{\rm J}$). In both scenarios (single or pair of planets), the hydrodynamical simulations suggest a very low disk viscosity ($\alpha < 10^{-4}$). Given the young age of the system (0.5 - 1 Myr), this result implies that the formation of giant planets occurs on a timescale of $\lesssim$ 1\,Myr., Comment: Accepted by A&A

MHONGOOSE is a deep survey of the neutral hydrogen distribution in a representative sample of 30 nearby disk and dwarf galaxies with HI masses from 10^6 to ~10^{11} M_sun, and luminosities from M_R ~ -12 to M_R ~ -22. The sample is selected to uniformly cover the available range in log(M_HI). Our extremely deep observations, down to HI column density limits of well below 10^{18} cm^{-2} - or a few hundred times fainter than the typical HI disks in galaxies - will directly detect the effects of cold accretion from the intergalactic medium and the links with the cosmic web. These observations will be the first ever to probe the very low-column density neutral gas in galaxies at these high resolutions. Combination with data at other wavelengths, most of it already available, will enable accurate modelling of the properties and evolution of the mass components in these galaxies and link these with the effects of environment, dark matter distribution, and other fundamental properties such as halo mass and angular momentum. MHONGOOSE can already start addressing some of the SKA-1 science goals and will provide a comprehensive inventory of the processes driving the transformation and evolution of galaxies in the nearby universe at high resolution and over 5 orders of magnitude in column density. It will be a Nearby Galaxies Legacy Survey that will be unsurpassed until the advent of the SKA, and can serve as a highly visible, lasting statement of MeerKAT's capabilities., Comment: To be published in "MeerKAT Science: On the Pathway to the SKA". Proceedings of Science. Workshop held 25-27 May, 2016 Stellenbosch, South Africa

In this paper, we model the chemical evolution of a 0.25 M$_{\odot}$ protoplanetary disc surrounding a 1 M$_{\odot}$ star that undergoes fragmentation due to self-gravity. We use Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics including a radiative transfer scheme, along with time-dependent chemical evolution code to follow the composition of the disc and resulting fragments over approximately 4000 yrs. Initially, four quasi-stable fragments are formed, of which two are eventually disrupted by tidal torques in the disc. From the results of our chemical modelling, we identify species that are abundant in the fragments (e.g. H$_{\rm 2}$O, H$_{\rm 2}$S, HNO, N$_{\rm 2}$, NH$_{\rm 3}$, OCS, SO), species that are abundant in the spiral shocks within the disc (e.g. CO, CH$_{\rm 4}$, CN, CS, H$_{\rm 2}$CO), and species which are abundant in the circumfragmentary material (e.g. HCO$^{\rm +}$). Our models suggest that in some fragments it is plausible for grains to sediment to the core before releasing their volatiles into the planetary envelope, leading to changes in, e.g., the C/O ratio of the gas and ice components. We would therefore predict that the atmospheric composition of planets generated by gravitational instability should not necessarily follow the bulk chemical composition of the local disc material., Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Stars with convective envelopes display magnetic activity, which decreases over time due to the magnetic braking of the star. This age-dependence of magnetic activity is well-studied for younger stars, but the nature of this dependence for older stars is not well understood. This is mainly because absolute stellar ages for older stars are hard to measure. However, relatively accurate stellar ages have recently come into reach through asteroseismology. In this work we present X-ray luminosities, which are a measure for magnetic activity displayed by the stellar coronae, for 24 stars with well-determined ages older than a gigayear. We find 14 stars with detectable X-ray luminosities and use these to calibrate the age-activity relationship. We find a relationship between stellar X-ray luminosity, normalized by stellar surface area, and age that is steeper than the relationships found for younger stars, with an exponent of $-2.80 \pm 0.72$. Previous studies have found values for the exponent of the age-activity relationship ranging between -1.09 to -1.40, dependent on spectral type, for younger stars. Given that there are recent reports of a flattening relationship between age and rotational period for old cool stars, one possible explanation is that we witness a strong steepening of the relationship between activity and rotation., Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, 5 tables, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

RW Aur is a young binary system showing strong signatures of a recent tidal encounter between the circumprimary disk and the secondary star. The primary star has recently undergone two major dimming events ($\Delta$mag $\approx$ 2 in V-band), whose origin is still under debate. To shed light on the mechanism leading to the dimming events, we study the extinction properties, accretion variability, and gas kinematics using absorption lines from the material obscuring star RW Aur A. We compare our moderate resolution X-Shooter spectra of the dim state of RW Aur A with other spectral observations. In particular, we analyse archival high resolution UVES spectra obtained during the bright state of the system, in order to track the evolution of the spectral properties across the second dimming event. The spectrum obtained during the dim state shows narrow absorption lines in the Na and K optical doublets, where the former is saturated. With a velocity of -60 km/s these lines indicate that during the dim state the disk wind is either enhanced, or significantly displaced into the line of sight. The photometric evolution across the dimming event shows a gray extinction, and is correlated with a significant reduction of the EW of all photospheric lines. Emission lines tracing accretion do not vary significantly across the dimming. We conclude that the dimming event is related to a major perturbation on the inner disk. We suggest that the inner disk is occulting (most of) the star, and thus its photosphere, but is not occulting the accretion regions within a few stellar radii. Since observations of the outer disk indicate that the disk is modestly inclined (45 - 60 deg), we propose that the inner disk might be warped by a yet unseen (sub-)stellar companion, which may also explain the 2.77 day periodic variability of the spectral lines., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

The construction of the KAT-7 array in the Karoo region of the Northern Cape in South Africa was intended primarily as an engineering prototype for technologies and techniques applicable to the MeerKAT telescope. This paper looks at the main engineering and scien- tific highlights from this effort, and discusses their applicability to both MeerKAT and other next-generation radio telescopes. In particular we found that the composite dish surface works well, but it becomes complicated to fabricate for a dish lacking circular symmetry; the Stir- ling cycle cryogenic system with ion pump to achieve vacuum works but demands much higher maintenance than an equivalent Gifford-McMahon cycle system; the ROACH (Recon- figurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware)-based correlator with SPEAD (Stream- ing Protocol for Exchanging Astronomical Data) protocol data transfer works very well and KATCP (Karoo Array Telescope Control Protocol) control protocol has proven very flexible and convenient. KAT-7 has also been used for scientific observations where it has a niche in mapping low surface-brightness continuum sources, some extended HI halos and OH masers in star-forming regions. It can also be used to monitor continuum source variability, observe pulsars, and make VLBI observations

We present deep neutral hydrogen (HI) observations of the starburst/Seyfert galaxy NGC 3079 and its environment, obtained with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope. Our observations reveal previously unknown components, both in HI emission and in absorption, that show that NGC 3079 is going through a hectic phase in its evolution. The HI disk appears much more extended than previously observed and is morphologically and kinematically lopsided on all scales with evidence for strong non-circular motions in the central regions. Our data reveal prominent gas streams encircling the entire galaxy suggesting strong interaction with its neighbours. A 33-kpc long HI bridge is detected between NGC 3079 and MCG 9-17-9, likely caused by ram-pressure stripping of MGC 9-17-9 by the halo of hot gas of NGC 3079. The cometary HI tail of the companion NGC 3073, earlier discovered by Irwin et al., extends about twice as long in our data, while a shorter, second tail is also found. This tail is likely caused by ram-pressure stripping by the strong, starburst driven wind coming from NGC 3079. We also detect, in absorption, a nuclear HI outflow extending to velocities well outside what expected for gravitational motion. This is likely an atomic counterpart of the well-studied outflow of ionised gas present in this galaxy. This may indicate that also large amounts of cold gas are blown out of NGC 3079 by the starburst/AGN. Our estimates of the jet energy and kinetic power suggest that both the AGN and the starburst in NGC 3079 are powerful enough to drive the atomic outflow., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 13 pages, 10 figures

Eight new class II methanol masers selected from the 6.7 GHz Methanol Multibeam survey catalogues I and II were monitored at 6.7 GHz with the 26m Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) radio telescope for three years and seven months, from February 2011 to September 2014. The sources were also observed at 12.2 GHz and two were sufficiently bright to permit monitoring. One of the eight sources, namely G358.460-0.391, was found to show periodic variations at 6.7 GHz. The period was determined and tested for significance using the Lomb-Scargle, epoch-folding and Jurkevich methods, and by fitting a simple analytic function. The best estimate for the period of the 6.7 GHz class II methanol maser line associated with G358.460-0.391 is 220.0 $\pm$ 0.2 day., Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS. The appendix of 4 pages (with 16 figures) will be published as online version

The advent of international wideband communication by optical fibre has produced a revolution in communications and the use of the internet. Many African countries are now connected to undersea fibre linking them to other African countries and to other continents. Previously international communication was by microwave links through geostationary satellites. These are becoming redundant in some countries as optical fibre takes over, as this provides 1000 times the bandwidth of the satellite links. In the 1970's and 1980's some two dozen large (30 m diameter class) antennas were built in various African countries to provide the satellite links. Twenty six are currently known in 19 countries. As these antennas become redundant, the possibility exists to convert them for radio astronomy at a cost of roughly one tenth that of a new antenna of similar size. HartRAO, SKA Africa and the South African Department of Science and Technology (DST) have started exploring this possibility with some of the African countries., Comment: 6 pages, proceedings of the South African Institute of Physics 56th Annual Conference, published electronicallyu at http://www.saip.org.za/index.php/news-and-events/saip-annual-conferences/152-saip2012-proceedings

Herbig-Haro objects are regions of shocked gas and dust which are produced when collimated outflows from a protostar interact with the surrounding dense gas. They have many similarities to supernova remnants which are interacting with molecular clouds. 1720-MHz OH masers have been identified towards a number of interacting supernova remnants. Observations and models indicate that these masers are shock excited and are produced behind C-type shocks. If conditions behind the shock fronts of Herbig-Haro objects are similarly able to support 1720-MHz OH masers they could be a useful diagnostic tool for star formation. We therefore searched for 1720-MHz OH maser emission towards a sample of 97 Herbig-Haro objects using the Green Bank radio telescope. We detected 1720-MHz OH lines in emission in 17 of them, but neither their spectral signature nor follow-up observations with the Very Large Array showed any conclusive evidence of maser emission. We conclude that the emission detected from our single-dish observations must be extended and most likely originates from thermal or quasi-thermal excitation processes. We also investigated the properties of Herbig-Haro shocks more closely and conclude that despite the overall similarities to supernova remnants, the conditions required for maser emission, in particular, a sufficient velocity-coherent column density, are not likely to occur in Herbig-Haro objects., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Circinus X-1 is a bright and highly variable X-ray binary which displays strong and rapid evolution in all wavebands. Radio flaring, associated with the production of a relativistic jet, occurs periodically on a ~17-day timescale. A longer-term envelope modulates the peak radio fluxes in flares, ranging from peaks in excess of a Jansky in the 1970s to an historic low of milliJanskys during the years 1994 to 2007. Here we report first observations of this source with the MeerKAT test array, KAT-7, part of the pathfinder development for the African dish component of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), demonstrating successful scientific operation for variable and transient sources with the test array. The KAT-7 observations at 1.9 GHz during the period 13 December 2011 to 16 January 2012 reveal in temporal detail the return to the Jansky-level events observed in the 1970s. We compare these data to contemporaneous single-dish measurements at 4.8 and 8.5 GHz with the HartRAO 26-m telescope and X-ray monitoring from MAXI. We discuss whether the overall modulation and recent dramatic brightening is likely to be due to an increase in the power of the jet due to changes in accretion rate or changing Doppler boosting associated with a varying angle to the line of sight., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS 14 May 2013

As partial justification of their framework for iterated belief revision Darwiche and Pearl convincingly argued against Boutiliers natural revision and provided a prototypical revision operator that fits into their scheme. We show that the Darwiche-Pearl arguments lead naturally to the acceptance of a smaller class of operators which we refer to as admissible. Admissible revision ensures that the penultimate input is not ignored completely, thereby eliminating natural revision, but includes the Darwiche-Pearl operator, Nayaks lexicographic revision operator, and a newly introduced operator called restrained revision. We demonstrate that restrained revision is the most conservative of admissible revision operators, effecting as few changes as possible, while lexicographic revision is the least conservative, and point out that restrained revision can also be viewed as a composite operator, consisting of natural revision preceded by an application of a "backwards revision" operator previously studied by Papini. Finally, we propose the establishment of a principled approach for choosing an appropriate revision operator in different contexts and discuss future work.

We present a detailed multi-epoch analysis of 31 potential southern hemisphere radio calibrators that were originally observed as part of a program to maintain the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF). At radio wavelengths, the primary calibrators are Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), powerful radio emitters which exist at the centre of most galaxies. These are known to vary at all wavelengths at which they have been observed. By determining the amount of radio source structure and variability of these AGN, we determine their suitability as phase calibrators for long baseline radio interferometry at 2.3 GHz. For this purpose, we have used a set of complementary metrics to classify these 31 southern sources into five categories pertaining to their suitability as VLBI calibrators. We find that all of the sources in our sample would be good interferometric calibrators and almost ninety per cent would be very good calibrators., Comment: 9 pages, 7 Figures, accepted MNRAS

[Abridged] Observations of molecular gas at all redshifts are critical for measuring the cosmic evolution in molecular gas density and understanding the star-formation history of the Universe. The 12CO molecule (J=1-0 transition = 115.27 GHz) is the best proxy for extragalactic H2, which is the gas reservoir from which star formation occurs, and has been detected out to z~6. Typically, redshifted high-J lines are observed at mm-wavelengths, the most commonly targeted systems exhibiting high SFRs (e.g. submm galaxies), and far-IR-bright QSOs. While the most luminous objects are the most readily observed, detections of more typical galaxies with modest SFRs are essential for completing the picture. ALMA will be revolutionary in terms of increasing the detection rate and pushing the sensitivity limit down to include such galaxies, however the limited FoV when observing at such high frequencies makes it difficult to use ALMA for studies of the large-scale structure traced out by molecular gas in galaxies. This article introduces a strategy for a systematic search for molecular gas during the EoR (z~7 and above), capitalizing on the fact that the J=1-0 transition of 12CO enters the upper bands of cm-wave instruments at high-z. The FoV advantage gained by observing at such frequencies, coupled with modern broadband correlators allows significant cosmological volumes to be probed on reasonable timescales. In this article we present an overview of our future observing programme which has been awarded 6,500 hours as one of the Large Survey Projects for MeerKAT, the forthcoming South African SKA pathfinder instrument. Its large FoV and correlator bandwidth, and high-sensitivity provide unprecedented survey speed for such work. An existing astrophysical simulation is coupled with instrumental considerations to demonstrate the feasibility of such observations and predict detection rates., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, to appear in the proceedings of "Astronomy with megastructures: Joint science with the E-ELT and SKA", 10-14 May 2010, Crete, Greece (Eds: Isobel Hook, Dimitra Rigopoulou, Steve Rawlings and Aris Karastergiou)

The TANAMI (Tracking AGN with Austral Milliarcsecond Interferometry) and associated programs provide comprehensive radio monitoring of extragalactic gamma-ray sources south of declination -30 degrees. Joint quasi-simultaneous observations between the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and ground based observatories allow us to discriminate between competing theoretical blazar emission models. High resolution VLBI observations are the only way to spatially resolve the sub-parsec level emission regions where the high-energy radiation originates. The gap from radio to gamma-ray energies is spanned with near simultaneous data from the Swift satellite and ground based optical observatories. We present early results from the TANAMI program in the context of this panchromatic suite of observations., Comment: 2009 Fermi Symposium, eConf Proceedings C091122

We present a summary of the observation strategy of TANAMI (Tracking Active Galactic Nuclei with Austral Milliarcsecond Interferometry), a monitoring program to study the parsec-scale structure and dynamics of relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) of the Southern Hemisphere with the Australian Long Baseline Array (LBA) and the trans-oceanic antennas Hartebeesthoek, TIGO, and O'Higgins. TANAMI is focusing on extragalactic sources south of -30 degrees declination with observations at 8.4 GHz and 22 GHz every ~2 months at milliarcsecond resolution. The initial TANAMI sample of 43 sources has been defined before the launch of the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope to include the most promising candidates for bright gamma-ray emission to be detected with its Large Area Telescope (LAT). Since November 2008, we have been adding new sources to the sample, which now includes all known radio- and gamma-ray bright AGN of the Southern Hemisphere. The combination of VLBI and gamma-ray observations is crucial to understand the broadband emission characteristics of AGN and the nature of relativistic jets., Comment: Conference proceedings "2009 Fermi Symposium" eConf Proceedings C091122

TANAMI (Tracking Active Galactic Nuclei with Austral Milliarcsecond Interferometry) is a monitoring program to study the parsec-scale structures and dynamics of relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) of the Southern Hemisphere with the Long Baseline Array and associated telescopes. Extragalactic jets south of -30 degrees declination are observed at 8.4 GHz and 22 GHz every two months at milliarcsecond resolution. The initial TANAMI sample is a hybrid radio and gamma-ray selected sample since the combination of VLBI and gamma-ray observations is crucial to understand the broadband emission characteristics of AGN., Comment: Confernce Proceedings for "X-ray Astronomy 2009" (Bologna), 3 pages, 3 figures, needs cls-file

We present the specifications of the MeerKAT Karoo Array Telescope, the South African Square Kilometre Array Precursor. Some of the key science for MeerKAT is described in this document. We invite the community to submit proposals for Large Key Projects.

Very deep neutral hydrogen (HI) observations of the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3079 with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) are presented. The galaxy has been studied extensively in different wavelengths and known for its several unique and complex features. However, the new data still revealed several new features and show that the galaxy is even more complicated and interesting than previously thought. In the new data a large stream of gas, encircling the entire galaxy, was discovered, while the data also show, for the first time, that not only hot gas is blown into space by the starburst/AGN, but also large amounts of cold gas, despite the high energies involved in the outflow., Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of the "Galaxy Wars: Stellar Populations and Star Formation in Interacting Galaxies" Conference, B. Smith, N. Bastian, J. Higdon and S. Higdon eds, in press

In a study of the radio emission mechanism of the FR-I AGN NGC 5128 (Centaurus A)}, we have determined the centimeter and millimeter continuum spectrum of the whole Centaurus A radio source and measured the continuum emission from the active galxy nucleus at various times between 1989 and 2005 at frequencies between 86 GHz (3.5 mm) and 345 GHz (0.85 mm). The integral Cen A spectrum becomes steeper at frequencies above 5 GHz, where the spectral index changes from -0.70 to -0.82. Millimeter emission from the core of Centaurus A is variable, and correlates appreciably better with the 20-200 keV than the 2 - 10 keV X-ray variability. In its quiescent state, the core spectral index is -0.3, which steepens when the core brightens. The variability appears to be mostly associated with the inner nuclear jet components that have been detected in VLBI measurements. The densest nuclear components are optically thick below 45-80 GHz., Comment: Astronomy and Astrophysics, in press

We have carried out sub-mm 12CO(J=3-2) observations of 6 giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) with the ASTE 10m sub-mm telescope at a spatial resolution of 5 pc and very high sensitivity. We have identified 32 molecular clumps in the GMCs and revealed significant details of the warm and dense molecular gas with n(H2) $\sim$ 10$^{3-5}$ cm$^{-3}$ and Tkin $\sim$ 60 K. These data are combined with 12CO(J=1-0) and 13CO(J=1-0) results and compared with LVG calculations. We found that the ratio of 12CO(J=3-2) to 12CO(J=1-0) emission is sensitive to and is well correlated with the local Halpha flux. We interpret that differences of clump propeties represent an evolutionary sequence of GMCs in terms of density increase leading to star formation.Type I and II GMCs (starless GMCs and GMCs with HII regions only, respectively) are at the young phase of star formation where density does not yet become high enough to show active star formation and Type III GMCs (GMCs with HII regions and young star clusters) represents the later phase where the average density is increased and the GMCs are forming massive stars. The high kinetic temperature correlated with \Halpha flux suggests that FUV heating is dominant in the molecular gas of the LMC., Comment: 74 pages, including 41 figures, accepted for publication in ApJS

We have searched for emission from the 557 GHz ortho-water line in the interstellar medium of six nearby starburst galaxies. We used the Odin satellite to observe the 1_10-1_01 transition of o-H2O in the galaxies NGC253, IC342, M82, NGC4258, CenA, and M51. None of the galaxies in our sample was detected. We derive three sigma upper limits to the H2O abundance relative to H2 ranging from 2e-9 to 1e-8. The best of these upper limits are comparable to the measured abundance of H$_2$O in the Galactic star forming region W3. However, if only 10% of the molecular gas is in very dense cores, then the water abundance limits in the cores themselves would be larger by a factor of 10 i.e. 2e-8 to 1e-7. These observations suggest that detections of H2O emission in galaxies with the upcoming Herschel Space Observatory are likely to require on-source integration times of an hour or more except in the very brightest extragalactic targets such as M82 and NGC253., Comment: Now accepted to A&A. Major change to Herschel time estimates in section 4. New estimates done with HSPOT and should be accurate; old estimates were done based on a HIFI memo that seems to have a factor of 5 error in the rms in W/m^2. 5 pages, 6 figures

Molecular oxygen, O2 has been expected historically to be an abundant component of the chemical species in molecular clouds and, as such, an important coolant of the dense interstellar medium. However, a number of attempts from both ground and from space have failed to detect O2 emission. The work described here uses heterodyne spectroscopy from space to search for molecular oxygen in the interstellar medium. The Odin satellite carries a 1.1 m sub-millimeter dish and a dedicated 119 GHz receiver for the ground state line of O2. Starting in 2002, the star forming molecular cloud core rho Oph A was observed with Odin for 34 days during several observing runs. We detect a spectral line at v(LSR) = 3.5 km/s with dv(FWHM) = 1.5 km/s, parameters which are also common to other species associated with rho Ohp A. This feature is identified as the O2 (N_J = 1_1 - 1_0) transition at 118 750.343 MHz. The abundance of molecular oxygen, relative to H2,, is 5E-8 averaged over the Odin beam. This abundance is consistently lower than previously reported upper limits., Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

Context: Methanol masers at 6.7GHz are recognised markers of high-mass star formation regions. The study of their distribution in the Galaxy gives important insights into the star formation activity of the Milky Way. We present a statistical analysis on the General Catalogue of 6.7GHz methanol masers in the Galaxy with the aim of extracting global properties of the masers. Aims: We provide constraints on the luminosity function of 6.7GHz methanol masers and on their total number in the Galaxy. Methods: We model the spatial distribution of the masers in the Milky Way by using their distribution in galactocentric distance which is unambiguous once a rotation curve for the Galaxy is assumed. This is the starting point for determining the luminosity function of the masers. Results: The luminosity function of 6.7GHz methanol masers is modelled as a power-law with sharp cutoffs and having an index lying between -1.5 and -2. We also predict the number of detections of methanol masers assuming different sensitivity limits in the observations., Comment: References added. 10 pages, accepted for publication in A&A

We present a 39 h integration with the Odin satellite on the ground-state 118.75 GHz line of O2 towards the region of strongest molecular emission in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Our 3sigma upper limit to the O2 integrated intensity of <0.049 K km/s in a 9'(160 pc) diameter beam corresponds to an upper limit on the O2/H2 abundance ratio of <1.3E-6. Although a factor of 20 above the best limit on the O2 abundance obtained for a Galactic source, our result has interesting implications for understanding oxygen chemistry at sub-solar metal abundances. We compare our abundance limit to a variety of astrochemical models and find that, at low metallicities, the low O2 abundance is most likely produced by the effects of photo-dissociation on molecular cloud structure. Freeze-out of molecules onto dust grains may also be consistent with the observed abundance limit, although such models have not yet been run at sub-solar initial metallicities., Comment: 4 pages, accepted to A&A Letters