1 STOCKHOLM OBSERVATORY ANNUAL REPORT 2006 Nobel prize winner John Mather with our graduate students on Dec 11 STOCKHOLM OBSERVATORY ANNUAL REPORT 2006 Editor G¨osta Gahm Stockholm Observatory, AlbaNova University Centre, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden Home page: www.astro.su.se 3 PREFACE Openess has been a hallmark for much of the activities at the Observatory for a long time. New positions have always been advertised internationally at the most visable sites and with no restriction regarding scientific preference. It has been done with the aim to attract the best scientists possible. This policy has served us well as can be seen from the scientific output from the Observatory. As a by-product, this has led to a scientific profile with clear anarchistic features. However, the last few years have seen the emergence of group structures, nebulous and with no distinct boundaries, but nevertheless a few centers of gravity do exist, for example, HEAC and astrobiology. Together with todays general trend within science to set priorities and focus on the most competitive activities, this has necessitated the start of a discussion regarding how to best use the limited resources available. In order to give some structure to this process, a strategy group was formed in 2006. Although it still has to find its proper role when it comes to defining the future scientific policy of the Observatory, such a base for the discussions is clearly needed when hard decisions regarding priorities and allocation of resources are to be taken. The preparations for the start of the Bologna process in 2007 determined to a large extent the activities on the teaching side. The addition of an extra year to the undergraduate level has far-reaching consequences not only for the undergraduate curriculum but also for our graduate programme. Every course had to be revised, in some cases substantially, and new course plans had to be written that comply with directives quite different from the present ones. Also our graduate programme is in a transition phase. This is due not only to the fact that the Bologna process makes a smaller course package needed on the graduate level but, most importantly, that the rapid rise in the number of graduate student in recent years has made the structure of our old graduate programme obsolete. Major changes were introduced during 2006, and the programme should find its final form within the coming year. A not-so-welcomed surprise was the decline of the enrollment in our introductary astronomy courses. It is not clear what caused this sudden drop but one of the major aims for the near future is to develop new courses, which make direct contact with the many fascinating discoveries that have attracted so much media attention. With the addition of five new graduate students, Angela Adamo, Jaime de la Cruz, Kristoffer Hniopek, Anders Jerkstrand and Ricky Nilsson, the number of graduate students are now close to 30. Jesper Sollerman was selected for a KVA- position and Alexis Brandeker received funding from the Space Board for a research associate position. We were very happy to welcome Garrelt Mellema as a new faculty member. With the move of Nordita to Stockholm, its permanet staff was free to choose a home department. Although they will be on a leave of absence during their time at Nordita, we were much pleased when professor Axel Brandenburg chose the Observatory for his tenured position. The demography at the Observatoty is far from homogeneous and in the coming few years we will see a number of retirements. Aage Sandqvist is leading this group and attained his emeritus status in 2006. The main theme of 2006 is likely to be carried over to 2007, so that teaching aspects will be at the focus of our attention in the coming year. It is with much anticipation that we are looking forward to the first students of the astronomy pro- gramme to begin their astronomy studies in earnest. This should invigorate our undergraduate programme as should the new telescope atop the AlbaNova building, which is expected to be delivered during the spring semester. January 2007, Claes-Ingvar Bj¨ornsson, Director 4 1. INTRODUCTION The Department of Astronomy at the Stockholm University (Stockholm Observa- tory) has responsibilities in teaching, research and public outreach. The institution also hosts The Institute for Solar Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences [Kungl. Vetenskapsakademiens institut f¨or solfysik] with the Swedish Solar Telescope on La Palma, Spain. About 60 persons were actively engaged at the department during 2007, including close to 30 graduate students. The fields of research include the interstellar medium and star formation, young stars and planetary systems, solar physics, evolved stars and planetary nebulae, su- pernovae, galactic structure and dynamics, observational cosmology, and high energy astrophysics. Besides, instruments were developed in the Observatory workshop. Stockholm Observatory made use of many instruments at the European South- ern Observatory in Chile (ESO), including the Very Large Telescope (VLT). The Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) and the Swedish solar telescope are both located on La Palma, Canary Islands. Other ground-based instruments were also used, like the 20m antenna at the Onsala Space Observatory (OSO), Atacama Pathfinder Ex- periment , Chile (APEX), James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, Hawaiii (JCMT), the IRAM 30m radio telescope, Spain, the radio telescope Mopra under the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATFN) and the Anglo Australian Telescope, Australia (AAT). Various research programs at the Observatory make use of space-based obser- vatories including the Swedish space-born radio telescope ODIN, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTE- GRAL), the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO), the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), the X-ray Multimirror Mission (XMM) and the X-ray Observa- tory CHANDRA. Observatory members are also actively involved in the development of, and program planning for, new space missions such as the Far Infra-Red Space Telescope HERSCHEL, the Infrared Space Interferometer DARWIN, the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). 5 2. STAFF Positions are financed by the Stockholm University and/or by the following exter- nal financial sources: ESMN - European Solar Magnetometry Network, EU - RTN - European Union Network, HS - House of Science [Vetenskapshuset], NOTSA - Nordic Optical Telescope Scientific Association, SNSB - Swedish National Space Board [Rymdstyrelsen], USO-SP - Utrecht–Stockholm–Oslo international graduate school for Solar Physics (EC), VR - Swedish Research Council [Vetenskapsr˚adet], Al- manacksf¨orlaget, KVA – The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences [Kungliga Veten- skapsakademien], and with persons related to the Institute for Solar Physics so indicated below (ISP). 2.1. Faculty Bj¨ornsson, Claes-Ingvar: Associate Professor Cumming, Robert: Researcher Fransson, Claes: Professor Gahm, G¨osta: Professor Justtanont Liseau, Kay: Research Scientist Kiselman, Dan: Research Associate (ISP) Kozma, Cecilia: Researcher Th´ebault, Philippe: Guest Researcher Larsson, Bengt: Research Scientist Larsson, Stefan: Research Scientist Lindblad, Per Olof: Professor Emeritus Liseau, Ren´e: Professor Lundqvist, Peter: Associate Professor L¨ofdahl, Mats: Research Associate (ISP) Mellema, Garrelt: Associate Professor, from May M¨ortsell, Edvard: Research Associate N¨aslund, Magnus: School-project leader Olofsson, G¨oran: Professor Olofsson, Hans: 20% at SU. Guest professor at Chalmers Univ. of Technology, Gothenburg Ryde, Felix: Research Associate Sandqvist, Aage: Professor until July 1. Professor emeritus from July Scharmer, G¨oran: Professor (ISP) Schober, Jan: Researcher Sch¨oier, Fredrik: Research Associate Sollerman, Jesper: Research Associate, 80 % at the Copenhagen University Sundman, Anita: University Lecturer Ostlin,¨ G¨oran: Associate Professor 2.2. Postdoctoral Fellows Langhans, Kai: (ISP and ESMN) until Aug. 15 van Noort, Michiel: (ISP) until May 6 2.3. Technical Staff Dettori, Pete: Research Engineer (ISP) until May Flor´en, Hans-Gustav: Research Engineer Gelato, Sergio: System Manager van Noort, Michiel: Research Engineer (ISP) from June W¨ann, Uno: Research Engineer 2.4. Administrative Staff Engberg, Ulla: Secretary, student office Olofsson, Lena: Senior Administrative Officer Aberg,˚ Sandra: Personnel adm. 2.5. Graduate Students In many cases, graduate students receive full-time economic support from Stock- holm Observatory: 80% as a study grant [utbildningsbidrag, utbb] or a graduate position [doktorandtj¨anst, dokt.tjn] and 15% as a teaching assistant [assistent, ass] position. The latter may also include administrative duties in addition to teaching duties. In some cases students are supported by research grants from VR, SNSB, KVA, NOTSA and EU-RTN. Adamao, Angela, from September Axelsson, Magnus (studiev¨agledare) Banhidi, Zita Blomqvist, Michael Borgonovo, Luis de la Cruz Rodriguez, Jaime (ISP and USO-SP) from Sept. Elfhag, Torsten Grigorieva, Anna Gr¨oningsson, Per G˚alfalk, Magnus Hayes, Matthew Hillberg, Tomas (ISP) Hjalmarsdotter, Linnea (Helsinki University) Hniopek, Kristoffer, from September Jerkstrand, Anders, from September Karlsson, Roland Lundqvist, Natalia Maercker, Matthias Melinder, Jens Mencia Trinchant, Laia Micheva, Genoveva Narayan, Gautam (ISP) Nilsson, Ricky, from September Nymark, Tanja N¨aslund, Magnus, until October Olofsson, Sven Peplinski, Adam Ramstedt,