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Binaries have received much attention as possible progenitors of Type Ia supernova (SNIa) explosions, but long-term gravitational effects in tight triple or quadruple systems could also play a key role in producing SNIa. Here we report on the properties of a spectroscopic quadruple (SB4) found within a star cluster: the 2+2 hierarchical system HD 74438. Its membership in the open cluster IC 2391 makes it the youngest (43 My) SB4 discovered so far and among the quadruple systems with the shortest outer orbital period. The eccentricity of the 6 y outer period is 0.46 and the two inner orbits, with periods of 20.5 d and 4.4 d, and eccentricities of 0.36 and 0.15, are not coplanar. Using an innovative combination of ground-based high resolution spectroscopy and Gaia/Hipparcos astrometry, we show that this system is undergoing secular interaction that likely pumped the eccentricity of one of the inner orbits higher than expected for the spectral types of its components. We compute the future evolution of HD 74438 and show that this system is an excellent candidate progenitor of sub-Chandrasekhar SNIa through white dwarf (WD) mergers. Taking into account the contribution of this specific type of SNIa better accounts for the chemical evolution of iron-peak elements in the Galaxy than considering only near Chandrasekhar-mass SNIa., accepted for publication in Nature Astronomy

WEAVE, the new wide-field, massively multiplexed spectroscopic survey facility for the William Herschel Telescope, will see first light in late 2022. WEAVE comprises a new 2-degree field-of-view prime-focus corrector system, a nearly 1000-multiplex fibre positioner, 20 individually deployable 'mini' integral field units (IFUs), and a single large IFU. These fibre systems feed a dual-beam spectrograph covering the wavelength range 366$-$959\,nm at $R\sim5000$, or two shorter ranges at $R\sim20\,000$. After summarising the design and implementation of WEAVE and its data systems, we present the organisation, science drivers and design of a five- to seven-year programme of eight individual surveys to: (i) study our Galaxy's origins by completing Gaia's phase-space information, providing metallicities to its limiting magnitude for $\sim$3 million stars and detailed abundances for $\sim1.5$ million brighter field and open-cluster stars; (ii) survey $\sim0.4$ million Galactic-plane OBA stars, young stellar objects and nearby gas to understand the evolution of young stars and their environments; (iii) perform an extensive spectral survey of white dwarfs; (iv) survey $\sim400$ neutral-hydrogen-selected galaxies with the IFUs; (v) study properties and kinematics of stellar populations and ionised gas in $z1$ million spectra of LOFAR-selected radio sources; (viii) trace structures using intergalactic/circumgalactic gas at $z>2$. Finally, we describe the WEAVE Operational Rehearsals using the WEAVE Simulator., 41 pages, 27 figures, accepted for publication by MNRAS

4MOST is a new high-multiplex, wide-field spectroscopic survey facility under construction for ESO's 4m-VISTA telescope at Paranal, Chile. Its key specifications are: a large field of view of 4.4 square degrees, a high multiplex fibre positioner based on the tilting spine principle that positions 2436 science fibres in the focal surface of which 1624 fibres go to two low-resolution optical spectrographs (R = lambda/Delta lambda similar to 6500) and 812 fibres transfer light to the high-resolution optical spectrograph (R similar to 20,000). Currently, almost all subsystems are completed and full testing in Europe will be finished in spring 2023, after which 4MOST will be shipped to Chile. An overview is given of instrument construction and capabilities, the planned science of the consortium and the recently selected community programmes, and the unique operational scheme of 4MOST.

We describe the atomic and molecular data that were used for the abundance analyses of FGK-type stars carried out within the Gaia-ESO Survey. We present an unprecedented effort to create a homogeneous line list, which was used by several abundance analysis groups to calculate synthetic spectra and equivalent widths. The atomic data are accompanied by quality indicators and detailed references to the sources. The atomic and molecular data are made publicly available in electronic form. In general experimental transition probabilities were preferred but theoretical values were also used. Astrophysical gf-values were avoided due to the model-dependence of such a procedure. For elements whose lines are significantly affected by hyperfine structure or isotopic splitting a concerted effort has been made to collate the necessary data for the individual line components. We also performed a detailed investigation of available data for line broadening due to collisions with neutral hydrogen atoms. Synthetic spectra calculated for the Sun and Arcturus were used to assess the blending properties of the lines. Among a subset of over 1300 lines of 35 elements in the wavelength ranges from 475 nm to 685 nm and from 850 nm to 895 nm we identified about 200 lines of 24 species which have accurate gf-values and are free of blends in the spectra of the Sun and Arcturus. For the broadening due to collisions with neutral hydrogen we recommend data based on Anstee-Barklem-O'Mara theory, where available, and to avoid lines of neutral species otherwise. Theoretical broadening data by R.L. Kurucz should be used for Sc II, Ti II, and Y II lines. For ionised rare-earth species the Uns\"old approximation with an enhancement factor of 1.5 for the line width can be used. Desirable improvements in atomic data were identified for a number of species, including Al I, S I, Cr II, Na I, Si I, Ca II, and Ni I., Comment: Accepted for publication in section 12. Atomic, molecular, and nuclear data of Astronomy and Astrophysics; main part 25 pages, 8 tables, 5 figures; appendices 53 pages, 23 tables, 29 figures

International audience; We present an update on the overall integration progress of the WEAVE next-generation spectroscopy facility for the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), now scheduled for first light in early-2021, with almost all components now arrived at the observatory. We also present a summary of the current planning behind the 5-year initial phase of survey operations, and some detailed end-to-end science simulations that have been implemented to evaluate the final on-sky performance after data processing. WEAVE will provide optical ground-based follow up of ground-based (LOFAR) and space-based (Gaia) surveys. WEAVE is a multi-object and multi-IFU facility utilizing a new 2-degree prime focus field of view at the WHT, with a buffered pick-and-place positioner system hosting 1000 multi-object (MOS) fibres, 20 mini integral field units, or a single large IFU for each observation. The fibres are fed to a single (dual-beam) spectrograph, with total of 16k spectral pixels, located within the WHT GHRIL enclosure on the telescope Nasmyth platform, supporting observations at R~5000 over the full 370-1000nm wavelength range in a single exposure, or a high resolution mode with limited coverage in each arm at R~20000.

Young open clusters (t, 26 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

A status overview of 4MOST is presented, a new high-multiplex, wide-field spectroscopic survey facility under construction for ESO's VISTA telescope at Paranal. Its key specifications are: a large field of view of 4.4 deg2 and a high multiplex capability, with 1624 fibres feeding two low-resolution spectrographs (R = λ/Δλ ~ 6500), and 812 fibres transferring light to the high-resolution spectrograph (R ~ 20 000). The 4MOST system integration has commenced and the selection process for ESO community survey programmes has been started. This overview presents the expected performance of the instrument, the science the consortium expects to carry out, and the unique operational scheme of 4MOST.

Context. NGC 2264 is a young cluster whose accretion properties can be investigated in detail by taking advantage of the FLAMES data in the context of the Gaia-ESO Survey. In fact, the analysis of the Hα emission line profile can provide us with information about the accretion and ejection activity of young stars. However, a strong nebular emission that contributes to the Hα emission can alter the profiles, with consequences for their physical interpretation. Aims. Our study is aimed at investigating the accretion and ejection properties of NGC 2264 by applying a proper treatment of the sky contribution to the Hα and forbidden emission lines (FELs; [SII] and [NII] doublets). Methods. We developed a tool, the OHαNA-method, to handle the strong nebular contribution and spectra with spurious profiles of the Hα and FELs, namely altered Hα profiles or absorption features artificially created where emission lines (FELs) are expected. We derived the quantitative measurements of relevant parameters to describe the accretion and ejection processes in young members of NGC 2264, focusing on reliable quantities derived from the width of the lines, which is relatively unaffected by the nebular emission, unlike the intensity peak, which can be altered significantly. Results. We derive the quantitative measurements related to the Hα emission line and discuss the comparison between the original and sky-subtracted spectra. We thus reveal possible profile alterations with consequences for their physical interpretation. Furthermore, we show the analysis of the variability for multi-epoch observations, also deriving the velocity of the infalling and outflowing plasma from the wings of the broad Hα emission line (in accreting stars). We also explore the mass accretion rate versus full width at zero intensity of the Hα line, namely Ṁ versus FWZI(Hα), a correlation based on the width of the emission line, which is expected to be more robust with respect to any measurement derived from the peak (e.g., Hα10%) and possibly altered by the nebular contribution. Conclusions. We are able to ascertain that more than 20% of the confirmed accretors, which have already been identified in NGC 2264, are affected by the alteration of their line profiles due to the contribution of the nebular emission. Therefore, this is an important issue to consider when investigating accretion and ejection processes in young stellar clusters. While a small fraction of spectra can be unequivocally classified as either unaffected by nebular emission or dominated by nebular emission, the majority (> 90%) represent intermediate cases whose spectral features have to be investigated in detail to derive reliable measurements of the relevant parameters and their physical implications.

Context. Open clusters are recognised as excellent tracers of Galactic thin-disc properties. At variance with intermediate-age and old open clusters, for which a significant number of studies is now available, clusters younger than ≲ 150 Myr have been mostly overlooked in terms of their chemical composition until recently (with few exceptions). On the other hand, previous investigations seem to indicate an anomalous behaviour of young clusters, which includes (but is not limited to) slightly sub-solar iron (Fe) abundances and extreme, unexpectedly high barium (Ba) enhancements. Aims. In a series of papers, we plan to expand our understanding of this topic and investigate whether these chemical peculiarities are instead related to abundance analysis techniques. Methods. We present a new determination of the atmospheric parameters for 23 dwarf stars observed by the Gaia-ESO survey in five young open clusters (τ < 150 Myr) and one star-forming region (NGC 2264). We exploit a new method based on titanium (Ti) lines to derive the spectroscopic surface gravity, and most importantly, the microturbulence parameter. A combination of Ti and Fe lines is used to obtain effective temperatures. We also infer the abundances of Fe » I, Fe » II, Ti » I, Ti » II, Na » I, Mg » I, Al » I, Si » I, Ca » I, Cr » I, and Ni » I. Results. Our findings are in fair agreement with Gaia-ESO iDR5 results for effective temperatures and surface gravities, but suggest that for very young stars, the microturbulence parameter is over-estimated when Fe lines are employed. This affects the derived chemical composition and causes the metal content of very young clusters to be under-estimated. Conclusions. Our clusters display a metallicity [Fe/H] between +0.04 ± 0.01 and +0.12 ± 0.02; they are not more metal poor than the Sun. Although based on a relatively small sample size, our explorative study suggests that we may not need to call for ad hoc explanations to reconcile the chemical composition of young open clusters with Galactic chemical evolution models. © ESO 2020., This work is based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme ID 188.B-3002. These data products have been processed by the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit (CASU) at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, and by the FLAMES/UVES reduction team at INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. These data have been obtained from the Gaia-ESO Survey Data Archive, prepared and hosted by the Wide Field Astronomy Unit, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, which is funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF and Ministero dell' Istruzione, dell' Universita' e della Ricerca (MIUR) in the form of the grant "Premiale VLT 2012". The results presented here benefit from discussions held during the Gaia-ESO workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. V.A. is supported by FCT -Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia through national funds and by FEDER through COMPETE2020 -Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizacao by these grants: Investigador FCT contract nr. IF/00650/2015/CP1273/CT0001; UID/FIS/04434/2019; PTDC/FIS-AST/28953/2017 & POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028953 and PTDC/FIS-AST/32113/2017 & POCI-01-0145-FEDER-032113. F.J.E. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish MINECO/FEDER through grant AyA2017-84089. T.B. was supported by the project grant "The New Milky Way" from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. U.H. acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA/Rymdstyrelsen). S.G.S acknowledges the support by Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT) through national funds and a research grant (project ref. UID/FIS/04434/2013, and PTDC/FIS-AST/7073/2014). S.G.S. also acknowledge the support from FCT through Investigador FCT contract of reference IF/00028/2014 and POPH/FSE (EC) by FEDER funding through the program -Programa Operacional de Factores de Competitividade -COMPETE.

This paper focuses on carbon that is one of the most abundant elements in the Universe and is of high importance in the field of nucleosynthesis and galactic and stellar evolution. Even nowadays, the origin of carbon and the relative importance of massive and low- to intermediate-mass stars in producing it is still a matter of debate. In this paper we aim at better understanding the origin of carbon by studying the trends of [C/H], [C/Fe],and [C/Mg] versus [Fe/H], and [Mg/H] for 2133 FGK dwarf stars from the fifth Gaia-ESO Survey internal data release (GES iDR5). The availability of accurate parallaxes and proper motions from Gaia DR2 and radial velocities from GES iDR5 allows us to compute Galactic velocities, orbits and absolute magnitudes and, for 1751 stars, ages via a Bayesian approach. Three different selection methodologies have been adopted to discriminate between thin and thick disk stars. In all the cases, the two stellar groups show different abundance ratios, [C/H], [C/Fe], and [C/Mg], and span different age intervals, with the thick disk stars being, on average, older than those in the thin disk. The behaviours of [C/H], [C/Fe], and [C/Mg] versus [Fe/H], [Mg/H], and age all suggest that C is primarily produced in massive stars like Mg. The increase of [C/Mg] for young thin disk stars indicates a contribution from low-mass stars or the increased C production from massive stars at high metallicities due to the enhanced mass loss. The analysis of the orbital parameters Rmed and |Zmax| support an "inside-out" and "upside-down" formation scenario for the disks of Milky Way., 27 pages, 15 figures

The Gaia-ESO Survey (GES) observed many open clusters as part of its programme to spectroscopically characterize the various Milky Way populations. GES spectroscopy and Gaia astrometry from its second data release are used here to assign membership probabilities to targets towards 32 open clusters with ages from 1 to 3800 Myr, based on maximum likelihood modelling of the 3D kinematics of the cluster and field populations. From a parent catalogue of 14 398 individual targets, 5032 stars with uniformly determined 3D velocities, Teff, log g, and chemistry are assigned cluster membership with probability >0.9, and with an average probability of 0.991. The robustness of the membership probabilities is demonstrated using independent membership criteria (lithium and parallax) in two of the youngest clusters. The addition of radial velocities improves membership discrimination over proper motion selection alone, especially in more distant clusters. The kinematically selected nature of the membership lists, independent of photometry and chemistry, makes the catalogue a valuable resource for testing stellar evolutionary models and investigating the time evolution of various parameters., This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant no. RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF and Ministero dell’ Istruzione, dell’ Università’ e della Ricerca (MIUR) in the form of the grant ‘Premiale VLT 2012’. The results presented here benefit from discussions held during the Gaia-ESO workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme.

Context. In the era of large spectroscopic surveys, massive databases of high-quality spectra coupled with the products of the Gaia satellite provide tools to outline a new picture of our Galaxy. In this framework, an important piece of information is provided by our ability to infer stellar ages, and consequently to sketch a Galactic timeline. Aims. We aim to provide empirical relations between stellar ages and abundance ratios for a sample of stars with very similar stellar parameters to those of the Sun, namely the so-called solar-like stars. We investigate the dependence on metallicity, and we apply our relations to independent samples, that is, the Gaia-ESO samples of open clusters and of field stars. Methods. We analyse high-resolution and high-signal-to-noise-ratio HARPS spectra of a sample of solar-like stars to obtain precise determinations of their atmospheric parameters and abundances for 25 elements and/or ions belonging to the main nucleosynthesis channels through differential spectral analysis, and of their ages through isochrone fitting. Results. We investigate the relations between stellar ages and several abundance ratios. For the abundance ratios with a steeper dependence on age, we perform multivariate linear regressions, in which we include the dependence on metallicity, [Fe/H]. We apply our best relations to a sample of open clusters located from the inner to the outer regions of the Galactic disc. Using our relations, we are able to recover the literature ages only for clusters located at RGC&Rlarr2; > &Rlarr2; 7 kpc. The values that we obtain for the ages of the inner-disc clusters are much greater than the literature ones. In these clusters, the content of neutron capture elements, such as Y and Zr, is indeed lower than expected from chemical evolution models, and consequently their [Y/Mg] and [Y/Al] are lower than in clusters of the same age located in the solar neighbourhood. With our chemical evolution model and a set of empirical yields, we suggest that a strong dependence on the star formation history and metallicity-dependent stellar yields of s-process elements can substantially modify the slope of the [s/α]-[Fe/H]-age relation in different regions of the Galaxy. Conclusions. Our results point towards a non-universal relation [s/α]-[Fe/H]-age, indicating the existence of relations with different slopes and intercepts at different Galactocentric distances or for different star formation histories. Therefore, relations between ages and abundance ratios obtained from samples of stars located in a limited region of the Galaxy cannot be translated into general relations valid for the whole disc. A better understanding of the s-process at high metallicity is necessary to fully understand the origin of these variations. © ESO 2020., The authors would like to thanks Dr. Leslie K. Hunt for her help in the statistical interpretation of our results. Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme ID 188.B-3002. These data products have been processed by the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit (CASU) at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, and by the FLAMES/UVES reduction team at INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. These data have been obtained from the GES Survey Data Archive, prepared and hosted by the Wide Field Astronomy Unit, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, which is funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). This research has made use of the services of the ESO Science Archive Facility. This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF and Ministero dell' Istruzione, dell' Universita e della Ricerca (MIUR) in the form of the grant "Premiale VLT 2012". The results presented here benefit from discussions held during the GES workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. LM acknowledge the funding from the INAF PRIN-SKA 2017 program 1.05.01.88.04. LM and MVdS acknowledge the funding from MIUR Premiale 2016: MITIC. T.B. was supported by the project grant "The New Milky Way" from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. M. acknowledges support provided by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), under grant AYA-2017-88254-P. L.S. acknowledges financial support from the Australian Research Council (Discovery Project 170100521) and from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013. F.J.E. acknowledges financial support from the ASTERICS project (ID:653477, H2020-EU.1.4.1.1. - Developing new world-class research infrastructures). U.H. acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA/Rymdstyrelsen). T.B was partly funded by the project grant "The New Milky Way" from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, and partly by grant No. 2018-04857 from the Swedish Research Council.

Full list of authors: Gutiérrez Albarrán, M. L.; Montes, D.; Gómez Garrido, M.; Tabernero, H. M.; González Hernández, J. I.; Marfil, E.; Frasca, A.; Lanzafame, A. C.; Klutsch, A.; Franciosini, E.; Randich, S.; Smiljanic, R.; Korn, A. J.; Gilmore, G.; Alfaro, E. J.; Baratella, M.; Bayo, A.; Bensby, T.; Bonito, R.; Carraro, G. Delgado Mena, E.; Feltzing, S.; Gonneau, A.; Heiter, U.; Hourihane, A.; Jiménez Esteban, F.; Jofre, P.; Masseron, T.; Monaco, L.; Morbidelli, L.; Prisinzano, L.; Roccatagliata, V.; Sousa, S.; Van der Swaelmen, M.; Worley, C. C.; Zaggia, S., Context. Previous studies of open clusters have shown that lithium depletion is not only strongly age dependent but also shows a complex pattern with other parameters that is not yet understood. For pre- and main-sequence late-type stars, these parameters include metallicity, mixing mechanisms, convection structure, rotation, and magnetic activity. Aims. We perform a thorough membership analysis for a large number of stars observed within the Gaia-ESO survey (GES) in the field of 20 open clusters, ranging in age from young clusters and associations, to intermediate-age and old open clusters. Methods. Based on the parameters derived from the GES spectroscopic observations, we obtained lists of candidate members for each of the clusters in the sample by deriving radial velocity distributions and studying the position of the kinematic selections in the EW(Li)-versus-Teff plane to obtain lithium members. We used gravity indicators to discard field contaminants and studied [Fe/H] metallicity to further confirm the membership of the candidates. We also made use of studies using recent data from the Gaia DR1 and DR2 releases to assess our member selections. Results. We identified likely member candidates for the sample of 20 clusters observed in GES (iDR4) with UVES and GIRAFFE, and conducted a comparative study that allowed us to characterize the properties of these members as well as identify field contaminant stars, both lithium-rich giants and non-giant outliers. Conclusions. This work is the first step towards the calibration of the lithium-age relation and its dependence on other GES parameters. During this project we aim to use this relation to infer the ages of GES field stars, and identify their potential membership to young associations and stellar kinematic groups of different ages. © ESO 2020., Financial support was provided by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) from project AYA2016-79425-C3-1-P. We acknowledge the support from INAF and Ministero dell' Istruzione, dell' Universita' e della Ricerca (MIUR) in the form of the grant "Premiale VLT 2012". T.B. was funded by the project grant "The New Milky Way" from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. J.I.G.H. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MICIU) under the 2003 Ramon y Cajal program RYC-2013-14875, and also from the Spanish Ministry project MICIU AYA2017-86389-P. E.M. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion through fellowship FPU15/01476. A.G. acknowledges support from the European Union FP7 programme from the UK space agency. U.H. acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA/Rymdstyrelsen). F.J.E. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish MINECO/FEDER through the grant AyA2017-84089. S.G.S acknowledges the support of Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT) through national funds and research grant (project ref. UID/FIS/04434/2013, and PTDC/FIS-AST/7073/2014). S.G.S also acknowledges the support from FCT through Investigador FCT contract of reference IF/00028/2014 and POPH/FSE (EC) by FEDER funding through the program "Programa Operacional de Factores de Competitividad" - COMPETE MT also acknowledges support from the FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia through national funds (PTDC/FIS-AST/28953/2017) and by FEDER -Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional through COMPETE2020 - Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizacao (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028953). TM acknowledges support from the State Research Agency (AEI) of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIU) and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) under grant AYA2017-88254-P Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme focusID 188.B-3002. These data products have been processed by the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit (CASU) at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, and by the FLAMES/UVES reduction team at INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. These data have been obtained from the GES Data Archive, prepared and hosted by theWide Field Astronomy Unit, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, which is funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. The results presented here benefit from discussions held during GES workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. This work was also supported by Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT) through the research grants UID/FIS/04434/2019, UIDB/04434/2020 and UIDP/04434/2020. This work has made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium).Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. This publication makes use of the VizieR database (Ochsenbein et al. 2000) and the SIMBAD database (Wenger et al. 2000), both operated at CDS, Centre de Donnees astronomiques de Strasbourg, France. This research also made use of the WEBDA database, operated at the Department of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics of the Masaryk University, and the interactive graphical viewer and editor for tabular data TOPCAT (Taylor 2005). For the analysis of the distributions of RV and metallicity we used RStudio Team (2015). Integrated Development for R. RStudio, Inc., Boston, MA (http://www.rstudio.com/).Finally, we would like to thank the anonymous referee for helpful comments and suggestions.

The Gaia FGK benchmark stars are among the preferred samples of reference stars to test parametrisation pipelines of spectroscopic surveys. They consist of a small but carefully selected sample whose parameters are derived consistently and homogeneously. Here we summarise this work and provide our current list of stars with associated parameters which are recommended for validation and calibration purposes for stellar surveys. Data available at CDS as catalog III/281., published in RNAAS

We present a high resolution synthetic spectral library, INTRIGOSS, designed for studying FGK stars. The library is based on atmosphere models computed with specified individual element abundances via ATLAS12 code. Normalized SPectra (NSP) and surface Flux SPectra (FSP), in the 4830-5400 A, wavelength range, were computed with the SPECTRUM code. INTRIGOSS uses the solar composition by Grevesse et al. 2007 and four [alpha/Fe] abundance ratios and consists of 15,232 spectra. The synthetic spectra are computed with astrophysical gf-values derived by comparing synthetic predictions with a very high SNR solar spectrum and the UVES-U580 spectra of five cool giants. The validity of the NSPs is assessed by using the UVES-U580 spectra of 2212 stars observed in the framework of the Gaia-ESO Survey and characterized by homogeneous and accurate atmospheric parameter values and by detailed chemical compositions. The greater accuracy of NSPs with respect to spectra from the AMBRE, GES_Grid, PHOENIX, C14, and B17 synthetic spectral libraries is demonstrated by evaluating the consistency of the predictions of the different libraries for the UVES-U580 sample stars. The validity of the FSPs is checked by comparing their prediction with both observed spectral energy distribution and spectral indices. The comparison of FSPs with SEDs derived from ELODIE, INDO--U.S., and MILES libraries indicates that the former reproduce the observed flux distributions within a few percent and without any systematic trend. The good agreement between observational and synthetic Lick/SDSS indices shows that the predicted blanketing of FSPs well reproduces the observed one, thus confirming the reliability of INTRIGOSS FSPs., 32 pages, 12 figures

International audience; We present an update on the overall construction progress of the WEAVE next-generation spectroscopy facility for the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), now that all the major fabrication contracts are in place. We also present a summary of the current planning behind the 5-year initial phase of survey operations, and some detailed end-to-end science simulations that have been effected to evaluate the final on-sky performance after data processing. WEAVE will provide optical ground-based follow up of ground-based (LOFAR) and space-based (Gaia) surveys. WEAVE is a multi-object and multi-IFU facility utilizing a new 2-degree prime focus field of view at the WHT, with a buffered pick-and-place positioner system hosting 1000 multi-object (MOS) fibres, 20 integral field units, or a single large IFU for each observation. The fibres are fed to a single (dual-beam) spectrograph, with total of 16k spectral pixels, located within the WHT GHRIL enclosure on the telescope Nasmyth platform, supporting observations at R 5000 over the full 370-1000nm wavelength range in a single exposure, or a high resolution mode with limited coverage in each arm at R 20000. The project has experienced some delays in procurement and now has first light expected for the middle of 2019.

Investigating the chemical homogeneity of stars born from the same molecular cloud at virtually the same time is very important for our understanding of the chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium and with it the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. One major cause of inhomogeneities in the abundances of open clusters is stellar evolution of the cluster members. In this work, we investigate variations in the surface chemical composition of member stars of the old open clusterM67 as a possible consequence of atomic diffusion effects taking place during the main-sequence phase. The abundances used are obtained from high-resolution UVES/FLAMES spectra within the framework of the Gaia-ESO Survey. We find that the surface abundances of stars on the main sequence decrease with increasing mass reaching a minimum at the turn-off. After deepening of the convective envelope in subgiant branch stars, the initial surface abundances are restored.We found themeasured abundances to be consistent with the predictions of stellar evolutionary models for a cluster with the age and metallicity of M67. Our findings indicate that atomic diffusion poses a non-negligible constraint on the achievable precision of chemical tagging methods.© 2018 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society., This work was supported by Sonderforschungsbereich SFB 881 'The Milky Way System' (subproject B5) of the German Research Foundation (DFG). AB acknowledges support from the SFB 881 visitor program. CBM thanks Elisabetta Caffau for fruitful discussions and Don VandenBerg for providing the isochrones shown in Fig 1. The authors would like to thank the anonymous referee for the constructive comments that helped in improving the present work.r MTC acknowledges the financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, through grant AYA2016-75931. AD and GT acknowledge support by the Research Council of Lithuania (MIP-082/2015). UH acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB/Rymdstyrelsen). TB was supported by the project grant 'The New Milky' from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation. RS acknowledges support from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. SGS and VA acknowledge the support by Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT) through national funds and a research grant (project ref. UID/FIS/04434/2013, and PTDC/FISAST/7073/2014). SGS also acknowledges the support from FCT through Investigador FCT contract of reference IF/00028/2014 and POPH/FSE (EC) by FEDER funding through the program 'Programa Operacional de Factores de Competitividade - COMPETE'. VA acknowledges the support from FCT through Investigador FCT contract IF/00650/2015/CP1273/CT0001. EJA acknowledges partial support from the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER funds through grant AYA2013-40611-P. ARC is supported through an Australian Research Council Discovery Project under grant DP160100637. CL thanks the Swiss National Science Foundation for supporting this research through the Ambizione grant number PZ00P2 168065. AK acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB). XF acknowledges financial support from Premiale 2015 MITiC (PI B/Garilli). SLM acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council through grant DE140100598. AB acknowledges support from the Millennium Science Initiative (Chilean Ministry of Economy).r Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme ID 188.B-3002. These data products have been processed by the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit (CASU) at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, and by the FLAMES/UVES reduction team at INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. These data have been obtained from the Gaia-ESO Survey Data Archive, prepared and hosted by the Wide Field Astronomy Unit, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, which is funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF and Ministero dell' Istruzione, dell' Universita' e della Ricerca (MIUR) in the form of the grant 'Premiale VLT 2012', and through PRIN-INAF 2014 'The Gaia-ESO Survey'. The results presented here benefit from discussions held during the Gaia-ESO workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. This research has made use of the SIMBAD data base, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France and NASA's Astrophysics Data System.

The abundance ratio N/O is a useful tool to study the interplay of galactic processes, e.g. star formation efficiency, time-scale of infall and outflow loading factor We aim to trace log(N/O) versus [Fe/H] in the Milky Way and to compare it with a set of chemical evolution models to understand the role of infall, outflow and star formation efficiency in the building-up of the Galactic disc. We use the abundances from idr2-3, idr4, idr5 data releases of the Gaia-ESO Survey both for Galactic field and open cluster stars.We determine membership and average composition of open clusters and we separate thin and thick disc field stars.We consider the effect of mixing in the abundance of N in giant stars. We compute a grid of chemical evolution models, suited to reproduce the main features of our Galaxy, exploring the effects of the star formation efficiency, the infall time-scale and the differential outflow. With our samples, we map the metallicity range -0.6, Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures (Appendix not available in the current version), accepted for publication on A&A

The typical methodology for comparing simulated galaxies with observational surveys is usually to apply a spatial selection to the simulation to mimic the region of interest covered by a comparable observational survey sample. In this work, we compare this approach with a more sophisticated post-processing in which the observational uncertainties and selection effects (photometric, surface gravity and effective temperature) are taken into account. We compare a 'solar neighbourhood analogue' region in a model MilkyWay-like galaxy simulated with RAMSES-CH with fourth release Gaia-ESO survey data. We find that a simple spatial cut alone is insufficient and that the observational uncertainties must be accounted for in the comparison. This is particularly true when the scale of uncertainty is large compared to the dynamic range of the data, e.g. in our comparison, the [Mg/Fe] distribution is affected much more than the more accurately determined [Fe/H] distribution. Despite clear differences in the underlying distributions of elemental abundances between simulation and observation, incorporating scatter to our simulation results to mimic observational uncertainty produces reasonable agreement. The quite complete nature of the Gaia-ESO survey means that the selection function has minimal impact on the distribution of observed age and metal abundances but this would become increasingly more important for surveys with narrower selection functions.© 2017 The Author(s)., This is based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme ID 188.B-3002 (the Gaia-ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey). We acknowledge the insightful comments and support provided by our colleagues Stefano Pasetto, Daisuke Kawata, Rob Thacker and Dimitris Stamatellos. We would thank the anonymous referee for a very constructive report of the work presented here. BBT acknowledges the support of STFC through its PhD Studentship Programme (ST/F007701/1). We also acknowledge the generous allocation of resources from the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) via the DEISA Extreme Computing Initiative (PRACE-3IP Project RI-312763 and PRACE-4IP Project 653838) and STFC's DiRAC Facility (COSMOS: Galactic Archaeology). CGF acknowledges funding from the European Research Council for the FP7 ERC starting grant project LOCALSTAR and the DiRAC Complexity system, operated by the University of Leicester IT Services, which forms part of the STFC DiRAC HPC Facility (www.dirac.ac.uk). This equipment is funded by BIS National E-Infrastructure capital grant ST/K000373/1 and STFC DiRAC Operations grant ST/K0003259/1. DiRAC is part of the National E-Infrastructure. Continued access to the University of Hull's High Performance Computing Facility ('viper'), the HPC facility at the University of Central Lancashire and the computational facilities at Saint Mary's University are likewise gratefully acknowledged. TB was funded by the project grant 'The New Milky Way' from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. SGS acknowledges the support by Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT) (ref: UID/FIS/04434/2013 & PTDC/FIS-AST/7073/2014 & Investigador FCT contract of reference IF/00028/2014) through national funds and by FEDER through COMPETE2020 (ref: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007672 & POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016880). UH acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB/Rymdstyrelsen). The Gaia-ESO Survey data products have been processed by the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit (CASU) at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, and by the FLAMES/UVES reduction team at INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. These data have been obtained from the Gaia-ESO Survey Data Archive, prepared and hosted by the Wide Field Astronomy Unit, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, which is funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF and Ministero dell' Istruzione, dell' Universita' e della Ricerca (MIUR) in the form of the grant 'Premiale VLT 2012'. The results presented here benefit from discussions held during the Gaia-ESO workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. MTC acknowledge the financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, through grant AYA2013-40611-P. UH acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB/Rymdstyrelsen). This work was supported by Sonderforschungsbereich SFB 881 'The Milky Way System' (subprojects A5, C9) of the German Research Foundation (DFG). This work benefited from discussions at GNASH workshop, Victoria supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-1430152 (JINA Center for the Evolution of the Elements). ARC is supported by Australian Research Council Grant DP160100637

Context. Determination and calibration of the ages of stars, which heavily rely on stellar evolutionary models, are very challenging, while representing a crucial aspect in many astrophysical areas. Aims. We describe the methodologies that, taking advantage of Gaia-DR1 and the Gaia-ESO Survey data, enable the comparison of observed open star cluster sequences with stellar evolutionary models. The final, long-term goal is the exploitation of open clusters as age calibrators. Methods. We perform a homogeneous analysis of eight open clusters using the Gaia-DR1 TGAS catalogue for bright members and information from the Gaia-ESO Survey for fainter stars. Cluster membership probabilities for the Gaia-ESO Survey targets are derived based on several spectroscopic tracers. The Gaia-ESO Survey also provides the cluster chemical composition. We obtain cluster parallaxes using two methods. The first one relies on the astrometric selection of a sample of bona fide members, while the other one fits the parallax distribution of a larger sample of TGAS sources. Ages and reddening values are recovered through a Bayesian analysis using the 2MASS magnitudes and three sets of standard models. Lithium depletion boundary (LDB) ages are also determined using literature observations and the same models employed for the Bayesian analysis. Results. For all but one cluster, parallaxes derived by us agree with those presented in Gaia Collaboration (2017, A&A, 601, A19), while a discrepancy is found for NGC 2516; we provide evidence supporting our own determination. Inferred cluster ages are robust against models and are generally consistent with literature values. Conclusions. The systematic parallax errors inherent in the Gaia DR1 data presently limit the precision of our results. Nevertheless, we have been able to place these eight clusters onto the same age scale for the first time, with good agreement between isochronal and LDB ages where there is overlap. Our approach appears promising and demonstrates the potential of combining Gaia and ground-based spectroscopic datasets.© ESO 2018., Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme IDs 188.B-3002, 193.B.0936, and 197.B-1074. These data products have been processed by the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit (CASU) at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, and by the FLAMES/UVES reduction team at INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. These data have been obtained from the Gaia-ESO Survey Data Archive, prepared and hosted by the Wide Field Astronomy Unit, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, which is funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This work has made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (http://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, http://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. This research was made possible through the use of the AAVSO Photometric All-Sky Survey (APASS), funded by the Robert Martin Ayers Sciences Fundation. This research has made use of the SIMBAD and VizieR databases, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. This research has made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System. This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF and Ministero dell' Istruzione, dell' Universita e della Ricerca (MIUR) in the form of the grant >Premiale VLT 2012> and by PRIN-INAF 2014. The results presented here benefit from discussions held during the Gaia-ESO Survey workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. E.T., P.G.P.M. and S.D. acknowledge PRA Universita di Pisa 2016 (Stelle di piccola massa: le pietre miliari dell'archeologia galattica, PI: S. Degl'Innocenti) and INFN (Iniziativa specifica TAsP). M.T.C. acknowledge the financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, through grant AYA2016-75931. U.H. acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB/Rymdstyrelsen). P.R.F. and A.S. acknowledge useful discussions with Mario Lattanzi. We thank an anonymous referee for the very helpful and constructive comments.

Full list of authors: Spina, L.; Randich, S.; Magrini, L.; Jeffries, R. D.; Friel, E. D.; Sacco, G. G.; Pancino, E.; Bonito, R.; Bravi, L.; Franciosini, E.; Klutsch, A.; Montes, D.; Gilmore, G.; Vallenari, A.; Bensby, T.; Bragaglia, A.; Flaccomio, E.; Koposov, S. E.; Korn, A. J.; Lanzafame, A. C. Smiljanic, R.; Bayo, A.; Carraro, G.; Casey, A. R.; Costado, M. T.; Damiani, F.; Donati, P.; Frasca, A.; Hourihane, A.; Jofré, P.; Lewis, J.; Lind, K.; Monaco, L.; Morbidelli, L.; Prisinzano, L.; Sousa, S. G.; Worley, C. C.; Zaggia, S., Context. The radial metallicity distribution in the Galactic thin disc represents a crucial constraint for modelling disc formation and evolution. Open star clusters allow us to derive both the radial metallicity distribution and its evolution over time. Aims. In this paper we perform the first investigation of the present-day radial metallicity distribution based on [Fe/H] determinations in late type members of pre-main-sequence clusters. Because of their youth, these clusters are therefore essential for tracing the current interstellar medium metallicity. Methods. We used the products of the Gaia-ESO Survey analysis of 12 young regions (age < 100 Myr), covering Galactocentric distances from 6.67 to 8.70 kpc. For the first time, we derived the metal content of star forming regions farther than 500 pc from the Sun. Median metallicities were determined through samples of reliable cluster members. For ten clusters the membership analysis is discussed in the present paper, while for other two clusters (i.e. Chamaeleon I and Gamma Velorum) we adopted the members identified in our previous works. Results. All the pre-main-sequence clusters considered in this paper have close-To-solar or slightly sub-solar metallicities. The radial metallicity distribution traced by these clusters is almost flat, with the innermost star forming regions having [Fe/H] values that are 0.10-0.15 dex lower than the majority of the older clusters located at similar Galactocentric radii. Conclusions. This homogeneous study of the present-day radial metallicity distribution in the Galactic thin disc favours models that predict a flattening of the radial gradient over time. On the other hand, the decrease of the average [Fe/H] at young ages is not easily explained by the models. Our results reveal a complex interplay of several processes (e.g. star formation activity, initial mass function, supernova yields, gas flows) that controlled the recent evolution of the Milky Way. © ESO, 2017., Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme ID 188.B-3002. These data products have been processed by the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit (CASU) at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, and by the FLAMES/UVES reduction team at INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. These data have been obtained from the Gaia-ESO Survey Data Archive, prepared and hosted by the Wide Field Astronomy Unit, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, which is funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF and Ministero dell' Istruzione, dell' Universita' e della Ricerca (MIUR) in the form of the grant "Premiale VLT 2012" and PRIN-2014. The results presented here benefit from discussions held during the Gaia-ESO workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. L.S. acknowledges the support from FAPESP (2014/15706-9).

Context. The Gaia-ESO Survey (GES) is a large spectroscopic survey that provides a unique opportunity to study the distribution of spectroscopic multiple systems among different populations of the Galaxy. Aims. Our aim is to detect binarity/multiplicity for stars targeted by the GES from the analysis of the cross-correlation functions (CCFs) of the GES spectra with spectral templates. Methods. We developed a method based on the computation of the CCF successive derivatives to detect multiple peaks and determine their radial velocities, even when the peaks are strongly blended. The parameters of the detection of extrema (doe) code have been optimized for each GES GIRAFFE and UVES setup to maximize detection. The doe code therefore allows to automatically detect multiple line spectroscopic binaries (SBn, n ≥ 2). Results. We apply this method on the fourth GES internal data release and detect 354 SBn candidates (342 SB2, 11 SB3, and even one SB4), including only nine SBs known in the literature. This implies that about 98% of these SBn candidates are new because of their faint visual magnitude that can reach V = 19. Visual inspection of the SBn candidate spectra reveals that the most probable candidates have indeed a composite spectrum. Among the SB2 candidates, an orbital solution could be computed for two previously unknown binaries: CNAME 06404608+0949173 (known as V642 Mon) in NGC 2264 and CNAME 19013257-0027338 in Berkeley 81 (Be 81). A detailed analysis of the unique SB4 (four peaks in the CCF) reveals that CNAME 08414659-5303449 (HD 74438) in the open cluster IC 2391 is a physically bound stellar quadruple system. The SB candidates belonging to stellar clusters are reviewed in detail to discard false detections. We suggest that atmospheric parameters should not be used for these system components; SB-specific pipelines should be used instead. Conclusions. Our implementation of an automatic detection of spectroscopic binaries within the GES has allowed the efficient discovery of many new multiple systems. With the detection of the SB1 candidates that will be the subject of a forthcoming paper, the study of the statistical and physical properties of the spectroscopic multiple systems will soon be possible for the entire GES sample., 0, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Context. Pismis 18 is a moderately populated, intermediate-Age open cluster located within the solar circle at a Galactocentric distance of about seven kpc. Few open clusters have been studied in detail in the inner disc region before the Gaia-ESO Survey. Aims. New data from the Gaia-ESO Survey allowed us to conduct an extended radial velocity membership study as well as spectroscopic metallicity and detailed chemical abundance measurements for this cluster. Methods. Gaia-ESO Survey data for 142 potential members, lying on the upper main sequence and on the red clump, yielded radial velocity measurements, which, together with proper motion measurements from the Gaia Second Data Release (Gaia DR2), were used to determine the systemic velocity of the cluster and membership of individual stars. Photometry from Gaia DR2 was used to re-determine cluster parameters based on high confidence member stars only. Cluster abundance measurements of six radial-velocity member stars with UVES high-resolution spectroscopy are presented for 23 elements. Results. The average radial velocity of 26 high confidence members is-27.5 ± 2.5 (std) km s with an average proper motion of pmra =-5.65 ± 0.08 (std) mas yr and pmdec =-2.29 ± 0.11 (std) mas yr. According to the new estimates, based on high confidence members, Pismis 18 has an age of τ = 700 Myr, interstellar reddening of E(B-V) = 0.562 mag and a de-reddened distance modulus of DM = 11.96 mag. The median metallicity of the cluster (using the six UVES stars) is [Fe/H] = +0.23 ± 0.05 dex, with [α/Fe] = 0.07 ± 0.13 and a slight enhancement of s-and r-neutron-capture elements. Conclusions. With the present work, we fully characterized the open cluster Pismis 18. We confirmed its present location in the inner disc. We estimated a younger age than the previous literature values and we gave, for the first time, its metallicity and its detailed abundances. Its [α/Fe] and [s-process/Fe], both slightly super-solar, are in agreement with other inner-disc open clusters observed by the Gaia-ESO survey.© ESO 2019., Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme ID 188.B-3002. These data products have been processed by the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit (CASU) at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, and by the FLAMES/UVES reduction team at INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. These data have been obtained from the Gaia-ESO Survey Data Archive, prepared and hosted by the Wide Field Astronomy Unit, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, which is funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF and Ministero dell' Istruzione, dell' Universita' e della Ricerca (MIUR) in the form of the grant >Premiale VLT 2012>. The results presented here benefit from discussions held during the Gaia-ESO workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-SPACE-2013-1) under grant agreement no. 606740. This work has made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. E. T. acknowledges the University of Pisa (Low and intermediate mass stellar models for the age determination of stellar clusters observed by the Gaia satellite, PI: S. Degl'Innocenti) and INFN (Iniziativa specifica TAsP). A. R. C. acknowledges support through the Australian Research Council through grant DP160100637. E. D. -M. acknowledges the support from Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) through national funds and from FEDER through COMPETE2020 by the following grants UID/FIS/04434/2013 & POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007672, PTDC/FIS-AST/7073/2014 & POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016880 and by the Investigador FCT contract IF/00849/2015. S. F. was supported by the project grant >The New Milky Way> from Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. R. S. acknowledges support from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. A. B. acknowledges PREMIALE 2015 MITiC (PI B. Garilli).

The Gaia-ESO Survey is obtaining high-quality spectroscopic data for about 10^5 stars using FLAMES at the VLT. UVES high-resolution spectra are being collected for about 5000 FGK-type stars. These UVES spectra are analyzed in parallel by several state-of-the-art methodologies. Our aim is to present how these analyses were implemented, to discuss their results, and to describe how a final recommended parameter scale is defined. We also discuss the precision (method-to-method dispersion) and accuracy (biases with respect to the reference values) of the final parameters. These results are part of the Gaia-ESO 2nd internal release and will be part of its 1st public release of advanced data products. The final parameter scale is tied to the one defined by the Gaia benchmark stars, a set of stars with fundamental atmospheric parameters. A set of open and globular clusters is used to evaluate the physical soundness of the results. Each methodology is judged against the benchmark stars to define weights in three different regions of the parameter space. The final recommended results are the weighted-medians of those from the individual methods. The recommended results successfully reproduce the benchmark stars atmospheric parameters and the expected Teff-log g relation of the calibrating clusters. Atmospheric parameters and abundances have been determined for 1301 FGK-type stars observed with UVES. The median of the method-to-method dispersion of the atmospheric parameters is 55 K for Teff, 0.13 dex for log g, and 0.07 dex for [Fe/H]. Systematic biases are estimated to be between 50-100 K for Teff, 0.10-0.25 dex for log g, and 0.05-0.10 dex for [Fe/H]. Abundances for 24 elements were derived: C, N, O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Y, Zr, Mo, Ba, Nd, and Eu. The typical method-to-method dispersion of the abundances varies between 0.10 and 0.20 dex., Comment: 39 pages, A&A accepted

The Gaia-ESO Survey was designed to target all major Galactic components (i.e., bulge, thin and thick discs, halo and clusters), with the goal of constraining the chemical and dynamical evolution of the Milky Way. This paper presents the methodology and considerations that drive the selection of the targeted, allocated and successfully observed Milky Way field stars. The detailed understanding of the survey construction, specifically the influence of target selection criteria on observed Milky Way field stars is required in order to analyse and interpret the survey data correctly. We present the target selection process for the Milky Way field stars observed with VLT/FLAMES and provide the weights that characterise the survey target selection. The weights can be used to account for the selection effects in the Gaia-ESO Survey data for scientific studies. We provide a couple of simple examples to highlight the necessity of including such information in studies of the stellar populations in the Milky Way., ES, LH, SF, GRR and TB acknowledge support from the project grant ‘The New Milky Way’ from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. RS acknowledges support from NCN/Poland through grant 2014/15/B/ST9/03981. AJK acknowledges support by the Swedish National Space Board. Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme ID 188.B-3002. These data products have been processed by the CASU at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, and by the FLAMES/UVES reduction team at INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. These data have been obtained from the GaiaESO Survey Data Archive, prepared and hosted by the Wide Field Astronomy Unit, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, which is funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF and Ministero dell’ Istruzione, dell’ Universita’` e della Ricerca (MIUR) in the form of the grant ‘Premiale VLT 2012’. The results presented here benefit from discussions held during the Gaia-ESO workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. Based on observations obtained as part of the VHS, ESO Program, 179.A-2010 (PI: McMahon). Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the US Department of Energy Office of Science., This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Oxford University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw1011

The nature of the metallicity gradient inside the solar circle (R_GC < 8 kpc) is poorly understood, but studies of Cepheids and a small sample of open clusters suggest that it steepens in the inner disk. We investigate the metallicity gradient of the inner disk using a sample of inner disk open clusters that is three times larger than has previously been studied in the literature to better characterize the gradient in this part of the disk. We used the Gaia-ESO Survey (GES) [Fe/H] values and stellar parameters for stars in 12 open clusters in the inner disk from GES-UVES data. Cluster mean [Fe/H] values were determined based on a membership analysis for each cluster. Where necessary, distances and ages to clusters were determined via comparison to theoretical isochrones. The GES open clusters exhibit a radial metallicity gradient of -0.10+-0.02 dex/kpc, consistent with the gradient measured by other literature studies of field red giant stars and open clusters in the range R_GC ~ 6-12 kpc. We also measure a trend of increasing [Fe/H] with increasing cluster age, as has also been found in the literature. We find no evidence for a steepening of the inner disk metallicity gradient inside the solar circle as earlier studies indicated. The age-metallicity relation shown by the clusters is consistent with that predicted by chemical evolution models that include the effects of radial migration, but a more detailed comparison between cluster observations and models would be premature., This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF and Ministero dell’ Istruzione, dell’ Università e della Ricerca (MIUR) in the form of the grant “Premiale VLT 2012” and “The Chemical and Dynamical Evolution of the Milky Way and Local Group Galaxies” (prot. 2010LY5N2T). The results presented here benefit from discussions held during the Gaia-ESO workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. F.J.E. acknowledges financial support from the ARCHES project (7th Framework of the European Union, n 313146). S.V. gratefully acknowledges the support provided by Fondecyt reg. 1130721. U.H. acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB). D.G. gratefully acknowledges support from the Chilean BASAL Centro de Excelencia en Astrofísica y Tecnologías Afines (CATA) grant PFB-06/2007., This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from EDP Science via http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201527654

Red giant stars are perhaps the most important type of stars for Galactic and extra-galactic archaeology: they are luminous, occur in all stellar populations, and their surface temperatures allow precise abundance determinations for many different chemical elements. Yet, the full star formation and enrichment history of a galaxy can be traced directly only if two key observables can be determined for large stellar samples - age and chemical composition. While spectroscopy is a powerful method to analyse the detailed abundances of stars, stellar ages are the "missing link in the chain", since they are not a direct observable. However, spectroscopy should be able to estimate stellar masses, which for red giants directly infer ages provided their chemical composition is known. Here we establish a new empirical relation between the shape of the hydrogen line in the observed spectra of red giants and stellar mass determined from asteroseismology. The relation allows to determine stellar masses and ages with the accuracy of 10-15%. The method can be used with confidence for stars in the following range of stellar parameters: 4000 < Teff < 5000 K, 0.5 < log g < 3.5, -2.0 < [Fe/H] < 0.3, and luminosities log L/LSun < 2.5. Our analysis provides observational evidence that the Halpha spectral characteristics of red giant stars are tightly correlated with their mass and therefore their age. We also show that the method samples well all stellar populations with ages above 1 Gyr. Targeting bright giants, the method allows to obtain simultaneous age and chemical abundance information far deeper than would be possible with asteroseismology, extending the possible survey volume to remote regions of the Milky Way and even to neighbouring galaxies like Andromeda or the Magellanic Clouds already with present instrumentation, like VLT and Keck facilities., 18 pages, accepted for publication in A&A

Stellar evolution models predict that internal mixing should cause some sodium overabundance at the surface of red giants more massive than ~ 1.5--2.0 Msun. The surface aluminium abundance should not be affected. Nevertheless, observational results disagree about the presence and/or the degree of the Na and Al overabundances. In addition, Galactic chemical evolution models adopting different stellar yields lead to quite different predictions for the behavior of [Na/Fe] and [Al/Fe] versus [Fe/H]. Overall, the observed trends of these abundances with metallicity are not well reproduced. We readdress both issues, using new Na and Al abundances determined within the Gaia-ESO Survey, using two samples: i) more than 600 dwarfs of the solar neighborhood and of open clusters and ii) low- and intermediate-mass clump giants in six open clusters. Abundances of Na in giants with mass below ~2.0 Msun, and of Al in giants below ~3.0 Msun, seem to be unaffected by internal mixing processes. For more massive giants, the Na overabundance increases with stellar mass. This trend agrees well with predictions of stellar evolutionary models. Chemical evolution models that are able to fit well the observed [Na/Fe] vs. [Fe/H] trend in solar neighborhood dwarfs can not simultaneously explain the run of [Al/Fe] with [Fe/H], and viceversa. The comparison with stellar ages is hampered by severe uncertainties. Indeed, reliable age estimates are available for only a half of the stars of the sample. We conclude that Al is underproduced by the models, except for stellar ages younger than about 7 Gyr. In addition, some significant source of late Na production seems to be missing in the models. Either current Na and Al yields are affected by large uncertainties, and/or some important Galactic source(s) of these elements has not been taken into account up to now. [abridged], Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, A&A accepted, After language editing

The candidate Thorne-\.Zytkow object (T\.ZO), HV2112, is becoming a well-studied if enigmatic object. A key point of its candidacy as a T\.ZO is whether or not it resides in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). HV2112 has detections in a series of photometric catalogues which have resulted in contradictory estimates of its proper motion and, therefore, its membership within the SMC. This letter seeks to resolve the issue of the SMC membership of HV2112 through a reanalysis of extant photometric data. We also demonstrate the difficulties and downfalls inherent in considering a range of catalogue proper motions. We conclude that the proper motion, and associated ancillary radial velocity, positional and photometric properties, are fully consistent with HV2112 being within the SMC and thus it remains a candidate T\.ZO., This work is based on observations collected at the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere under ESO programme(s) 179.B-2003 and was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360. RGI thanks the STFC for funding for his Rutherford fellowship. CAT thanks Churchill College for his fellowship. This research has made use of the VizieR catalogue access tool (A&AS, 143, 23), the Aladin sky atlas and the SIMBAD data base developed and operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. The Digitized Sky Surveys (DSS) were produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute under US Government grant NAG W-2166., This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Oxford University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slw034

Delgado, Antonio J. et. al., The young open cluster NGC3293 is included in the observing program of the Gaia-ESO survey (GES). The radial velocity values provided have been used to assign cluster membership probabilities by means of a single-variable parametric analysis. These membership probabilities are compared to the results of the photometric membership assignment of NGC3293, based on UBVRI photometry. The agreement of the photometric and kinematic member samples amounts to 65 per cent, and could increase to 70 per cent as suggested by the analysis of the differences between both samples. A number of photometric PMS candidate members of spectral type F are found, which are confirmed by the results from VPHAS photometry and SED fitting for the stars in common with VPHAS and GES data sets. Excesses at mid- and near-infrared wavelengths, and signs of H alpha emission, are investigated for them. Marginal presence of H alpha emission or infilling is detected for the candidate members. Several of them exhibit moderate signs of U excess and weak excesses at mid-IR wavelengths. We suggest that these features originate from accretion discs in their last stages of evolution., This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF and Ministero dell' Istruzione, dell' Universita' e della Ricerca (MIUR) in the form of the grant 'Premiale VLT 2012'. The results presented here benefit from discussions held during the Gaia-ESO workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. AJD, LS, EJA and MTC acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, through grant AYA2013-40611-P. JLY acknowledges support from FCT (SFRH/BSAB/1423/2014 and UID/FIS/04434/2013). TM acknowledges financial support from Belspo for contract PRODEX GAIA-DPAC.

The discovery of lithium-rich giants contradicts expectations from canonical stellar evolution. Here we report on the serendipitous discovery of 20 Li-rich giants observed during the Gaia-ESO Survey, which includes the first nine Li-rich giant stars known towards the CoRoT fields. Most of our Li-rich giants have near-solar metallicities, and stellar parameters consistent with being before the luminosity bump. This is difficult to reconcile with deep mixing models proposed to explain lithium enrichment, because these models can only operate at later evolutionary stages: at or past the luminosity bump. In an effort to shed light on the Li-rich phenomenon, we highlight recent evidence of the tidal destruction of close-in hot Jupiters at the sub-giant phase. We note that when coupled with models of planet accretion, the observed destruction of hot Jupiters actually predicts the existence of Li-rich giant stars, and suggests Li-rich stars should be found early on the giant branch and occur more frequently with increasing metallicity. A comprehensive review of all known Li-rich giant stars reveals that this scenario is consistent with the data. However more evolved or metal-poor stars are less likely to host close-in giant planets, implying that their Li-rich origin requires an alternative explanation, likely related to mixing scenarios rather than external phenomena., This work is based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme ID 188.B-3002. These data products have been processed by the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit (CASU) at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, and by the FLAMES/UVES reduction team at INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri. These data have been obtained from the $\textit{Gaia}$-ESO Survey Data Archive, prepared and hosted by the Wide Field Astronomy Unit, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, which is funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This work was partly supported by the European Union FP7 programme through ERC grant number 320360 and by the Leverhulme Trust through grant RPG-2012-541. We acknowledge the support from INAF and the Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca (MIUR) in the form of the grant Premiale VLT 2012 and the Chemical and Dynamical Evolution of the Milky Way and Local Group Galaxies (prot. 2010LY5N2T). The results presented here benefit from discussions held during the $\textit{Gaia}$-ESO workshops and conferences supported by the ESF (European Science Foundation) through the GREAT Research Network Programme. GR acknowledges support from the project grant ‘The New Milky Way’ from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. GMK is supported by the Royal Society as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. LS acknowledges support provided by the Chilean Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC120009, awarded to the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS. Funding for the Stellar Astrophysics Centre is provided by the Danish National Research Foundation. The research is supported by the ASTERISK project (ASTERoseismic Investigations with SONG and Kepler) funded by the European Research Council (Grant agreement no. 267864). VSA acknowledges support from VILLUM FONDEN (research grant 10118). SLM acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council through DECRA fellowship DE140100598. TM acknowledges financial support from Belspo for contract PRODEX Gaia-DPAC. JM acknowledges the support from the European Research Council Consolidator Grant funding scheme (project STARKEY, G.A. no. 615604). This research has made use of the ExoDat Database, operated at LAM-OAMP, Marseille, France, on behalf of the CoRoT/Exoplanet programme. This research made use of astropy, a community-developed core python package for Astronomy (Astropy Collaboration et al. 2013). This research has made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System Bibliographic Services., This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Oxford University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw1512

Since the release of the Hipparcos catalog in 1997, the distance to the Pleiades open cluster has been heavily debated. The distance obtained from Hipparcos and those by alternative methods differ by 10 to 15 %. As accurate stellar distances are key to understanding stellar structure and evolution, this dilemma puts the validity of stellar evolution models into question. Using our model-independent method to determine parallaxes based on twin stars, we report individual parallaxes of 15 FGK type stars in the Pleiades in anticipation of the astrometric mission Gaia. These parallaxes give a mean cluster parallax of $7.42\pm0.09~\mathrm{mas}$ corresponding to a mean cluster distance of ${ 134.8\pm 1.7~\mathrm{pc}}$. This value agrees with the current results obtained from stellar evolution models., refereed version, accepted for publication in A&A

The Gaia-ESO Survey (GES) is a large public spectroscopic survey at the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope. A key aim is to provide precise radial velocities (RVs) and projected equatorial velocities (v sin i) for representative samples of Galactic stars, that will complement information obtained by the Gaia astrometry satellite. We present an analysis to empirically quantify the size and distribution of uncertainties in RV and v sin i using spectra from repeated exposures of the same stars. We show that the uncertainties vary as simple scaling functions of signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) and v sin i, that the uncertainties become larger with increasing photospheric temperature, but that the dependence on stellar gravity, metallicity and age is weak. The underlying uncertainty distributions have extended tails that are better represented by Student's t-distributions than by normal distributions. Parametrised results are provided, that enable estimates of the RV precision for almost all GES measurements, and estimates of the v sin i precision for stars in young clusters, as a function of S/N, v sin i and stellar temperature. The precision of individual high S/N GES RV measurements is 0.22-0.26 km/s, dependent on instrumental configuration., 13 pages, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

According to our current cosmological model, galaxies like the Milky Way are expected to experience many mergers over their lifetimes. The most massive of the merging galaxies will be dragged towards the disc-plane, depositing stars and dark matter into an accreted disc structure. In this work, we utilize the chemo-dynamical template developed in Ruchti et al. to hunt for accreted stars. We apply the template to a sample of 4,675 stars in the third internal data release from the Gaia-ESO Spectroscopic Survey. We find a significant component of accreted halo stars, but find no evidence of an accreted disc component. This suggests that the Milky Way has had a rather quiescent merger history since its disc formed some 8-10 billion years ago and therefore possesses no significant dark matter disc., Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

A small fraction of the halo field is made up of stars that share the light element (Z, 4 pages, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

In the current era of large spectroscopic surveys of the Milky Way, reference stars for calibrating astrophysical parameters and chemical abundances are of paramount importance. We determine elemental abundances of Mg, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Co and Ni for our predefined set of Gaia FGK benchmark stars. By analysing high-resolution and high-signal to noise spectra taken from several archive datasets, we combined results of eight different methods to determine abundances on a line-by-line basis. We perform a detailed homogeneous analysis of the systematic uncertainties, such as differential versus absolute abundance analysis, as well as we assess errors due to NLTE and the stellar parameters in our final abundances. Our results are provided by listing final abundances and the different sources of uncertainties, as well as line-by-line and method-by-method abundances. The Gaia FGK benchmark stars atmospheric parameters are already being widely used for calibration of several pipelines applied to different surveys. With the added reference abundances of 10 elements this set is very suitable to calibrate the chemical abundances obtained by these pipelines., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, Printer format: 65 pages, 18 figures, 25 tables

We present the abundance analysis for a sample of 7 red giant branch stars in the metal-poor globular cluster NGC 4372 based on UVES spectra acquired as part of the Gaia-ESO Survey. This is the first extensive study of this cluster from high resolution spectroscopy. We derive abundances of O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, Fe, Cr, Ni, Y, Ba, and La. We find a metallicity of [Fe/H] = -2.19 $\pm$ 0.03 and find no evidence for a metallicity spread. This metallicity makes NGC 4372 one of the most metal-poor galactic globular clusters. We also find an {\alpha}-enhancement typical of halo globular clusters at this metallicity. Significant spreads are observed in the abundances of light elements. In particular we find a Na-O anti-correlation. Abundances of O are relatively high compared with other globular clusters. This could indicate that NGC 4372 was formed in an environment with high O for its metallicity. A Mg-Al spread is also present which spans a range of more than 0.5 dex in Al abundances. Na is correlated with Al and Mg abundances at a lower significance level. This pattern suggests that the Mg-Al burning cycle is active. This behavior can also be seen in giant stars of other massive, metal-poor clusters. A relation between light and heavy s-process elements has been identified., Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

Understanding the history and the evolution of the Milky Way disc is one of the main goals of modern astrophysics. We study the velocity dispersion behaviour of Galactic disc stars as a function of the [Mg/Fe] ratio, which can be used as a proxy of relative age. This key relation is essential to constrain the formation mechanisms of the disc stellar populations as well as the cooling processes. We used the recommended parameters and chemical abundances of 7800 FGK Milky Way field stars from the second internal data release of the Gaia-ESO Survey. These stars were observed with the GIRAFFE spectrograph, and cover a large spatial volume (6+0.2dex. First, the velocity dispersion increases with [Mg/Fe] at all [Fe/H] ratios for the thin-disc stars, and then it decreases for the thick-disc at the highest [Mg/Fe] abundances. Similar trends are observed within the errors for the azimuthal velocity dispersion, while a continuous increase with [Mg/Fe] is observed for the vertical velocity dispersion. The velocity dispersion decrease agrees with previous measurements of the RAVE survey, although it is observed here for a greater metallicity interval and a larger spatial volume. We confirm the existence of [Mg/Fe]-rich thick-disc stars with cool kinematics in the generally turbulent context of the primitive Galactic disc. This is discussed in the framework of the different disc formation scenarios., Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures, A&A accepted

It is well known that newly formed planetary systems undergo processes of orbital reconfiguration and planetary migration. As a result, planets or protoplanetary objects may accrete onto the central star, being fused and mixed into its external layers. If the accreted mass is sufficiently high and the star has a sufficiently thin convective envelope, such events may result in a modification of the chemical composition of the stellar photosphere in an observable way, enhancing it with elements that were abundant in the accreted mass. The recent Gaia-ESO Survey observations of the 10-20 Myr old Gamma Velorum cluster have enabled identifying a star that is significantly enriched in iron with respect to other cluster members. In this Letter we further investigate the abundance pattern of this star, showing that its abundance anomaly is not limited to iron, but is also present in the refractory elements, whose overabundances are correlated with the condensation temperature. This finding strongly supports the hypothesis of a recent accretion of rocky material., Comment: Accepted for publication

Photometry alone is not sufficient to unambiguously distinguish between ultra-faint star clusters and dwarf galaxies because of their overlap in morphological properties. Here we report on VLT/GIRAFFE spectra of candidate member stars in two recently discovered ultra-faint satellites Reticulum 2 and Horologium 1, obtained as part of the ongoing Gaia-ESO Survey. We identify 18 members in Reticulum 2 and 5 in Horologium 1. We find Reticulum 2 to have a velocity dispersion of ~3.22 km/s, implying a M/L ratio of ~ 500. We have inferred stellar parameters for all candidates and we find Reticulum 2 to have a mean metallicity of [Fe/H] = -2.46+/-0.1, with an intrinsic dispersion of ~ 0.29, and is alpha-enhanced to the level of [alpha/Fe]~0.4. We conclude that Reticulum 2 is a dwarf galaxy. We also report on the serendipitous discovery of four stars in a previously unknown stellar substructure near Reticulum 2 with [Fe/H] ~ -2 and V_hel ~ 220 km/s, far from the systemic velocity of Reticulum 2. For Horologium 1 we infer a velocity dispersion of 4.9^{+2.8}_{-0.9} km/s and a consequent M/L ratio of ~ 600, leading us to conclude that Horologium 1 is also a dwarf galaxy. Horologium 1 is slightly more metal-poor than Reticulum 2 [Fe/H] = -2.76 +/- 0.1 and is similarly alpha-enhanced: [alpha/Fe] ~ 0.3. Despite a large error-bar, we also measure a significant spread of metallicities of 0.17 dex which strengthen the evidence that Horologium 1 is indeed a dwarf galaxy. The line-of-sight velocity of Reticulum 2 is offset by some 100 km/s from the prediction of the orbital velocity of the LMC, thus making its association with the Cloud uncertain. However, at the location of Horologium 1, both the backward integrated LMC's orbit and the LMC's halo are predicted to have radial velocities similar to that of the dwarf. Therefore, it is likely that Horologium 1 is or once was a member of the Magellanic Family., Comment: submitted to ApJ, abstract abridged

We discuss the properties of Hα emission stars across the sample of 22035 spectra from the Gaia-ESO Survey internal data release, observed with the GIRAFFE instrument and largely belonging to stars in young open clusters. Automated fits using two independent Gaussian profiles and a third component that accounts for the nebular emission allow us to discern distinct morphological types of Hα line profiles with the introduction of a simplified classification scheme. All in all, we find 3765 stars with intrinsic emission and sort their spectra into eight distinct morphological categories: single-component emission, emission blend, sharp emission peaks, double emission, P-Cygni, inverted P-Cygni, self-absorption, and emission in absorption. We have more than one observation for 1430 stars in our sample, thus allowing a quantitative discussion of the degree of variability of Hα emission profiles, which is expected for young, active objects. We present a catalogue of stars with properties of their Hα emission line profiles, morphological classification, analysis of variability with time and the supplementary information from the SIMBAD, VizieR, and ADS databases. The records in SIMBAD indicate the presence of Hα emission for roughly 25% of all stars in our catalogue, while at least 305 of them have already been more thoroughly investigated according to the references in ADS. The most frequently identified morphological categories in our sample of spectra are emission blend (23%), emission in absorption (22%), and self-absorption (16%). Objects with repeated observations demonstrate that our classification into discrete categories is generally stable through time, but categories P-Cygni and self-absorption seem less stable, which is the consequence of discrete classification rules, as well as of the fundamental change in profile shape. Such records of emission stars can be valuable for automatic pipelines in large surveys, where it may prove very useful for pinpointing outliers when calculating general stellar properties and elemental abundances. They can be used in studies of star formation processes, interacting binaries, and other fields of stellar physics. Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme ID 188.B-3002.Full Tables D.1-D.3 are only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (ftp://130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/581/A52

(Abridged) We have used the atmospheric parameters, [alpha/Fe] abundances and radial velocities, determined from the Gaia-ESO Survey GIRAFFE spectra of FGK-type stars (iDR1), to provide a chemo-kinematical characterisation of the disc stellar populations. We focuss on a subsample of 1016 stars with high quality parameters, covering the volume |Z, Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

NGC 4815 is a populous ~500 Myr open cluster at a Galactocentric radius of 7 kpc observed in the first six months of the Gaia-ESO Survey. Located in the inner Galactic disk, NGC 4815 is an important tracer of the abundance gradient, where few intermediate age open clusters are found. We use the survey derived radial velocities, stellar atmospheric parameters, metallicity, and elemental abundances for stars targeted as potential members of this cluster to carry out an analysis of cluster properties. The radial velocity distribution of stars in the cluster field is used to define the cluster systemic velocity and derive likely cluster membership for stars observed by the Gaia-ESO Survey. We investigate the distributions of Fe and Fe-peak elements, alpha-elements, and the light elements Na and Al and characterize the cluster's internal chemical homogeneity comparing it to the properties of radial velocity non-member stars. Utilizing these cluster properties, the cluster color-magnitude diagram is analyzed and theoretical isochrones are fit to derive cluster reddening, distance, and age. NGC 4815 is found to have a mean [Fe/H]=+0.03. Elemental abundances of cluster members show typically small internal variation, with internal dispersions of ~0.05 dex. [Ca/Fe] and [Si/Fe] show solar ratios, but [Mg/Fe] is moderately enhanced, while [Ti/Fe] appears slightly deficient. As with many open clusters, [Na/Fe] and [Al/Fe] are enhanced, [Na/Fe] significantly so, although the role of internal mixing and the assumption of LTE in the analysis remain to be investigated. From isochrone fits to color-magnitude diagrams, we find a cluster age of 0.5 to 0.63 Gyr, a reddening of E(B-V) = 0.59 to 0.65, and a true distance modulus (m-M) = 11.95 to 12.20, depending on the choice of theoretical models, leading to a Galactocentric distance of 6.9 kpc., 10 pages, 8 figures, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics

Open clusters are key tools to study the spatial distribution of abundances in the disk and their evolution with time. Using the first release of stellar parameters and abundances of the Gaia-ESO Survey, we analyse the chemical properties of stars in three old/intermediate-age open clusters, namely NGC 6705, NGC 4815, and Trumpler 20, all located in the inner part of the Galactic disk at Galactocentric radius R$_{GC}\sim$7 kpc, aiming at proving their homogeneity and at comparing them with the field population. We study the abundance ratios of elements belonging to two different nucleosynthetic channels: $\alpha$-elements and iron-peak elements. The main results can be summarised as follows: i) cluster members are chemically homogeneous within 3-$\sigma$ in all analysed elements; ii) the three clusters have comparable [El/Fe] patters within $\sim$1-$\sigma$, but they differ in their global metal content [El/H], with NGC 4815 having the lowest metallicity. Their [El/Fe] ratios show differences and analogies with those of the field population, both in the solar neighbourhood and in the bulge/inner disk; iii) comparing the abundance ratios with the results of two chemical evolution models and with field star abundance distributions, we find that the abundance ratios of Mg, Ni, Ca in NGC 6705 might require an inner birthplace, implying a subsequent variation of its R$_{GC}$ during its lifetime, consistent with previous orbit determination. The full dataset of the Gaia-ESO Survey will be a superlative tool to constrain the chemical evolution of our Galaxy by disentangling different formation and evolution scenarios., Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, A&A accepted

(Abridged) We analyzed the stellar parameters and radial velocities of ~1200 stars in five bulge fields as determined from the Gaia-ESO survey data (iDR1). We use VISTA Variables in The Via Lactea (VVV) photometry to obtain reddening values by using a semi-empirical T_eff-color calibration. From a Gaussian decomposition of the metallicity distribution functions, we unveil a clear bimodality in all fields, with the relative size of components depending of the specific position on the sky. In agreement with some previous studies, we find a mild gradient along the minor axis (-0.05 dex/deg between b=-6 and b=-10) that arises from the varying proportion of metal-rich and metal-poor components. The number of metal-rich stars fades in favor of the metal-poor stars with increasing b. The K-magnitude distribution of the metal-rich population splits into two peaks for two of the analyzed fields that intersects the near and far branches of the X-shaped bulge structure. In addition, two lateral fields at (l,b)=(7,-9) and (l,b)=(-10,-8) present contrasting characteristics. In the former, the metallicity distribution is dominated by metal-rich stars, while in the latter it presents a mix of a metal-poor population and and a metal-intermediate one, of nearly equal sizes. Finally, we find systematic differences in the velocity dispersion between the metal-rich and the metal-poor components of each field. Our chemo-kinematical analysis is consistent with a varying field-to-field proportion of stars belonging to (i) a metal-rich boxy/peanut X-shaped component, with bar-like kinematics, and (ii) a metal-poor more extended rotating structure with a higher velocity dispersion that dominates far from the Galactic plane. These first GES data allow studying the detailed spatial dependence of the Galactic bulge populations, thanks to the analysis of individual fields with relatively high statistics., Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

Context. Recent metallicity determinations in young open clusters and star-forming regions suggest that the latter may be characterized by a slightly lower metallicity than the Sun and older clusters in the solar vicinity. However, these results are based on small statistics and inhomogeneous analyses. The Gaia-ESO Survey is observing and homogeneously analyzing large samples of stars in several young clusters and star-forming regions, hence allowing us to further investigate this issue. Aims. We present a new metallicity determination of the Chamaeleon I star-forming region, based on the products distributed in the first internal release of the Gaia-ESO Survey. Methods. 48 candidate members of Chamaeleon I have been observed with the high-resolution spectrograph UVES. We use the surface gravity, lithium line equivalent width and position in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram to confirm the cluster members and we use the iron abundance to derive the mean metallicity of the region. Results. Out of the 48 targets, we confirm 15 high probability members. Considering the metallicity measurements for 9 of them, we find that the iron abundance of Chamaeleon I is slightly subsolar with a mean value [Fe/H]=-0.08+/-0.04 dex. This result is in agreement with the metallicity determination of other nearby star-forming regions and suggests that the chemical pattern of the youngest stars in the solar neighborhood is indeed more metal-poor than the Sun. We argue that this evidence may be related to the chemical distribution of the Gould Belt that contains most of the nearby star-forming regions and young clusters., Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables, Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

Context. Chemically inhomogeneous populations are observed in most globular clusters, but not in open clusters. Cluster mass seems to play a key role in the existence of multiple populations. Aims. Studying the chemical homogeneity of the most massive open clusters is needed to better understand the mechanism of their formation and determine the mass limit under which clusters cannot host multiple populations. Here we studied NGC≠6705, which is a young and massive open cluster located towards the inner region of the Milky Way. This cluster is located inside the solar circle. This makes it an important tracer of the inner disk abundance gradient. Methods. This study makes use of BVI and ri photometry and comparisons with theoretical isochrones to derive the age of NGC≠6705. We study the density profile of the cluster and the mass function to infer the cluster mass. Based on abundances of the chemical elements distributed in the first internal data release of the Gaia-ESO Survey, we study elemental ratios and the chemical homogeneity of the red clump stars. Radial velocities enable us to study the rotation and internal kinematics of the cluster. Results. The estimated ages range from 250 to 316≠Myr, depending on the adopted stellar model. Luminosity profiles and mass functions show strong signs of mass segregation. We derive the mass of the cluster from its luminosity function and from the kinematics, finding values between 3700 M and 11 000 M. After selecting the cluster members from their radial velocities, we obtain a metallicity of [Fe/H] = 0.10 ± 0.06 based on 21 candidate members. Moreover, NGC 6705 shows no sign of the typical correlations or anti-correlations between Al, Mg, Si, and Na, which are expected in multiple populations. This is consistent with our cluster mass estimate, which is lower than the required mass limit proposed in the literature to develop multiple populations.