WORK EXPERIENCE
2008 – PRESENT
University of Rome “Tor Vergata”
Assistant Professor (Researcher, Assistant in Computational Physics, Lecturer in Experimental Solar Physics, Lecturer in Experimental Astrophysics, Lecturer in Data Analysis)
2005 – 2006
University of Rome “Tor Vergata”
Research Fellow (Grant title: ”Study of convective structures observed on the solar surface” Lecturer for several International Schools)
2003 – 2004
CNR – Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Research Fellow (Grant title: ”Computational methods for solar photospheric structures characterization”)
SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY
Since my degree and PhD studies, I have been involved in several different but closely related research fields.
Here follows the list of the main topics, which are expanded below. I want to stress that, in all the financed projects that I am mentioning in the research fields description below, I had an active role in the execution of the project and also in the preparation of the application.
• Dynamics of the lower solar atmosphere
• Organization of plasma and magnetic field structures in the solar atmosphere
• Techniques for restoring post-facto, compression and processing of astronomical images
• Adaptive Optics systems
• Space Weather
My scientific activity is testified by > 100 entries in the ORCID database (iD: 0000-0003-2500-5054) or SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), the 77 entries in the Scopus database and by the numerous congress and meeting participations. In the following, I list some research interests of mine and the activities I personally undertook.
Dynamics of the lower solar atmosphere (photosphere and chromosphere)
The dynamics of the solar surface and the interaction with the magnetic structures control the external structure of the solar atmosphere, and more generally the entire heliosphere. The solar magnetic fields are produced and often organized by the motions of the solar plasma. Such movements organize the topology of the field from the photospheric to the coronal layers determining many of the physical properties of the solar atmosphere. In this context, I am involved in the study of the structures associated with convective motion of plasma and I have actively participated in: several projects funded within the FP7 and H2020 frameworks (EST, SOLARNET, GREST, PRE-EST, SOLARNET2 and ESCAPE); the ASI (Italian Space Agency) feasibility study for the ADAHELI satellite; and several PRIN (Italian National Research Grants) projects financed by MIUR or INAF. As ADAHELI Associated Scientist, I have been also involved in the scientific definition of the mission and contributed both to the design of Ground Segment and to the definition of observation strategies.
Organization of plasma and magnetic field structures in the solar atmosphere
The distribution and organization of the solar magnetic field, together with its temporal variation, are responsible for the variability of radiation and particle emission of the Sun. In particular, the solar radiative variability reflects the spatial distribution and size of the magnetic structures on the solar disk, while the outflow of plasma (solar wind and coronal mass ejection) reflects the reconfiguration of the magnetic field, whose structure is intimately connected to the boundary conditions imposed by the photospheric field and its dynamics. In this area, I have developed simplified numerical models able to mimic the evolution of the solar surface magnetic field, and also analyzed several dataset of both quiet and active regions of the sun acquired at the Dunn Solar Telescope/NSO (NM, USA) with the panoramic interferometer IBIS. In particular, I am leading a joint study on the emergence of magnetic flux on the solar surface in the form of coherent structures passively transported by the plasma. In this study, a major role is played by the analysis of Spectropolarimetric inversions (obtained with the NICOLE inversion code by H.Navarro).
Techniques for restoring post-facto, compression and processing of astronomical images
The Earth atmospheric turbulence degrades the spatial resolution of images acquired by telescopes. I am interested in the study and application of strategies to reduce such effect, both in real-time and in post-facto processing. In particular, for the part of post-acquisition restoring, I have included the MFBD (Multi-Frame Blind Deconvolution) algorithm in the IBIS data calibration pipeline. This new pipeline has been shared with the Italian community of IBIS users. Also, in order to estimate the compression efficiency in the case of solar images, I have participated in a study of the propagation of compression artifacts in the data reduction pipeline and in MFBD restoration process.
Adaptive Optics systems
As part of the EST project financed by EU-FP7, I was involved in the wavefront reconstruction from the information acquired by Shack-Hartmann-type sensors. Also, I estimated the performance of the multi-conjugate adaptive optics system designed for the telescope using the LOST simulation package. At present, I am working on the implementation of a hardware turbulence simulation to study innovative algorithms to correct the wavefront. Such system will be also used to measure the aberrations introduced by optical elements and for the calibration of a prototype Fabry-Perot interferometer currently under construction.
Space Weather
The Sun is the primary source of energy for our planet. It defines the physical condition in the heliosphere and therefore in the near Earth space, and is the main driver for the Earth climate. The knowledge of the environmental conditions in space, with particular attention to the variation of the plasma, of the magnetic field and of the radiation flux is called Space Weather. In the latest years, I applied myself to the observation of Space Weather events and in the development and testing of now- and fore-cast algorithms. In this research field, I have actively participated in: the SPARC and IPS projects funded by the EU; the SWERTOproject financed by FILAS-Regione Lazio; and the ”Space Weather Italian Collaboration” project financed by MIUR.
EXPERIMENTAL ACTIVITIES
Development of an automated procedure for structure tracking, based on segmentation techniques, to be applied on solar photosphere image series in order to characterize the observed convective structures.
Development of a processing pipeline to reduce spectral and broad-band images acquired with IPM.
Development of a spectral analysis program to quantify the informative content of images.
Development of procedure for the characterization of the topological properties of pseudo-crystalline structures based on the Pair Correlation Function (g2(r)).
Implementation of a Phase-Diversity sensor in the primary focus of the THEMIS telescope to verify the optical quality of the telescope optics and a statistic evaluation of the local seeing characteristics.
Implementation of a Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensor at the F2 focus of the THEMIS telescope to test and verify the feasibility of an Adaptive Optics system installation.
Implementation of fast cadence CMOS sensor at the F2 focus of the THEMIS telescope, acquisition and MFBD restoring of images.
Estimation of the contrast loss due to central obscuration on the telescope entrance pupil.
Implementation of a Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensor on an optical breadboard for the real-time measure of the distortion of a Fabry-Perot Interferometer.
Development of the software for the fore-casting of the deformation to apply on a deformable mirror.
Project and Development of the control interface of the deformable mirror