The largest solar flares, of class X and above, are often associated with strong energetic particle acceleration. Based on the self-similar distribution of solar flares, self-organized criticality models such as sandpiles can be used to successfully reproduce their statistics. However, predicting strong (and rare) solar flares turns out to be a significant challenge. We build here on an original idea based on the combination of minimalistic flare models (sandpiles) and modern data assimilation techniques (4DVar) to predict large solar flares. We discuss how to represent a sandpile model over a reduced set of eigenfunctions to improve the efficiency of the data assimilation technique. This improvement is model-independent and continues to pave the way towards efficient near real-time solutions for predicting solar flares.

The origin of magnetic cycles in the Sun and other cool stars is one of the great theoretical challenge in stellar astrophysics that still resists our understanding. Ab-initio numerical simulations are today required to explore the extreme turbulent regime in which stars operate and sustain their large-scale, cyclic magnetic field. We report in this work on recent progresses made with high performance numerical simulations of global turbulent convective envelopes. We rapidly review previous prominent results from numerical simulations, and present for the first time a series of turbulent, global simulations producing regular magnetic cycles whose period varies systematically with the convective envelope parameters (rotation rate, convective luminosity). We find that the fundamentally non-linear character of the dynamo simulated in this work leads the magnetic cycle period to be inversely proportional to the Rossby number. These results promote an original interpretation of stellar magnetic cycles, and could help reconcile the cyclic behaviour of the Sun and other solar-type stars.

After more than half a century of community support related to the science of “solar activity”, IAU's Commission 10 was formally discontinued in 2015, to be succeeded by C.E2 with the same area of responsibility. On this occasion, we look back at the growth of the scientific disciplines involved around the world over almost a full century. Solar activity and fields of research looking into the related physics of the heliosphere continue to be vibrant and growing, with currently over 2,000 refereed publications appearing per year from over 4,000 unique authors, publishing in dozens of distinct journals and meeting in dozens of workshops and conferences each year. The size of the rapidly growing community and of the observational and computational data volumes, along with the multitude of connections into other branches of astrophysics, pose significant challenges; aspects of these challenges are beginning to be addressed through, among others, the development of new systems of literature reviews, machine-searchable archives for data and publications, and virtual observatories. As customary in these reports, we highlight some of the research topics that have seen particular interest over the most recent triennium, specifically active-region magnetic fields, coronal thermal structure, coronal seismology, flares and eruptions, and the variability of solar activity on long time scales. We close with a collection of developments, discoveries, and surprises that illustrate the range and dynamics of the discipline.

We propose to use a deterministically-driven class of self-organized criticality sandpile models to carry out predictions of the largest, most dangerous, and hardest to predict solar flares.

The Business Meeting of Commission 10 was held as part of the Business Meeting of Division II (Sun and Heliosphere), chaired by Valentin Martínez-Pillet, the President of the Division. The President of Commission 10 (C10; Solar activity), Lidia van Driel-Gesztelyi, took the chair for the business meeting of C10. She summarised the activities of C10 over the triennium and the election of the incoming OC.

Commission 10 of the International Astronomical Union has more than 650 members who study a wide range of activity phenomena produced by our nearest star, the Sun. Solar activity is intrinsically related to solar magnetic fields and encompasses events from the smallest energy releases (nano- or even picoflares) to the largest eruptions in the Solar System, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which propagate into the Heliosphere reaching the Earth and beyond. Solar activity is manifested in the appearance of sunspot groups or active regions, which are the principal sources of activity phenomena from the emergence of their magnetic flux through their dispersion and decay. The period 2008–2009 saw an unanticipated extended solar cycle minimum and unprecedentedly weak polar-cap and heliospheric field. Associated with that was the 2009 historical maximum in galactic cosmic rays flux since measurements begun in the middle of the 20th Century. Since then Cycle 24 has re-started solar activity producing some spectacular eruptions observed with a fleet of spacecraft and ground-based facilities. In the last triennium major advances in our knowledge and understanding of solar activity were due to continuing success of space missions as SOHO, Hinode, RHESSI and the twin STEREO spacecraft, further enriched by the breathtaking images of the solar atmosphere produced by the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) launched on 11 February 2010 in the framework of NASA's Living with a Star program. In August 2012, at the time of the IAU General Assembly in Beijing when the mandate of this Commission ends, we will be in the unique position to have for the first time a full 3-D view of the Sun and solar activity phenomena provided by the twin STEREO missions about 120 degrees behind and ahead of Earth and other spacecraft around the Earth and ground-based observatories. These new observational insights are continuously posing new questions, inspiring and advancing theoretical analysis and modelling, improving our understanding of the physics underlying magnetic activity phenomena. Commission 10 reports on a vigorously evolving field of research produced by a large community. The number of refereed publications containing ‘Sun’, ‘heliosphere’, or a synonym in their abstracts continued the steady growth seen over the preceding decades, reaching about 2000 in the years 2008–2010, with a total of close to 4000 unique authors. This report, however, has its limitations and it is inherently incomplete, as it was prepared jointly by the members of the Organising Committee of Commission 10 (see the names of the primary contributors to the sections indicated in parentheses) reflecting their fields of expertise and interest. Nevertheless, we believe that it is a representative sample of significant new results obtained during the last triennium in the field of solar activity.

In this paper, fabrication of nanocomposite thin films with introduction of fullerene (C60) molecules in PolyMethyl MethAcrylate resist (PMMA) was investigated from a material and electrical point of view. The effective inclusion of C60 molecules in the samples was characterized by using UV-vis and Tof-SIMS instruments. The modified resist PMMA:C60 was also studied with Thermal analysis (TGA, DSC) where modification of physical properties is reported. Films were included in MIS and MIM devices and results on non volatile trapping of C60 doped PMMA are presented. Moreover, e-beam exposure tests showed that PMMA:C60 active layers for memory devices, were scalable in size.

I describe three key moments in the rotational evolution of three single stars, chosen to illustrate the richness and complexity of the interaction between rotation and magnetic fields. I then piece together two general scenarii for the rotational evolution of early-type and late-type stars, in which the “fossil” magnetic field inherited by a star from its formative years basically sets its subsequent rotational fate. Since no one has yet offered a convincing scenario according to which a star could somehow get rid of its primordial fossil field, the inescapable conclusion is that magnetic fields cannot be neglected in modelling rotation, and that “rotational evolution” should really be thought of as “magnetorotational evolution”.

This short paper discusses various issues pertaining to the redistribution of angular momentum and mixing of chemical species in the radiative interior of solar-type stars. Results obtained to date indicate that models combining magnetically-mediated angular momentum transport with turbulent mixing of chemical species offer the best hope of explaining the observed rotation and light element evolution in open clusters, without doing excess violence to seismic measurements of the solar internal differential rotation.

The role played by rotationally-induced mixing in the diffusion-based models for non-magnetic chemically peculiar stars is investigated. This paper focuses on one specific rotationally controlled mixing mechanism, namely thermally-driven meridional circulation. Its effects on the time evolution of chemical abundances are illustrated by means of three specific examples. The first two concern the diffusion model for FmAm stars, where it is shown that while circulation has a determining influence on the settling of Helium, it has no significant effect on the diffusion of heavier metals once the He superficial convection zone has disappeared. The third example is concerned with the diffusion/mass loss model for λBootis stars. It is shown that the inclusion of circulation prevents the appearance of generalized underabundances at any epoch of the evolution, indicating that the diffusion/mass loss model for these objects must be abandoned.

We present a selection of results from a large set of numerical simulations of the spin-down of a solar-type star containing a large scale magnetic field in its radiative interior. Our computations are dynamical, in that they take into account both the generation of the toroidal component by the wind-induced shear endits back-reaction on the azimuthal flow. Our results demonstrate the existence of classes of internal magnetic fields that can accomodate rapid spin-down near the ZAMS, and yield weak internal differential rotation by the solar age.