Search

In the era of Extremely Large Telescopes, the current generation of 8-10m facilities are likely to remain competitive at ground-UV wavelengths for the foreseeable future. The Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph (CUBES) has been designed to provide high instrumental efficiency ( $>$ 37\%) observations in the near UV (305-400 nm requirement, 300-420 nm goal) at a spectral resolving power of R $>$ 20, 000 (with a lower-resolution, sky-limited mode of R $\sim$ 7, 000). With the design focusing on maximizing the instrument throughput (ensuring a Signal to Noise Ratio -SNR- $\sim$ 20 per spectral resolution element at 313 nm for U $\sim$ 17.5 mag objects in 1h of observations), it will offer new possibilities in many fields of astrophysics: i) access to key lines of stellar spectra (e.g. lighter elements, in particular Beryllium), extragalactic studies (e.g. circumgalactic medium of distant galaxies, cosmic UV background) and follow-up of explosive transients. We present the CUBES instrument design, currently in Phase-C and approaching the final design review, summarizing the hardware architecture and interfaces between the different subsystems as well as the relevant technical requirements. We describe the optical, mechanical, electrical design of the different subsystems (from the telescope adapter and support structure, through the main opto-mechanical path, including calibration unit, detector devices and cryostat control, main control electronics), detailing peculiar instrument functions like the Active Flexure Compensation (AFC). Furthermore, we outline the AITV concept and the main instrument operations giving an overview of its software ecosystem. Installation at the VLT is planned for 2028-2029 and first science operations in late 2029.

We present our numerical simulation approach for the End-to-End (E2E) model applied to various astronomical spectrographs, such as SOXS (ESO-NTT), CUBES (ESO-VLT), and ANDES (ESO-ELT), covering multiple wavelength regions. The E2E model aim at simulating the expected astronomical observations starting from the radiation of the scientific sources (or calibration sources) up to the raw-frame data produced by the detectors. The comprehensive description includes E2E architecture, computational models, and tools for rendering the simulated frames. Collaboration with Data Reduction Software (DRS) teams is discussed, along with efforts to meet instrument requirements. The contribution to the cross-correlation algorithm for the Active Flexure Compensation (AFC) system of CUBES is detailed., Comment: 19 pages, 17 figures, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, Yokohama 2024. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2209.07185, arXiv:2012.12684

This paper presents the first public data release of the S-PLUS Ultra-Short Survey (USS), a photometric survey with short exposure times, covering approximately 9300 deg$^{2}$ of the Southern sky. The USS utilizes the Javalambre 12-band magnitude system, including narrow and medium-band and broad-band filters targeting prominent stellar spectral features. The primary objective of the USS is to identify bright, extremely metal-poor (EMP; [Fe/H] $\leq -3$) and ultra metal-poor (UMP; [Fe/H] $\leq -4$) stars for further analysis using medium- and high-resolution spectroscopy.}{This paper provides an overview of the survey observations, calibration method, data quality, and data products. Additionally, it presents the selection of EMP and UMP candidates.}{The data from the USS were reduced and calibrated using the same methods as presented in the S-PLUS DR2. An additional step was introduced, accounting for the offset between the observed magnitudes off the USS and the predicted magnitudes from the very low-resolution Gaia XP spectra.}{This first release contains data for 163 observed fields totaling $\sim$324 deg$^{2}$ along the Celestial Equator. The magnitudes obtained from the USS are well-calibrated, showing a difference of $\sim 15$ mmag compared to the predicted magnitudes by the GaiaXPy toolkit. By combining colors and magnitudes, 140 candidates for EMP or UMP have been identified for follow-up studies.}{The S-PLUS USS DR1 is an important milestone in the search for bright metal-poor stars, with magnitudes in the range 10 $ < r \leq 14$. The USS is an ongoing survey; in the near future, it will provide many more bright metal-poor candidate stars for spectroscopic follow-up., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 17 pages 6 figures. Long table at the end of the paper

Precision measurement of the integrated luminosity $\mathcal{L}$ at future Higgs factories, including ILC, is of crucial importance for the cross-section measurements, and in particular for the line-shape measurements at the Z-pole. Since there is no up-to-date estimate of the integrated luminosity uncertainties arising from metrology effects at ILC, here we review the metrology requirements for the targeted precision of $\mathcal{L}$ at foreseen ILC center-of-mass energies: 91.2 GeV, 250 GeV, 500 GeV and 1 TeV, using small-angle Bhabha scattering., Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, draft

Context: The light element (anti-)correlations shown by globular clusters (GCs) are the main spectroscopic signature of multiple stellar populations. These internal abundance variations provide us with fundamental constraints on the formation mechanism of stellar clusters. Aims: Using Gaia-ESO, the largest and most homogeneous survey of open clusters (OCs), we intend to check whether these stellar aggregates display the same patterns. Based on previous studies of many GCs, several young and massive clusters in the Magellanic Clouds, as well as a few OCs, we do not expect to find any anti-correlation, given the low mass of Milky Way OCs. Methods: We used the results based on UVES spectra of stars in Gaia-ESO to derive the distribution of Na and O abundances and seevwhether they show an unexplained dispersion or whether they are anti-correlated. By selecting only high-probability members with high-precision stellar parameters, we ended up with more than 700 stars in 74 OCs. We examined the O-Na distribution in 28 OCsvwith at least 4 stars available as well as the Na distribution in 24 OCs, with at least 10 stars available. Results: We find that the distribution of Na abundances is compatible with a single-value population, within the errors. The fewvapparent exceptions can be explained by differences in the evolutionary phase (main sequence and giant post first dredge-up episode) or by difficulties in analysing low gravity giants. We did not find any indication of an Na-O anti-correlation in any of the clusters for which O has been derived. Conclusions: Based on the very small spread we find, OCs maintain the status of single stellar populations. However, a definitive answer requires studying more elements and larger samples covering different evolutionary phases. This will be possible with the next generation of large surveys, Comment: Based on the Gaia-ESO Survey. In press on Astronomy & Astrophysics. Figure A.2 updated

PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) is ESA's M3 mission designed to detect and characterise extrasolar planets and perform asteroseismic monitoring of a large number of stars. PLATO will detect small planets (down to <2 R_(Earth)) around bright stars (<11 mag), including terrestrial planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars. With the complement of radial velocity observations from the ground, planets will be characterised for their radius, mass, and age with high accuracy (5 %, 10 %, 10 % for an Earth-Sun combination respectively). PLATO will provide us with a large-scale catalogue of well-characterised small planets up to intermediate orbital periods, relevant for a meaningful comparison to planet formation theories and to better understand planet evolution. It will make possible comparative exoplanetology to place our Solar System planets in a broader context. In parallel, PLATO will study (host) stars using asteroseismology, allowing us to determine the stellar properties with high accuracy, substantially enhancing our knowledge of stellar structure and evolution. The payload instrument consists of 26 cameras with 12cm aperture each. For at least four years, the mission will perform high-precision photometric measurements. Here we review the science objectives, present PLATO's target samples and fields, provide an overview of expected core science performance as well as a description of the instrument and the mission profile at the beginning of the serial production of the flight cameras. PLATO is scheduled for a launch date end 2026. This overview therefore provides a summary of the mission to the community in preparation of the upcoming operational phases.

In this paper, we describe the wide-field spectroscopic survey telescope (WST) project. WST is a 12-metre wide-field spectroscopic survey telescope with simultaneous operation of a large field-of-view (3 sq. degree), high-multiplex (20,000) multi-object spectrograph (MOS), with both a low and high-resolution modes, and a giant 3x3 arcmin2 integral field spectrograph (IFS). In scientific capability, these specifications place WST far ahead of existing and planned facilities. In only 5 years of operation, the MOS would target 250 million galaxies and 25 million stars at low spectral resolution, plus 2 million stars at high resolution. Without need for pre-imaged targets, the IFS would deliver 4 billion spectra offering many serendipitous discoveries. Given the current investment in deep imaging surveys and noting the diagnostic power of spectroscopy, WST will fill a crucial gap in astronomical capability and work in synergy with future ground and space-based facilities. We show how it can address outstanding scientific questions in the areas of cosmology; galaxy assembly, evolution, and enrichment, including our own Milky Way; the origin of stars and planets; and time domain and multi-messenger astrophysics. WST's uniquely rich dataset may yield unforeseen discoveries in many of these areas. The telescope and instruments are designed as an integrated system and will mostly use existing technology, with the aim to minimise the carbon footprint and environmental impact. We will propose WST as the next European Southern Observatory (ESO) project after completion of the 39-metre ELT., Comment: 15 pages, 15 figures

With the current precision of measurements by the ATLAS and CMS experiments, it cannot be excluded that a SM-like Higgs boson is a CP violating mixture of CP-even and CP-odd states. We explore this possibility here, assuming Higgs boson production in ZZ-fusion, at 1 TeV ILC, with unpolarized beams. The full simulation of SM background and fast simulation of the signal is performed, simulating 8 ab$^{-1}$ of data collected with the ILD detector. We demonstrate that the CP mixing angle $\Psi_{\mathrm{CP}}$ between scalar and pseudoscalar states can be measured with the statistical uncertainty of 3.8 mrad at 68% CL, corresponding to 1.44 $\cdot 10^{-5}$ for the CP parameter $f_\mathrm{CP}$, for the pure scalar state. This is the first result on sensitivity of an $e^{+}e^{-}$ collider to measure $f_\mathrm{CP}$ in the Higgs production vertex in vector boson fusion., Comment: Study performed in the framework of the International Large Detector concept

In order to measure integrated luminosity with a required precision of $10^{-4}$ at the $Z^0$ pole, proposed CEPC $e^{+}e^{-}$ collider requires a luminometer, a specially designed calorimeter placed in the very forward region to identify Bhabha scattering at low polar angles. Usually, such a device is placed at the outgoing beams, to keep the spatial symmetries of the head-on collisions at accelerators with a non-zero crossing angle. At CEPC it is currently proposed to place the luminometer on the z-axis. We review a feasibility of a measurement of the integrated luminosity at the $Z^{0}$ pole with the required precision, concerning the luminometer centered around the z-axis and the post-CDR beam properties., Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures

Gravitational waves from black-hole merging events have revealed a population of extra-galactic BHs residing in short-period binaries with masses that are higher than expected based on most stellar evolution models - and also higher than known stellar-origin black holes in our Galaxy. It has been proposed that those high-mass BHs are the remnants of massive metal-poor stars. Gaia astrometry is expected to uncover many Galactic wide-binary systems containing dormant BHs, which may not have been detected before. The study of this population will provide new information on the BH-mass distribution in binaries and shed light on their formation mechanisms and progenitors. As part of the validation efforts in preparation for the fourth Gaia data release (DR4), we analysed the preliminary astrometric binary solutions, obtained by the Gaia Non-Single Star pipeline, to verify their significance and to minimise false-detection rates in high-mass-function orbital solutions. The astrometric binary solution of one source, Gaia BH3, implies the presence of a 32.70 \pm 0.82 M\odot BH in a binary system with a period of 11.6 yr. Gaia radial velocities independently validate the astrometric orbit. Broad-band photometric and spectroscopic data show that the visible component is an old, very metal-poor giant of the Galactic halo, at a distance of 590 pc. The BH in the Gaia BH3 system is more massive than any other Galactic stellar-origin BH known thus far. The low metallicity of the star companion supports the scenario that metal-poor massive stars are progenitors of the high-mass BHs detected by gravitational-wave telescopes. The Galactic orbit of the system and its metallicity indicate that it might belong to the Sequoia halo substructure. Alternatively, and more plausibly, it could belong to the ED-2 stream, which likely originated from a globular cluster that had been disrupted by the Milky Way., Comment: 23 pages, accepted fro publication in A&A Letters. New version with small fixes

The Li abundance observed in pre-main sequence and main sequence late-type stars is strongly age-dependent, but also shows a complex pattern depending on several parameters, such as rotation, chromospheric activity and metallicity. The best way to calibrate these effects, with the aim of studying Li as an age indicator for FGK stars, is to calibrate coeval groups of stars, such as open clusters (OCs) and associations. We present a considerable target sample of 42 OCs and associations, ranging from 1 Myr to 5 Gyr, observed within the Gaia-ESO survey (GES), and using the latest data provided by GES iDR6 and the most recent release of Gaia that was then available, EDR3. As part of this study, we update and improve the membership analysis for all 20 OCs presented in our previous article. We perform detailed membership analyses for all target clusters to identify likely candidates, using all available parameters provided by GES and based on numerous criteria: from radial velocity distributions, to the astrometry and photometry provided by Gaia, to gravity indicators, [Fe/H] metallicity, and Li content. We obtain updated lists of cluster members for the whole target sample, as well as a selection of Li-rich giant contaminants obtained as an additional result of the membership process. Each selection of cluster candidates was thoroughly contrasted with numerous existing membership studies using data from Gaia to ensure the most robust results. These final cluster selections will be used in the third and last paper of this series, which reports the results of a comparative study characterising the observable Li dispersion in each cluster and analysing its dependence on several parameters, allowing us to calibrate a Li-age relation and obtain a series of empirical Li envelopes for key ages in our sample., Comment: 83 pages, 246 figures. To be published in A&A, accepted January 27, 2024

The Wide-field Spectroscopic Telescope (WST) is proposed as a new facility dedicated to the efficient delivery of spectroscopic surveys. This white paper summarises the initial concept as well as the corresponding science cases. WST will feature simultaneous operation of a large field-of-view (3 sq. degree), a high multiplex (20,000) multi-object spectrograph (MOS) and a giant 3x3 sq. arcmin integral field spectrograph (IFS). In scientific capability these requirements place WST far ahead of existing and planned facilities. Given the current investment in deep imaging surveys and noting the diagnostic power of spectroscopy, WST will fill a crucial gap in astronomical capability and work synergistically with future ground and space-based facilities. This white paper shows that WST can address outstanding scientific questions in the areas of cosmology; galaxy assembly, evolution, and enrichment, including our own Milky Way; origin of stars and planets; time domain and multi-messenger astrophysics. WST's uniquely rich dataset will deliver unforeseen discoveries in many of these areas. The WST Science Team (already including more than 500 scientists worldwide) is open to the all astronomical community. To register in the WST Science Team please visit https://www.wstelescope.com/for-scientists/participate, Comment: 194 pages, 66 figures. Comments are welcome (wstelescope@gmail.com)

The Gaia-ESO Survey is an European Southern Observatory (ESO) public spectroscopic survey that targeted $10^5$ stars in the Milky Way covering the major populations of the disk, bulge and halo. The observations were made using FLAMES on the VLT obtaining both UVES high ($R\sim47,000$) and GIRAFFE medium ($R\sim20,000$) resolution spectra. The analysis of the Gaia-ESO spectra was the work of multiple analysis teams (nodes) within five working groups (WG). The homogenisation of the stellar parameters within WG11 (high resolution observations of FGK stars) and the homogenisation of the stellar parameters within WG10 (medium resolution observations of FGK stars) is described here. In both cases, the homogenisation was carried out using a bayesian Inference method developed specifically for the Gaia-ESO Survey by WG11. The WG10 homogenisation primarily used the cross-match of stars with WG11 as the reference set in both the stellar parameter and chemical abundance homogenisation. In this way the WG10 homogenised results have been placed directly onto the WG11 stellar parameter and chemical abundance scales. The reference set for the metal-poor end was sparse which limited the effectiveness of the homogenisation in that regime. For WG11, the total number of stars for which stellar parameters were derived was 6,231 with typical uncertainties for Teff, log g and [Fe/H] of 32~K, 0.05 and 0.05 respectively. One or more chemical abundances out of a possible 39 elements were derived for 6,188 of the stars. For WG10, the total number of stars for which stellar parameters were derived was 76,675 with typical uncertainties for Teff, log g and [Fe/H] of 64~K, 0.15 and 0.07 respectively. One or more chemical abundances out of a possible 30 elements were derived for 64,177 of the stars., Comment: 31 pages, 19 figures

The High-Resolution Multi-Object Spectrograph (HRMOS) is a facility instrument that we plan to propose for the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), following the initial presentation at the VLT 2030 workshop held at ESO in June 2019. HRMOS provides a combination of capabilities that are essential to carry out breakthrough science across a broad range of active research areas from stellar astrophysics and exoplanet studies to Galactic and Local Group archaeology. HRMOS fills a gap in capabilities amongst the landscape of future instrumentation planned for the next decade. The key characteristics of HRMOS will be high spectral resolution (R = 60000 - 80000) combined with multi-object (20-100) capabilities and long term stability that will provide excellent radial velocity precision and accuracy (10m/s). Initial designs predict that a SNR~100 will be achievable in about one hour for a star with mag(AB) = 15, while with the same exposure time a SNR~ 30 will be reached for a star with mag(AB) = 17. The combination of high resolution and multiplexing with wavelength coverage extending to relatively blue wavelengths (down to 380\,nm), makes HRMOS a spectrograph that will push the boundaries of our knowledge and that is envisioned as a workhorse instrument in the future. The science cases presented in this White Paper include topics and ideas developed by the Core Science Team with the contributions from the astronomical community, also through the wide participation in the first HRMOS Workshop (https://indico.ict.inaf.it/event/1547/) that took place in Firenze (Italy) in October 2021., Comment: 88 pages, 39 figures. Comments and expressions of interest are welcome by contacting members of the Core Science Team

Real-world networks have a complex topology comprising many elements often structured into communities. Revealing these communities helps researchers uncover the organizational and functional structure of the system that the network represents. However, detecting community structures in complex networks requires selecting a community detection method among a multitude of alternatives with different network representations, community interpretations, and underlying mechanisms. This review and tutorial focuses on a popular community detection method called the map equation and its search algorithm Infomap. The map equation framework for community detection describes communities by analyzing dynamic processes on the network. Thanks to its flexibility, the map equation provides extensions that can incorporate various assumptions about network structure and dynamics. To help decide if the map equation is a suitable community detection method for a given complex system and problem at hand -- and which variant to choose -- we review the map equation's theoretical framework and guide users in applying the map equation to various research problems.

Gaia's readout window strategy is challenged by very dense fields in the sky. Therefore, in addition to standard Gaia observations, full Sky Mapper (SM) images were recorded for nine selected regions in the sky. A new software pipeline exploits these Service Interface Function (SIF) images of crowded fields (CFs), making use of the availability of the full two-dimensional (2D) information. This new pipeline produced half a million additional Gaia sources in the region of the omega Centauri ($\omega$ Cen) cluster, which are published with this Focused Product Release. We discuss the dedicated SIF CF data reduction pipeline, validate its data products, and introduce their Gaia archive table. Our aim is to improve the completeness of the {\it Gaia} source inventory in a very dense region in the sky, $\omega$ Cen. An adapted version of {\it Gaia}'s Source Detection and Image Parameter Determination software located sources in the 2D SIF CF images. We validated the results by comparing them to the public {\it Gaia} DR3 catalogue and external Hubble Space Telescope data. With this Focused Product Release, 526\,587 new sources have been added to the {\it Gaia} catalogue in $\omega$ Cen. Apart from positions and brightnesses, the additional catalogue contains parallaxes and proper motions, but no meaningful colour information. While SIF CF source parameters generally have a lower precision than nominal {\it Gaia} sources, in the cluster centre they increase the depth of the combined catalogue by three magnitudes and improve the source density by a factor of ten. This first SIF CF data publication already adds great value to the {\it Gaia} catalogue. It demonstrates what to expect for the fourth {\it Gaia} catalogue, which will contain additional sources for all nine SIF CF regions.

Context. Strongly lensed quasars are fundamental sources for cosmology. The Gaia space mission covers the entire sky with the unprecedented resolution of $0.18$" in the optical, making it an ideal instrument to search for gravitational lenses down to the limiting magnitude of 21. Nevertheless, the previous Gaia Data Releases are known to be incomplete for small angular separations such as those expected for most lenses. Aims. We present the Data Processing and Analysis Consortium GravLens pipeline, which was built to analyse all Gaia detections around quasars and to cluster them into sources, thus producing a catalogue of secondary sources around each quasar. We analysed the resulting catalogue to produce scores that indicate source configurations that are compatible with strongly lensed quasars. Methods. GravLens uses the DBSCAN unsupervised clustering algorithm to detect sources around quasars. The resulting catalogue of multiplets is then analysed with several methods to identify potential gravitational lenses. We developed and applied an outlier scoring method, a comparison between the average BP and RP spectra of the components, and we also used an extremely randomised tree algorithm. These methods produce scores to identify the most probable configurations and to establish a list of lens candidates. Results. We analysed the environment of 3 760 032 quasars. A total of 4 760 920 sources, including the quasars, were found within 6" of the quasar positions. This list is given in the Gaia archive. In 87\% of cases, the quasar remains a single source, and in 501 385 cases neighbouring sources were detected. We propose a list of 381 lensed candidates, of which we identified 49 as the most promising. Beyond these candidates, the associate tables in this Focused Product Release allow the entire community to explore the unique Gaia data for strong lensing studies further., Comment: 35 pages, 60 figures, accepted for publication by Astronomy and Astrophysics

The third Gaia Data Release (DR3) provided photometric time series of more than 2 million long-period variable (LPV) candidates. Anticipating the publication of full radial-velocity (RV) in DR4, this Focused Product Release (FPR) provides RV time series for a selection of LPVs with high-quality observations. We describe the production and content of the Gaia catalog of LPV RV time series, and the methods used to compute variability parameters published in the Gaia FPR. Starting from the DR3 LPVs catalog, we applied filters to construct a sample of sources with high-quality RV measurements. We modeled their RV and photometric time series to derive their periods and amplitudes, and further refined the sample by requiring compatibility between the RV period and at least one of the $G$, $G_{\rm BP}$, or $G_{\rm RP}$ photometric periods. The catalog includes RV time series and variability parameters for 9\,614 sources in the magnitude range $6\lesssim G/{\rm mag}\lesssim 14$, including a flagged top-quality subsample of 6\,093 stars whose RV periods are fully compatible with the values derived from the $G$, $G_{\rm BP}$, and $G_{\rm RP}$ photometric time series. The RV time series contain a mean of 24 measurements per source taken unevenly over a duration of about three years. We identify the great most sources (88%) as genuine LPVs, with about half of them showing a pulsation period and the other half displaying a long secondary period. The remaining 12% consists of candidate ellipsoidal binaries. Quality checks against RVs available in the literature show excellent agreement. We provide illustrative examples and cautionary remarks. The publication of RV time series for almost 10\,000 LPVs constitutes, by far, the largest such database available to date in the literature. The availability of simultaneous photometric measurements gives a unique added value to the Gaia catalog (abridged), Comment: 36 pages, 38 figures

Metal-poor stars are key for studying the formation and evolution of the Galaxy. Evidence of the early mergers that built up the Galaxy remains in the distributions of abundances, kinematics, and orbital parameters of its stars. Several substructures resulting from these mergers have been tentatively identified in the literature. We conduct a global analysis of the chemodynamic properties of metal-poor stars. Our aim is to identify signs of accreted and in situ stars in different regions of the parameter space and to investigate their differences and similarities. We selected a sample of about 6600 metal-poor stars with [Fe/H] $\leq$ -0.8 from DR3 of the GALAH survey. We used unsupervised machine learning to separate stars in a parameter space made of two normalised orbital actions, plus [Fe/H] and [Mg/Fe], without additional a priori cuts on stellar properties. We divided the halo stars in four main groups. All groups exhibit a significant fraction of in situ contamination (ISC). Accreted stars of these groups have very similar chemical properties, except for those of the group of stars with very retrograde orbits. This points to at most two main sources of accreted stars in the current sample, the major one related to Gaia-Enceladus (GE) and the other possibly related to Thamnos and/or Sequoia. Stars of GE are r-process enriched at low metallicities, but a contribution of the s-process appears with increasing metallicity. A flat trend of [Eu/Mg] as a function of [Fe/H] suggests that only core collapse supernovae contributed to r-process elements in GE. To better characterise accreted stars in the low metallicity regime, high precision abundances and guidance from chemical evolution models are needed. It is possible that ISC in samples of accreted stars has been underestimated. This can have important consequences for attempts to estimate the properties of the original systems., Comment: 22 pages, 22 figures, Accepted for publication in A&A

We present an empirical model of age-dependent photospheric lithium depletion, calibrated using a large, homogeneously-analysed sample of 6200 stars in 52 open clusters, with ages from 2--6000 Myr and $-0.3<{\rm [Fe/H}]<0.2$, observed in the Gaia-ESO spectroscopic survey. The model is used to obtain age estimates and posterior age probability distributions from measurements of the Li I 6708A equivalent width for individual (pre) main sequence stars with $3000 < T_{\rm eff}/{\rm K} <6500$, a domain where age determination from the HR diagram is either insensitive or highly model-dependent. In the best cases, precisions of 0.1 dex in log age are achievable; even higher precision can be obtained for coeval groups and associations where the individual age probabilities of their members can be combined. The method is validated on a sample of exoplanet-hosting young stars, finding agreement with claimed young ages for some, but not others. We obtain better than 10 per cent precision in age, and excellent agreement with published ages, for seven well-studied young moving groups. The derived ages for young clusters ($<1$ Gyr) in our sample are also in good agreement with their training ages, and consistent with several published, model-insensitive lithium depletion boundary ages. For older clusters there remain systematic age errors that could be as large as a factor of two. There is no evidence to link these errors to any strong systematic metallicity dependence of (pre) main sequence lithium depletion, at least in the range $-0.29 < {\rm [Fe/H]} < 0.18$. Our methods and model are provided as software -- "Empirical AGes from Lithium Equivalent widthS" (EAGLES)., Comment: Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Code available at https://github.com/robdjeff/eagles

The Gaia-ESO Survey is a public spectroscopic survey that has targeted $\gtrsim10^5$ stars covering all major components of the Milky Way from the end of 2011 to 2018, delivering its public final release in May 2022. Unlike other spectroscopic surveys, Gaia-ESO is the only survey that observed stars across all spectral types with dedicated, specialised analyses: from O ($T_\mathrm{eff} \sim 30,000-52,000$~K) all the way to K-M ($\gtrsim$3,500~K). The physics throughout these stellar regimes varies significantly, which has previously prohibited any detailed comparisons between stars of significantly different type. In the final data release (internal data release 6) of the Gaia-ESO Survey, we provide the final database containing a large number of products such as radial velocities, stellar parameters and elemental abundances, rotational velocity, and also, e.g., activity and accretion indicators in young stars and membership probability in star clusters for more than 114,000 stars. The spectral analysis is coordinated by a number of Working Groups (WGs) within the Survey, which specialise in the various stellar samples. Common targets are analysed across WGs to allow for comparisons (and calibrations) amongst instrumental setups and spectral types. Here we describe the procedures employed to ensure all Survey results are placed on a common scale to arrive at a single set of recommended results for all Survey collaborators to use. We also present some general quality and consistency checks performed over all Survey results., Comment: A&A accepted, minor revision, 36 pages, 38 figures

The Milky Way accreted several smaller satellite galaxies in its history. These mergers added stars and gas to the Galaxy and affected the properties of the pre-existing stellar populations. Stellar chemical abundances and ages are needed to establish the chronological order of events that occur before, during, and after such mergers. We report precise ages ($\sim$6.5%) and chemical abundances for the Titans, a sample of old metal-poor dwarfs and subgiants with accurate atmospheric parameters. We also obtain ages with an average precision of 10% for a selected sample of dwarf stars from the GALAH survey. We used these stars, located within $\sim$1 kiloparsec of the Sun, to analyse the chronology of the chemical evolution of in-situ and accreted metal-poor stellar populations. We determined ages by isochrone fitting. For the Titans, we determined abundances of Mg, Si, Ca, Ti, Ni, Ba, and Eu using spectrum synthesis. The [Mg/Fe] abundances of the GALAH stars were re-scaled to be consistent with the abundances of the Titans. We separated stellar populations by primarily employing chemical abundances and orbits. We find that star formation in the so-called Gaia-Enceladus or Gaia-Sausage galaxy, the last major system to merge with the Milky Way, lasted at least 3 billion years and got truncated 9.6 $\pm$ 0.2 billion years ago. This marks with very high precision the last stage of its merging process. We also identified stars of a heated metal-poor in-situ population with virtually null net rotation, probably disturbed by several of the early Milky Way mergers. We show that this population is more metal rich than Gaia-Enceladus at any time. The sequence of events uncovered in our analysis supports the hypothesis that Gaia-Enceladus truncated the formation of the high-$\alpha$ disc and caused the gas infall that forms the low-$\alpha$ disc, in agreement with theoretical predictions., Comment: Paper accepted in A&A. People interested in Galactic evolution may preferably read the Introduction and Discussion sections. Those interested in accuracy of stellar parameters, abundances, and calibration of spectroscopic surveys may be interested in reading sections 3, 4, 5, and 6 in detail

Detectors at future $e^+e^-$ colliders need special calorimeters in the very forward region for a fast estimate and precise measurement of the luminosity, to improve the hermeticity and mask the central tracking detectors from backscattered particles. In our concept, two compact calorimeters are foreseen, LumiCal and BeamCal. Both are designed as sandwich calorimeters with very thin sensor planes to keep the Moli\`ere radius small, facilitating such the measurement of electron showers in the presence of background. Silicon sensor prototypes and dedicated FE ASICs have been developed and produced. The ASICs match the timing and dynamic range requirements. In the recent beam tests, a multi-plane compact prototype was equipped with thin sensor planes fully assembled with the new readout electronics and installed in 1 mm gaps between tungsten plates of one radiation length thickness. The latest status of the calorimeter prototype development will be presented, including selected performance results, obtained in a 5 GeV electron beam at DESY, as well as the expected performance obtained from simulation., Comment: Presented at the 30th International Symposium on Lepton Photon Interactions at High Energies, hosted by the University of Manchester, 10-14 January 2022

In spite of the advent of extremely large telescopes in the UV/optical/NIR range, the current generation of 8-10m facilities is likely to remain competitive at ground-UV wavelengths for the foreseeable future. The Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph (CUBES) has been designed to provide high-efficiency (>40%) observations in the near UV (305-400 nm requirement, 300-420 nm goal) at a spectral resolving power of R>20,000, although a lower-resolution, sky-limited mode of R ~ 7,000 is also planned. CUBES will offer new possibilities in many fields of astrophysics, providing access to key lines of stellar spectra: a tremendous diversity of iron-peak and heavy elements, lighter elements (in particular Beryllium) and light-element molecules (CO, CN, OH), as well as Balmer lines and the Balmer jump (particularly important for young stellar objects). The UV range is also critical in extragalactic studies: the circumgalactic medium of distant galaxies, the contribution of different types of sources to the cosmic UV background, the measurement of H2 and primordial Deuterium in a regime of relatively transparent intergalactic medium, and follow-up of explosive transients. The CUBES project completed a Phase A conceptual design in June 2021 and has now entered the Phase B dedicated to detailed design and construction. First science operations are planned for 2028. In this paper, we briefly describe the CUBES project development and goals, the main science cases, the instrument design and the project organization and management., Comment: Proceedings for the HACK100 conference, Trieste, June 2022. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2208.01672

We test a scenario in which radial migration could affect the Li abundance pattern of dwarf stars in the solar neighbourhood. This may confirm that the Li abundance in these stars can not serve as a probe for the Li abundance in the interstellar medium. We use the high-quality data (including Li abundances) from the 6th internal Data Release of the Gaia-ESO survey. In this sample, we group stars by similarity in chemical abundances via hierarchical clustering. Our analysis treats both measured Li abundances and upper limits. The Li envelope of the previously identified radially migrated stars is well below the benchmark meteoritic value (<3.26 dex); the star with the highest detected abundance has A(Li) = 2.76 dex. This confirms the previous trends observed for old dwarf stars (median ages $\sim$ 8 Gyr), where Li decreases for [Fe/H]$\gtrsim$0. This result acts as supporting evidence that the abundance of Li measured in the upper envelope of old dwarf stars should not be considered a proxy for the interstellar medium Li. Our scenario also indicates that the stellar yields for [M/H]>0 should not be decreased, as recently proposed in the literature. Our study backs the recent studies that claimed that old dwarfs on the hot side of the dip are efficient probes of the ISM abundance of Li, provided atomic diffusion does not lower significantly the initial Li abundance in the atmospheres of metal-rich objects., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures. Abridged abstract to fit ArXiv's requirements. Letter published in A&A Letters. Version after the language proofs

From traffic flows on road networks to electrical signals in brain networks, many real-world networks contain modular structures of different sizes and densities. In the networks where modular structures emerge due to coupling between nodes with similar dynamical functions, we can identify them using flow-based community detection methods. However, these methods implicitly assume that communities are dense or clique-like which can shatter sparse communities due to a field-of-view limit inherent in one-step dynamics. Taking multiple steps with shorter or longer Markov time enables us to effectively zoom in or out to capture small or long-range communities. However, zooming out to avoid the field-of-view limit comes at the expense of introducing or increasing a lower resolution limit. Here we relax the constant Markov time constraint and introduce variable Markov dynamics as a multi-focal lens to capture functional communities in networks with a higher range of scales. With variable Markov time, a random walker can keep one-step dynamics in dense areas to avoid the resolution limit and move faster in sparse areas to detect long-range modular structures and prevent the field-of-view limit. We analyze the performance of variable Markov time using the flow-based community detection method called the map equation. We have implemented the map equation with variable Markov time in the search algorithm Infomap without any complexity overhead and tested its performance on synthetic and real-world networks from different domains. Results show that it outperforms the standard map equation in networks with constrained structures and locally sparse regions. In addition, the method estimates the optimal Markov time and avoids parameter tuning.

The spatial distribution of elemental abundances and their time evolution are among the major constraints to disentangle the scenarios of formation and evolution of the Galaxy. We used the sample of open clusters available in the final release of the Gaia-ESO survey to trace the Galactic radial abundance and abundance to iron ratio gradients, and their time evolution. We selected member stars in 62 open clusters, with ages from 0.1 to about 7~Gyr, located in the Galactic thin disc at Galactocentric radii from about 6 to 21~kpc. We analysed the shape of the resulting [Fe/H] gradient, the average gradients [El/H] and [El/Fe] combining elements belonging to four different nucleosynthesis channels, and their individual abundance and abundance ratio gradients. We also investigated the time evolution of the gradients dividing open clusters in three age bins. The[Fe/H] gradient has a slope of -0.054 dex~kpc-1. We saw different behaviours for elements belonging to different channels. We found that the youngest clusters in the inner disc have lower metallicity than their older counterpart and they outline a flatter gradient. We considered some possible explanations, including the effects of gas inflow and migration. We suggested that it might be a bias introduced by the standard spectroscopic analysis producing lower metallicities in low gravity stars. To delineate the shape of the `true' gradient, we should limit our analysis to stars with low surface gravity logg>2.5 and xi<1.8 km~s-1. Based on this reduced sample, we can conclude that the gradient has minimally evolved over the time-frame outlined by the open clusters, indicating a slow and stationary formation of the thin disc in the latest Gyr. We found a secondary role of clusters' migration in shaping the gradient, with a more prominent role of migration for the oldest clusters., Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures and 4 tables in the main text, 3 figures and 7 tables in the Appendix. Accepted for publication in A&A

We report the identification of a set of old super metal-rich dwarf stars with orbits of low eccentricity that reach a maximum height from the Galactic plane between ~0.5-1.5 kpc. We discuss their properties to understand their origins. We use data from the internal data release 6 of the Gaia-ESO Survey. We selected stars observed at high resolution with abundances of 21 species of 18 individual elements. We apply hierarchical clustering to group the stars with similar chemical abundances within the complete chemical abundance space. According to their chemical properties, this set of super metal-rich stars can be arranged into five subgroups. Four seem to follow a chemical enrichment flow, where nearly all abundances increase in lockstep with Fe. The fifth subgroup shows different chemical characteristics. All subgroups have the following features: median ages of the order of 7-9 Gyr, Solar or sub-Solar [Mg/Fe] ratios, maximum height between 0.5-1.5 kpc, low eccentricities, and a detachment from the expected metallicity gradient with guiding radius. The high metallicity of our stars is incompatible with a formation in the Solar neighbourhood. Their dynamic properties agree with theoretical expectations that these stars travelled from the inner Galaxy due to blurring and, most importantly, to churning. We suggest that most of this population's stars originated in the Milky Way's inner regions (inner disc and/or the bulge) and later migrated to the Solar neighbourhood. The region from where the stars originated had a complex chemical enrichment history, with contributions from supernovae types Ia and II and possibly asymptotic giant branch stars., Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A. Version after language proofs. The catalogue remains to be released. Abridged abstract to fit arxiv's requirements

The Gaia-ESO Survey (GES) is a large public spectroscopic survey that was carried out using the multi-object FLAMES spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope. The survey provides accurate radial velocities, stellar parameters, and elemental abundances for ~115,000 stars in all Milky Way components. In this paper we describe the method adopted in the final data release to derive lithium equivalent widths (EWs) and abundances. Lithium EWs were measured using two different approaches for FGK and M-type stars, to account for the intrinsic differences in the spectra. For FGK stars, we fitted the lithium line using Gaussian components, while direct integration over a predefined interval was adopted for M-type stars. Care was taken to ensure continuity between the two regimes. Abundances were derived using a new set of homogeneous curves of growth that were derived specifically for GES, and which were measured on a synthetic spectral grid consistently with the way the EWs were measured. The derived abundances were validated by comparison with those measured by other analysis groups using different methods. Lithium EWs were measured for ~40,000 stars, and abundances could be derived for ~38,000 of them. The vast majority of the measures (80%) have been obtained for stars in open cluster fields. The remaining objects are stars in globular clusters, or field stars in the Milky Way disc, bulge, and halo. The GES dataset of homogeneous lithium abundances described here will be valuable for our understanding of several processes, from stellar evolution and internal mixing in stars at different evolutionary stages to Galactic evolution., Comment: 15 pages, 15 figures. Accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics

CUBES (Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph) is the recently approved high-efficiency VLT spectrograph aimed to observe the sky in the UV ground-based region (305-400 nm) with a high-resolution mode (~20K) and a low-resolution mode (~5K). In this paper we will briefly describe the requirements and the design of the several software packages involved in the project, namely the instrument control software, the exposure time calculator, the end-to-end simulator, and the data reduction software suite. We will discuss how the above mentioned blocks cooperate to build up a "software ecosystem" for the CUBES instrument, and to support the users from the proposal preparation to the science-grade data products., Comment: SPIE proceedings, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2022, Montr\'eal, Canada

Node similarity scores are a foundation for machine learning in graphs for clustering, node classification, anomaly detection, and link prediction with applications in biological systems, information networks, and recommender systems. Recent works on link prediction use vector space embeddings to calculate node similarities in undirected networks with good performance. Still, they have several disadvantages: limited interpretability, need for hyperparameter tuning, manual model fitting through dimensionality reduction, and poor performance from symmetric similarities in directed link prediction. We propose MapSim, an information-theoretic measure to assess node similarities based on modular compression of network flows. Unlike vector space embeddings, MapSim represents nodes in a discrete, non-metric space of communities and yields asymmetric similarities in an unsupervised fashion. We compare MapSim on a link prediction task to popular embedding-based algorithms across 47 networks and find that MapSim's average performance across all networks is more than 7% higher than its closest competitor, outperforming all embedding methods in 11 of the 47 networks. Our method demonstrates the potential of compression-based approaches in graph representation learning, with promising applications in other graph learning tasks., Comment: In: Proceedings of the First Learning on Graphs Conference, PMLR 198:52:1-52:18, 2022. Available at https://proceedings.mlr.press/v198/blocker22a.html

With its origin coming from several sources (Big Bang, stars, cosmic rays) and given its strong depletion during its stellar lifetime, the lithium element is of great interest as its chemical evolution in the Milky Way is not well understood at present. To help constrain stellar and galactic chemical evolution models, numerous and precise lithium abundances are necessary for a large range of evolutionary stages, metallicities, and Galactic volume. In the age of stellar parametrization on industrial scales, spectroscopic surveys such as APOGEE, GALAH, RAVE, and LAMOST have used data-driven methods to rapidly and precisely infer stellar labels (atmospheric parameters and abundances). To prepare the ground for future spectroscopic surveys such as 4MOST and WEAVE, we aim to apply machine learning techniques to lithium measurements and analyses. We trained a convolution neural network (CNN), coupling Gaia-ESO Survey iDR6 stellar labels (Teff, log(g), [Fe/H], and A(Li)) and GIRAFFE HR15N spectra, to infer the atm parameters and lithium abundances for ~40,000 stars. We show that the CNN properly learns the physics of the stellar labels, from relevant spectral features through a broad range of evolutionary stages and stellar parameters. The Li feature at 6707.8 A is successfully singled out by our CNN, among the thousands of lines. Rare objects such as Li-rich giants are found in our sample. This level of performance is achieved thanks to a meticulously built, high-quality, and homogeneous training sample. The CNN approach is very well adapted for the next generations of spectroscopic surveys aimed at studying (among other elements) lithium, such as the 4MIDABLE-LR/HR (4MOST Milky Way disk and bulge low- and high-resolution) surveys. In this context, the caveats of ML applications should be appropriately investigated, along with the realistic label uncertainties and upper limits for abundances., Comment: A&A, accepted 05 December 2022, 23 pages, 23 figures. Codes and trained models available at https://github.com/SamirNepal/Li\_CNN\_2022

We aim to prepare the machine-learning ground for the next generation of spectroscopic surveys, such as 4MOST and WEAVE. Our goal is to show that convolutional neural networks can predict accurate stellar labels from relevant spectral features in a physically meaningful way. We built a neural network and trained it on GIRAFFE spectra with associated stellar labels from the sixth internal Gaia-ESO data release. Our neural network predicts the atmospheric parameters Teff and log(g) as well as the chemical abundances [Mg/Fe], [Al/Fe], and [Fe/H] for 30115 stellar spectra. The scatter of predictions from eight slightly different network models shows a high internal precision of the network results: 24 K for Teff, 0.03 for log(g), 0.02 dex for [Mg/Fe], 0.03 dex for [Al/Fe], and 0.02 dex for [Fe/H]. The network gradients reveal that the network is inferring the labels in a physically meaningful way from spectral features. Validation with benchmark stars and several scientific applications confirm that our network predictions are accurate for individual stars and recover the properties of different stellar populations in the Milky Way galaxy. Such a study provides very good insights into the application of machine-learning for the spectral analysis of large-scale spectroscopic surveys, such as WEAVE and 4MIDABLE-LR and -HR (4MOST Milky Way disk and bulge low- and high-resolution). The community will have to put a substantial effort into building proactive training sets for machine-learning methods to minimize the possible systematics., Comment: Submitted to A&A

The Gaia-ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey is an ambitious project designed to obtain astrophysical parameters and elemental abundances for 100,000 stars, including large representative samples of the stellar populations in the Galaxy, and a well-defined sample of 60 (plus 20 archive) open clusters. We provide internally consistent results calibrated on benchmark stars and star clusters, extending across a very wide range of abundances and ages. This provides a legacy data set of intrinsic value, and equally a large wide-ranging dataset that is of value for homogenisation of other and future stellar surveys and Gaia's astrophysical parameters. This article provides an overview of the survey methodology, the scientific aims, and the implementation, including a description of the data processing for the GIRAFFE spectra. A companion paper (arXiv:2206.02901) introduces the survey results. Gaia-ESO aspires to quantify both random and systematic contributions to measurement uncertainties. Thus all available spectroscopic analysis techniques are utilised, each spectrum being analysed by up to several different analysis pipelines, with considerable effort being made to homogenise and calibrate the resulting parameters. We describe here the sequence of activities up to delivery of processed data products to the ESO Science Archive Facility for open use. The Gaia-ESO Survey obtained 202,000 spectra of 115,000 stars using 340 allocated VLT nights between December 2011 and January 2018 from GIRAFFE and UVES. The full consistently reduced final data set of spectra was released through the ESO Science Archive Facility in late 2020, with the full astrophysical parameters sets following in 2022., Comment: 38 pages. A&A in press

We introduce the scientific motivations for the development of the Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph (CUBES) that is now in construction for the Very Large Telescope. The assembled cases span a broad range of contemporary topics across Solar System, Galactic and extragalactic astronomy, where observations are limited by the performance of current ground-based spectrographs shortwards of 400nm. A brief background to each case is presented and specific technical requirements on the instrument design that flow-down from each case are identified. These were used as inputs to the CUBES design, that will provide a factor of ten gain in efficiency for astronomical spectroscopy over 300-405nm, at resolving powers of R~24,000 and ~7,000. We include performance estimates that demonstrate the ability of CUBES to observe sources that are up to three magnitudes fainter than currently possible at ground-ultraviolet wavelengths, and we place its predicted performance in the context of existing facillities., Comment: Accepted for publication in Experimental Astronomy

In the era of Extremely Large Telescopes, the current generation of 8-10m facilities are likely to remain competitive at ground-UV wavelengths for the foreseeable future. The Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph (CUBES) has been designed to provide high-efficiency (>40%) observations in the near UV (305-400 nm requirement, 300-420 nm goal) at a spectral resolving power of R>20,000 (with a lower-resolution, sky-limited mode of R ~ 7,000). With the design focusing on maximizing the instrument throughput (ensuring a Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) ~20 per high-resolution element at 313 nm for U ~18.5 mag objects in 1h of observations), it will offer new possibilities in many fields of astrophysics, providing access to key lines of stellar spectra: a tremendous diversity of iron-peak and heavy elements, lighter elements (in particular Beryllium) and light-element molecules (CO, CN, OH), as well as Balmer lines and the Balmer jump (particularly important for young stellar objects). The UV range is also critical in extragalactic studies: the circumgalactic medium of distant galaxies, the contribution of different types of sources to the cosmic UV background, the measurement of H2 and primordial Deuterium in a regime of relatively transparent intergalactic medium, and follow-up of explosive transients. The CUBES project completed a Phase A conceptual design in June 2021 and has now entered the detailed design and construction phase. First science operations are planned for 2028., Comment: SPIE proceedings, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2022, Montr\'eal, Canada; 20 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables

A renewed interest about the origin of \emph{r}-process elements has been stimulated by the multi-messenger observation of the gravitational event GW170817, with the detection of both gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves corresponding to the merger of two neutron stars. Such phenomenon has been proposed as one of the main sources of the \emph{r}-process. However, the origin of the \emph{r}-process elements at different metallicities is still under debate. We aim at investigating the origin of the \emph{r}-process elements in the Galactic thin disc population. From the sixth internal data release of the \emph{Gaia}-ESO we have collected a large sample of Milky Way thin- and thick-disc stars for which abundances of Eu, O, and Mg are available. The sample consists of members of 62 open clusters, located at a Galactocentric radius from $\sim 5$ kpc to $\sim 20$ kpc in the disc, in the metallicity range $[-0.5, 0.4]$ and covering an age interval from 0.1 to 7 Gy, and about 1300 Milky Way disc field stars in the metallicity range $[-1.5, 0.5]$. We compare the observations with the results of a chemical evolution model, in which we varied the nucleosynthesis sources for the three considered elements. Our main result is that Eu in the thin disc is predominantly produced by sources with short lifetimes, such as magneto-rotationally driven SNe. There is no strong evidence for additional sources at delayed times. Our findings do not imply that there cannot be a contribution from mergers of neutron stars in other environments, as in the halo or in dwarf spheroidal galaxies, but such a contribution is not needed to explain Eu abundances at thin disc metallicities., Comment: 20 pages, accepted for publication in A&A

Social groups are fundamental elements of any social system. Their emergence and evolution are closely related to the structure and dynamics of a social system. Research on social groups was primarily focused on the growth and the structure of the interaction networks of social system members and how members' group affiliation influences the evolution of these networks. The distribution of groups' size and how members join groups has not been investigated in detail. Here we combine statistical physics and complex network theory tools to analyze the distribution of group sizes in three data sets, Meetup groups based in London and New York and Reddit. We show that all three distributions exhibit log-normal behavior that indicates universal growth patterns in these systems. We propose a theoretical model that combines social and random diffusion of members between groups to simulate the roles of social interactions and members' interest in the growth of social groups. The simulation results show that our model reproduces growth patterns observed in empirical data. Moreover, our analysis shows that social interactions are more critical for the diffusion of members in online groups, such as Reddit, than in offline groups, such as Meetup. This work shows that social groups follow universal growth mechanisms that need to be considered in modeling the evolution of social systems.

In the last 15 years different ground-based spectroscopic surveys have been started (and completed) with the general aim of delivering stellar parameters and elemental abundances for large samples of Galactic stars, complementing Gaia astrometry. Among those surveys, the Gaia-ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey (GES), the only one performed on a 8m class telescope, was designed to target 100,000 stars using FLAMES on the ESO VLT (both Giraffe and UVES spectrographs), covering all the Milky Way populations, with a special focus on open star clusters. This article provides an overview of the survey implementation (observations, data quality, analysis and its success, data products, and releases), of the open cluster survey, of the science results and potential, and of the survey legacy. A companion article (Gilmore et al.) reviews the overall survey motivation, strategy, Giraffe pipeline data reduction, organisation, and workflow. The GES has determined homogeneous good-quality radial velocities and stellar parameters for a large fraction of its more than 110,000 unique target stars. Elemental abundances were derived for up to 31 elements for targets observed with UVES. Lithium abundances are delivered for about 1/3 of the sample. The analysis and homogenisation strategies have proven to be successful; several science topics have been addressed by the Gaia-ESO consortium and the community, with many highlight results achieved. The final catalogue has been released through the ESO archive at the end of May 2022, including the complete set of advanced data products. In addition to these results, the Gaia-ESO Survey will leave a very important legacy, for several aspects and for many years to come., Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. 30 pages, 30 figures, 4 tables

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., Comment: accepted for publication in Nature Astronomy

A growing disquiet has emerged in recent years that standard stellar models are at odds with observations of the colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) and lithium depletion patterns of pre main sequence (PMS) stars in clusters. In this work we select 1,246 high probability K/M-type constituent members of 5 young open clusters (5--125\,Myr) in the Gaia-ESO Survey to test a series of models that use standard input physics and others that incorporate surface magnetic fields or cool starspots. We find that: standard models provide systematically under-luminous isochrones for low-mass stars in the CMD and fail to predict Li-depletion of the right strength at the right colour; magnetic models provide better CMD fits with isochrones that are $\sim 1.5-2$ times older, and provide better matches to Li depletion patterns. We investigate how rotation periods, most of which are determined here for the first time from Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite data, correlate with CMD position and Li. Among the K-stars in the older clusters we find the brightest and least Li-depleted are the fastest rotators, demonstrating the classic "Li-rotation connection" for the first time at $\sim 35$ Myr in NGC 2547, and finding some evidence that it exists in the early M-stars of NGC 2264 at $<10\,$Myr. However, the wide dispersion in Li depletion observed in fully-convective M-dwarfs in the $\gamma$ Vel cluster at $\sim 20$ Myr appears not to be correlated with rotation and is challenging to explain without a very large ($>10$ Myr) age spread., Comment: Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: 28 pages, 14 figures

Beryllium is a light element with one single stable isotope, 9Be, which is a pure product of cosmic-ray spallation in the interstellar medium. Beryllium abundances in late-type stars can be used in studies about evolutionary mixing, Galactic chemical evolution, planet engulfment, and the formation of globular clusters. Some of these uses of Be abundances figure among the science cases of the Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph (CUBES), a new near-UV low- and medium-resolution spectrograph under development for the Very Large Telescope. Here, we report on a study about beryllium abundances in extremely metal-poor stars in the context of the phase A of CUBES. Our motivation is to understand the limits for the detection of weak lines in extremely metal-poor stars of low Be abundances. We analyze simulated CUBES observations, performed in medium-resolution mode, based on synthetic spectra for four mock stars with [Fe/H] \leq -3.0. We find that detecting the Be lines is possible in certain cases, but is very challenging and requires high signal-to-noise ratio. Depending on the atmospheric parameters of the target stars, and if signal-to-noise per pixel of about 400 can be achieved, it should be possible to detect Be abundances between log(Be/H) = -13.1 and -13.6, with a typical uncertainty of \pm 0.15 dex. Using CUBES, the required data for such studies can be obtained for stars that are fainter by two magnitudes with respect to what is possible with current instrumentation., Comment: 20 pages. Accepted for publication in Experimental Astronomy. The published version is available at https://rdcu.be/cJG71

Globular clusters host multiple stellar populations that display star-to-star variation of light elements that are affected by hot hydrogen burning (e.g., He, C, N, O). Several scenarios have been suggested to explain these variations. Most involve multiple star formation episodes, where later generations are born from material contaminated by the nucleosynthetic products of the previous stellar generation(s). One difficulty in the modelling of such scenarios is knowing the extent to which processed and pristine material are mixed. In this context, beryllium abundances measured in turn-off stars of different generations can provide new information. Beryllium originates from cosmic-ray spallation and can only be destroyed inside stars. Beryllium abundances can thus directly measure the degree of pollution of the material that formed stars in globular clusters. Turn-off stars in globular clusters are however faint and such studies are beyond the capabilities of current instrumentation. In this work, we show the progress that the CUBES spectrograph will bring to this area. Our simulations indicate that CUBES will enable the detection of variations of about 0.6 dex in the Be abundances between stars from different generations, in several nearby globular clusters with turn-off magnitude down to $V$ = 18 mag., Comment: Published in Experimental Astronomy

We present the baseline conceptual design of the Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph (CUBES) for the Very Large Telescope. CUBES will provide unprecedented sensitivity for spectroscopy on a 8 - 10 m class telescope in the ground ultraviolet (UV), spanning a bandwidth of > 100 nm that starts at 300 nm, the shortest wavelength accessible from the ground. The design has been optimized for end-to-end efficiency and provides a spectral resolving power of R > 20000, that will unlock a broad range of new topics across solar system, Galactic and extraglactic astronomy. The design also features a second, lower-resolution (R \sim 7000) mode and has the option of a fiberlink to the UVES instrument for simultaneous observations at longer wavelengths. Here we present the optical, mechanical and software design of the various subsystems of the instrument after the Phase A study of the project. We discuss the expected performances for the layout choices and highlight some of the performance trade-offs considered to best meet the instrument top-level requirements. We also introduce the model-based system engineering approach used to organize and manage the project activities and interfaces, in the context that it is increasingly necessary to integrate such tools in the development of complex astronomical projects., Comment: Accepted for publication in Experimental Astronomy

The chemical makeup of a star provides the fossil information of the environment where it formed. Under this premise, it should be possible to use chemical abundances to tag stars that formed within the same stellar association. This idea - known as chemical tagging - has not produced the expected results, especially within the thin disk where open stellar clusters have chemical patterns that are difficult to disentangle. The ultimate goal of this study is to probe the feasibility of chemical tagging within the thin disk population using high-quality data from a controlled sample of stars. We also aim at improving the existing techniques of chemical tagging and giving guidance on different strategies of clustering analysis in the elemental abundance space. Here we develop the first blind search of open clusters' members through clustering analysis in the elemental abundance space using the OPTICS algorithm applied to data from the Gaia-ESO survey. First, we evaluate different strategies of analysis, determining which ones are more performing. Second, we apply these methods to a data set including both field stars and open clusters attempting a blind recover of as many open clusters as possible. We show how specific strategies of data analysis can improve the final results. Specifically, we demonstrate that open clusters can be more efficaciously recovered with the Manhattan metric and on a space whose dimensions are carefully selected. Using these (and other) prescriptions we are able to recover open clusters hidden in our data set and find new members of these stellar associations. Our results indicate that there are chances of recovering open clusters' members via clustering analysis in the elemental abundance space. Presumably, the performances of chemical tagging will further increase with higher quality data and more sophisticated clustering algorithms., Comment: Accepted for publication by A&A. 21 pages, 11 figures

The Gaia-ESO Survey (GES) is a large public spectroscopic survey that has collected, over a period of 6 years, spectra of ~ 10^5 stars. This survey provides not only the reduced spectra, but also the stellar parameters and abundances resulting from the analysis of the spectra. The GES dataflow is organised in 19 working groups. Working group 13 (WG13) is responsible for the spectral analysis of the hottest stars (O, B and A type, with a formal cut-off of Teff > 7000 K) that were observed as part of GES. We present the procedures and techniques that have been applied to the reduced spectra, in order to determine the stellar parameters and abundances of these stars. The procedure used is similar to that of other working groups in GES. A number of groups (called `Nodes') each independently analyse the spectra, using their state-of-the-art techniques and codes. Specific for the analysis in WG13 is the large temperature range that is covered (Teff = 7000 - 50,000 K), requiring the use of different analysis codes. Most Nodes can therefore only handle part of the data. Quality checks are applied to the results of these Nodes by comparing them to benchmark stars, and by comparing them one to another. For each star the Node values are then homogenised into a single result: the recommended parameters and abundances. Eight Nodes each analysed (part of) the data. In total 17,693 spectra of 6462 stars were analysed, most of them in 37 open star clusters. The homogenisation led to stellar parameters for 5584 stars. Abundances were determined for a more limited number of stars. Elements studied are He, C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Al, Si and Sc. Abundances for at least one of those elements were determined for 292 stars. The hot-star data analysed here, as well as the Gaia-ESO Survey data in general, will be of considerable use in future studies of stellar evolution and open clusters., Comment: 26 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics; language-edited version; two appendices merged

The last decade has seen a revolution in our knowledge of the Galaxy thanks to the Gaia and asteroseismic space missions and the ground-based spectroscopic surveys. To complete this picture, it is necessary to map the ages of its stellar populations. During recent years, the dependence on time of abundance ratios involving slow (s) neutron-capture and $\alpha$ elements (called chemical-clocks) has been used to provide estimates of stellar ages, usually in a limited volume close to the Sun. We aim to analyse the relations of chemical clocks in the Galactic disc extending the range to R$_{\rm GC}\sim$6-20~kpc. Using the sixth internal data release of the Gaia-ESO survey, we calibrated several relations between stellar ages and abundance ratios [s/$\alpha$] using a sample of open clusters, the largest one so far used with this aim. Thanks to their wide galactocentric coverage, we investigated the radial variations of the shape of these relations, confirming their non-universality. We estimated our accuracy and precision in recovering the global ages of open clusters, and the ages of their individual members. We applied the multi-variate relations with the highest correlation coefficients to the field star population. We confirm that there is no single age-chemical clock relationship valid for the whole disc, but that there is a dependence on the galactocentric position, which is related to the radial variation of the star formation history combined with the non-monotonic dependence on metallicity of the yields of the s-process elements from low- and intermediate-mass stars. Finally, the abundance ratios [Ba/$\alpha$] are more sensitive to age than those with [Y/$\alpha$] for young disc stars, and their slopes vary less with galactocentric distance., Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures + Appendix (3 tables and 2 figures)

In this paper we investigate the prospects for measuring the branching fraction of the Standard Model Higgs boson decay into a pair of $Z$ bosons at the future Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) at 350 GeV and 3 TeV centre-of-mass energies. Studies are performed using a detailed simulation of the detector for CLIC, taking into consideration all relevant physics and beam-induced background processes. It is shown that the product of the Higgs production cross-section and the branching fraction BR(${H\rightarrow\thinspace ZZ^\ast}$) can be measured with a relative statistical uncertainty of 20% (3.0%) at a centre-of-mass energy of 350 GeV (3 TeV) using semileptonic final states, assuming an integrated luminosity of 1 ab$^{-1}$ (5 ab$^{-1}$).