ASTRONOMIA

Seminari

Il Dottorato in Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Science incoraggia gli studenti a seguire in grande numero di seminari organizzati dagli istituti che organizzano il corso:
- Sapienza Università di Roma, dipartimento di Fisica
- Università degli studi di Roma "Tor Vergata", dipartimento di Fisica
- INAF, Istituto Nazionale di AstroFisica

Segue lista di seminari

2025

The disks of dawn: are the processes that shaped our Solar System common?
19/02/2025
The question of how common is our own Solar System and the processes that led to its current architecture, including the favourable conditions for the development of an inhabited planet, are at the center of a vast branch of astrophysics research. Observations of exoplanet systems seem to suggest that the architecture of our own System may be a rather uncommon occurrence. In parallel, the progress in the exploration and understanding of the different constituents of our own Solar System have shaped a fairly detailed (even if at times debated) view of the origin and early history of our own Solar System. In this talk I will discuss our current observational constraints on the properties and evolution of the birthplace of planets, as they are emerging from the last decade of observations. I will highlight the common traits that emerge from the analysis of disk populations, especially for what concerns the timeline for planet formation, the role of the dynamical history of disk-planet interaction, and the physical and chemical evolution of the refractory and volatile constituents of protoplanetary disks. The surprising, and yet, perhaps, scientifically comforting, result is that there seems to be a broad similarity in the fundamental processes of exoplanet and our own planet formation. I will conclude highlighting the major open questions and how to address them in the future.

The Golden Decade of near-IR Imaging of planet-forming disks
18/02/2025
Planet formation is a complex and yet efficient by-product of the star formation that occurs in disks around newly born stars. Over the last decade, more than 250 planet-forming disks have been observed using ground-based near-infrared high-contrast imaging. The sample is now mature enough to allow a comprehensive demographic analysis of individual star-forming regions and to determine the incidence of various disk and ambient features that can be both the origin and the cause of forming planets. Comparing disk populations across different regions and evolutionary stages is key to understanding how disks evolve as planets form within them.

DALLE PROFONDITÀ DEL COSMO ALLE PROFONDITÀ DEL MEDITERRANEO
12/02/2025
KM3NeT annuncia una nuova scoperta sui neutrini cosmici

New Space Economy
11/02/2025
Will it be possible in the future to realize large, complex space missions dedicated to basic science like HST, Chandra and JWST? Today's space scenario is completely different from that of even five years ago, and certainly from that of the time when HST, Chandra and JWST were made. Space-related investments have grown exponentially in recent years, with monetary investment exceeding half a trillion dollars in 2023. This boom is greatly aided by the rise of the so-called “new space” economy driven by private fundings, which for the first time last year surpassed public investments in space. The establishment of a market logic in space activities results in more competition, cost and time reduction. Can space science take advantage of the benefits of the new space economy to reduce cost and development time and at the same time succeed in producing powerful missions in basic science? The prospects for Europe and the USA are considered. We argue that this goal would be made possible if the scientific community could take advantage of the three pillars beyond the innovation of the new space economy: (1) technology innovation proceeding through both incremental innovation and disruptive innovation, (2) business innovation, through vertical integration and scale production, and (3) cultural innovation, through risk openness and iterative development.

Reinventing SETI: Innovative Approaches and the Power of Interferometers
05/02/2025
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is entering an exciting new phase, with advanced instrumentation and innovative methodologies opening up new avenues to explore the universe for signs of intelligent life. At the University of Manchester, we are building a vibrant research group focused on cutting-edge topics that push the boundaries of traditional SETI paradigms. These include the search for technosignatures in the mm and sub-mm using ALMA data, investigations of possible Dyson Sphere candidates in our own and other galaxies, the identification of post-biological or machine-based signatures, and the simulation of Earth leakage radiation across the e-m spectrum. In this talk, I will outline some aspects of these new research directions, with an emphasis on the important role advanced interferometric arrays like the EVN & e-MERLIN can play in advancing SETI. Some recent contributions of the EVN & e-MERLIN will be outlined, together with a view of what they can also achieve in the future.

The Origins of Explosive Solar Activity
30/01/2025
The Sun’s atmosphere, the corona, is characterized by ubiquitous bursts of energy release ranging from giant coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and flares that are the largest explosions in our solar system, to the orders of magnitude smaller coronal jets and bright points that are responsible for much of the mass and energy of the solar wind. All these forms of solar activity share the common underlying origin that, as a result of stressing by the subsurface convective flows, magnetic free energy first builds up in the corona and then is released impulsively to the plasma in the form of heating, mass motions, and/or particle acceleration. We present high-resolution observations from NASA/ESA/JAXA space missions showing that the energy buildup and release appears to be similar for eruptive activity ranging across orders of magnitude in scale and energy. From the observations it is possible to infer the basic nature of solar eruptions, but the physical mechanisms responsible for the onset and large energy release are still unclear. We discuss the current theories for eruption onset and present the latest MHD numerical simulations that include self-consistently both the energy buildup and explosive release. The models show that current sheet formation leading to magnetic reconnection and energy release occurs almost continuously in the corona, but explosive energy release occurs only when there is strong feedback between the reconnection and the global ideal evolution. Modeling this multiscale feedback accurately remains as the greatest challenge to understanding and eventually predicting solar activity.

Laser Guide Star Research and Development at ESO
28/01/2025
In this seminar I will introduce the physics behind the generation of laser guide stars (LGS) for adaptive optics and provide a historical overview of laser guide stars systems development at the European Southern Observatory, from dye lasers to the state-of-the-art Raman Fiber Amplifier lasers. In parallel with progress in laser technology , ESO is actively pursuing, together with member-states collaborators, a plethora of experimental activities towards advanced LGS generation and detection techniques. A key focus will be given to the CaNaPy LGS-AO experimental facility, which was integrated in the LGS Lab at the Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma and is currently in commissioning phase at the ESA 1-m OGS telescope in Tenerife. This facility was designed to demonstrate pre-compensation of the projected laser beam and to explore the time-delay method for retrieving atmospheric tilt from the LGS. An overview of these efforts and their implications for future LGS-AO systems will be presented, fostering a discussion on potential new approaches.

Mercury’s environment observed by BepiColombo mission and SERENA experiment
27/01/2025
Mercury’s environment is a complex system where the magnetosphere, the exosphere and the surface are inherently coupled and interact with the interplanetary medium that is particularly extreme for its close proximity to the Sun. Mercury lacks a thick atmosphere, and it possesses a weak internal magnetic field which is not able to effectively shield the planet. Previous explorations of this innermost planet include Mariner 10 and the NASA’s MESSENGER mission. Ground-based observations allowed to observe few exospheric elements. Now we know that Mercury’s environment is highly dynamic. The magnetosphere can be fully reconfigured in a few minutes, and the exosphere shows a variability down to 10s minutes. But the new results have opened new unsolved questions about the functioning of this dynamic system, how the magnetosphere responds to the solar activity, and how the exosphere is connected to the surface and to the magnetosphere. For discriminating between space-time variations and for investigating the effects of external drivers to the planet, two spacecraft are needed. BepiColombo ESA-JAXA mission is en route to Mercury. Two spacecraft will be inserted in orbits around the planet, MPO-Mercury Planetary Orbiter and Mio-Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, respectively. BepiColombo includes a comprehensive payload for the investigation of the environment, the surface and the interior of the planet; moreover, it includes fundamental physics experiments. SERENA particle package on board MPO is a key experiment since it links the observations of near-planet particles both at the surface and at the magnetosphere. During the cruise phase, SERENA ion sensors, PICAM and MIPA, have collected interesting measurements during the swing-bys at Mercury. The BepiColombo orbit insertion will be performed in November 2026, and the scientific operations will start in 2027. We expect many fantastic results after this very long journey!

Self-consistently modelling the stellar mass assembly of galaxies from a semi-empirical perspective
23/01/2025
Galaxy evolution is still one of the most hotly debated topics in present-day astronomy. Some of the open issues focus around the relative importance between star formation and mergers in building galaxies. Additionally, the new data from the ongoing facilities have observed galaxies at unprecedent redshifts and distances, with their origin being still unclear and have motivated the development of data-driven models. In this talk, I present a new flexible approach, to address key questions of galaxy evolution in a self-consistent and transparent way. Ours is a hybrid method based on a semi-empirical approach and inclusive of elements reminiscent of a semi-analytical model, significantly reducing the number of initial assumptions and parameters. In our model, the galaxy stellar mass growth is associated with the growth of their host dark matter haloes through abundance matching between the halo accretion rate and the star formation rate, or between halo mass and stellar mass. Galaxy mergers are self-consistently incorporated using the dark matter halo merger trees, with the stellar mass assigned at infall via the scaling relations characterizing their central counterparts at that redshift. The model is applied also to the growth of central supermassive black holes, which are evolved via input black hole accretion rates at given stellar mass and redshift. We also explore relevant star formation quenching mechanisms, e.g., induced by supermassive black hole or halo quenching. I present results on: 1) galaxy growth histories against observed galaxy abundances and star formation histories; 2) the stellar mass-halo mass distribution; 3) some initial results on galaxy quenching.

How did it all start? Unveiling the physics of the earliest galaxies
16/01/2025
In less than three years since the release of the first data, the James Webb Space Telescope has revolutionised our knowledge and understanding of the evolution of galaxies in the first Gyr after the Big Bang. Thanks to its unprecedented collecting area and IR sensitivity, JWST has allowed us to detect galaxies up to z~15 and to study their physical properties by looking at their rest frame optical emission - both the continuum and the emission line components. The emerging picture is extremely exciting, as it combines confirmations - with galaxies showing an evolution of their rest frame properties as we approach the Big Bang - and surprises, like the slower-than-expected evolution of galaxies beyond z~10 and the large fraction of AGNs that are being detected. In my talk I will review the status of the field, describe some of our latest results on galaxies at z>10 obtained from ongoing spectroscopic programs with NIRSpec and MIRI, and outline open questions that still wait for an answer, including potential constraints to cosmological models.

2024

Robust constraints on tensor perturbations from cosmological data: A comparative analysis from Bayesian and frequentist perspectives
20/12/2024
One of the central challenges in modern Cosmology is the precise characterization of the primordial tensor power spectrum, a cornerstone prediction of numerous cosmological models, particularly inflationary scenarios. These tensor perturbations carry distinctive imprints that can reveal their physical origins, making the robust reconstruction of their spectrum a pivotal goal for contemporary research. In this talk, I will present methods for constraining key parameters of the tensor power spectrum, such as the tensor-to-scalar ratio and the spectral tilt, with a particular emphasis on the statistical methodologies underpinning these inferences. I will critically examine the strengths and limitations of the standard Bayesian framework commonly employed in this context. Furthermore, I will demonstrate how complementary insights from a frequentist approach can deepen our understanding of the Bayesian results, offering a more nuanced perspective on the interplay between these statistical paradigms.

Wave dark matter
17/12/2024
We will explore the possibility that dark matter is composed of sufficiently light particles that it effectively behaves as a collection of waves. We will review the particle physics motivations and the rich wave phenomenology, and discuss the implications for astronomical observations and experimental detection.

Galaxy Clusters from adolescence to maturity: challenges for simulations
12/12/2024
In my talk I will review our understanding, through cosmological simulations, of the evolution of galaxy clusters from redshift z~2-3, to the recent cosmic epoch. Through a comparison with observational data at different wavelengths I will assess the capability of simulations to trace the fast evolution of such cosmic structures from their proto-cluster stage, characterized by a strongly star forming galaxy population embedded in a dynamically disturbed inter-galactic medium, to their relaxed stage at low redshift, characterized by a passive galaxy population immersed in a relatively relaxed intra-cluster medium. In this context, I will highlight successes of simulations, and critically assess their limitations and what we should learn from them.

Lighting up Blazar Physics at the Spectrum’s Edge: VHE and VLBI Synergies
12/12/2024
Blazars, a class of active galactic nuclei with jets aligned towards Earth, offer a unique opportunity to study extreme astrophysical processes. Their powerful jets emit across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, providing data at all wavelengths for investigation. This presentation focuses on the synergy between Very High Energy (VHE) gamma-ray observatories and VLBI arrays—two distinct facilities operating at opposite ends of the spectrum—used to uncover the mechanisms driving the non-thermal emission of blazars. VHE observations probe the highest energy emissions from these objects, while VLBI provides high-resolution imaging of their jet structures. Together, they enable the study of particle acceleration processes, jet kinematics, and emission variability across multiple scales. I will introduce the basics of VHE observations and the tools employed at the two extremes of the spectrum. Finally, I will present studies showing how this combined approach deepens our understanding of blazar physics, from the origins of high-energy photons to the dynamic behaviour of jets in their most compact regions.

Breaking the distance-duality relation to address cosmic tensions
11/12/2024
Persistent cosmic tensions arise from discrepancies in the cosmological distance ladder constructed from different distance observables, such as BAO and SnIa, which are calibrated using measurements from either the early or late Universe. These tensions are typically evaluated under the assumption that the distance-duality relation (DDR) holds, allowing for a direct comparison between measurements of the luminosity and angular diameter distances. In this talk, we will examine the implications of relaxing this assumption and considering more general relations. We will discuss how this approach impacts the interpretation of current cosmic tensions and its potential to clarify whether new physics is needed to address these discrepancies.

Extended AGN jets as a direct test to the ΛCDM model
03/12/2024
Current small-scale cosmological controversies are coming down to the precision level of observations. The key point is whether a better understanding of baryonic physics, dark matter physics, or both is required to address these challenges. In this talk, I will describe how very long baseline interferometric observations of extended AGN jets (sometimes gravitationally lensed) are contributing to understanding some of these small-scale cosmological issues while simultaneously providing insights on the jet physics up to the earliest epochs (z>6).

The nature and fate of the most obscured high-z massive galaxies
28/11/2024
The early assembly of the most massive galaxies, and their contribution to the SFR density of the universe is currently one of the main challenges for galaxy formation models. Recently, a population of massive red sources already in place at z>2-3 have been discovered, and called HST-dark, because they are missed by optical/UV search but detected at MIR and often in the mm. Their characterisation remains uncertain, due to limited information available, and to different selection techniques. JWST is now allowing us to investigate the nature of HST-dark galaxies, and to reveal new populations of early massive galaxies. I will discuss the main properties of HST-dark galaxies, compared to those of JWST NIR-dark. For those ALMA detected, the molecular gas mass and depletion times show that they are likely on the way to quenching their SF. For ALMA HST-dark, there is a consensus on the presence of large amounts of dust, posing the problem of high-z dust production. To constrain dust properties and obscured SF at high-z we need to observe in the FIR. I will present the recently selected NASA PRobe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics (PRIMA), a FIR (25-235 μm) observatory operating in the 2030s in spectroscopy and imaging, that will allow us a leap forward in our knowledge of the high-z obscured universe.

Gamma-Ray Burst Polarimetry: History and Future Prospects
25/11/2024
Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB) are the brightest electromagnetic events in the Universe since the Big Bang. As such they have intrigued the astrophysical community since their accidental discovery in 1967. Despite almost 60 years of intense research, resulting in over 10000 GRB detections, very little remains known about these violent events. While we know that these events are related to the death of massive stars or the merger of compact objects, we still lack an understanding of how, and where, the gamma-rays which give these events their name, are produced. Attempts to understand this have thus far focussed primarily on measurements of the time of arrival, the direction and energy of the gamma-ray emission. Measurements of the 4th parameter, the polarization, are rare, despite their significant potential to resolve theoretical models. In this talk I will discuss this potential in detail, while in parallel addressing the reasons for the lack of polarization measurements. Finally, I will present an overview of past missions as well as the missions which aim to provide the first detailed measurements in the coming decade.

Recent observations of the near-Earth radiation environment: a plethora of galactic, solar and magnetospheric particles
22/11/2024
The near-Earth radiation space is a unique environment where particle populations of different origins coexist and evolve dynamically over time and space, spanning a wide energy range. Galactic cosmic rays – entering the heliosphere – are continuously modulated by the change in the solar wind and the associated heliospheric magnetic field. Moreover, changes in galactic particle fluxes show a very clear time-dependence, which is directly related to the periodical activity of the Sun. However, the Sun acts as both a modulator and a source of space radiation – especially during maxima of solar activity – with powerful emissions of the so-called solar energetic particles (SEPs). Despite notable improvements in the latest decades, the complex mechanisms underlying their origin and transport still challenge the development of a comprehensive picture of SEP events. Many efforts have also been directed at modelling the Earth’s trapped charged particle environment, as in the case of the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA). Observations of the SAA radiation environment are crucial to validate these models (e.g., the NASA AE9/AP9 models), as well as to investigate the temporal evolution of the geomagnetic field, to study perturbations generated by space weather events (such as geomagnetic storms), and, last but not least, to safeguard spacecraft systems and human crew health. After the foundational results of successful past (PAMELA) and present (AMS-02) spaceborne missions, the CSES (China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite) mission aims to continue the study of the near-Earth radiation environment, through a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites. This presentation will review the main results achieved by the High-Energy Particle Detector (HEPD-01) on board the CSES-01 satellite, which will be followed by the launch of the improved HEPD-02 detector on the CSES-02 satellite in December 2024.

Magnetic field amplification in neutron star mergers and the role of the MRI
21/11/2024
The first detection of a binary neutron star merger has made sharp reality the long-standing paradigm that these cosmic fireworks are exciting laboratories for extreme physics. To get the most out of present and future observations, however, we require accurate models of the merger dynamics, which can only be achieved through numerical relativity simulations. One of the key factors in these simulations is the magnetic field, which plays a crucial role in shaping the dynamics of the system. It is also instrumental in the launching of relativistic jets and the associated gamma-ray bursts. In this seminar I will discuss the main mechanisms responsible for the amplification of the magnetic field, with a particular focus on the magneto-rotational instability and its potential role in binary neutron star mergers."

2023

Towards the geology of exoplanets
20 Aprile, 2023, ore 16:30 CEST
Hot rocky exoplanets offer exciting opportunities to place terrestrial geology into Galactic context, through composition measurements with JWST and Ariel. To capitalise on these opportunities we must identify the very best targets for spectroscopic characterisation. The catastrophically disintegrating exoplanets (CDEs) are the most dramatic examples of mass loss from an ablating rocky surface. They were discovered by Kepler through the variable transits of dust co-existing with metal-rich vapour, and are particularly suitable for transmission spectroscopy because the ablated material is spread over a large scale-height. But the Kepler CDEs are too faint for transmission spectroscopy. The Dispersed Matter Planet Project (DMPP) is discovering the nearby analogues and progenitors of the Kepler CDEs. DMPP uses archival stellar spectra to identify stars we view through shrouds of diffuse, metal-rich, circumstellar gas. The underlying hypothesis is that the gas is ablated from hot, close-orbiting planets. DMPP searches for the putative planets with high-precision, high cadence radial velocity measurements. The approach has been extremely successful and efficient, with planet discoveries whenever 60 RV measurements have been collected. DMPP-1 is a compact multiplanet system orbiting a star brighter than V=8. A possible CDE transit has been discovered in TESS data. DMPP-2 b is the joint-first RV planet discovery orbiting a strongly pulsating star. DMPP-3 is an eccentric binary star system with the secondary at the mass threshold for sustaining hydrogen fusion. A 2.6 Earth mass planet orbits the K0V primary star in a 6.7 day orbit, with a second Earth-mass circumprimary planet marginally detected. DMPP-3AB is in a hitherto unpopulated parameter space for binary star planetary systems. I will include updates on our latest discoveries of around 20 short period planets, including planets orbiting a star of magnitude 6, and planets orbiting a young star. We may have caught the latter system in the act of evolving out of the Neptune desert through planetary ablation. DMPP planets are likely to be viewed edge-on as ablated material will remain concentrated near the planets’ orbital planes. Thus they have high transit probability. The subset of DMPP planets which transit are thus amenable to direct empirical determinations of mass, radius and composition.

2022

Annalisa Pillepich, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg: The many diverse manifestations of supermassive black-hole feedback: from simulations to observations, and back
26 ottobre 2022
Large-volume cosmological galaxy simulations, such as IllustrisTNG, provide a holistic view on galaxies and on how their evolution depends on the interplay of internal and external physical phenomena. Among the internal mechanisms, feedback from super massive black holes (SMBHs) is commonly invoked in such numerical models to halt star formation in massive galaxies. In fact, no other mechanism so far has been shown to be capable of returning entire populations of simulated massive quenched galaxies that are consistent with the observed galaxy red sequence and quenched fractions. With simulations like IllustrisTNG we are putting together ever more quantitative and plausible evidences as to the role that feedback from SMBH can have, not only in shaping galaxy structural properties and galaxy populations across 90 per cent of the Universe’s history, but also in regulating the thermodynamical, ionization, and metal enrichment properties of the cosmic gas across halo scales and beyond. In this talk, I will use the outcome of the IllustrisTNG and other simulations in combination with current and future observational data, chiefly SDSS galaxy data and eROSITA X-ray observations, to further our understanding of the tight interconnections between SMBHs, star-formation quenching, and the physical state of the circumgalactic medium.

Pascal Oesch, University of Geneva: Galaxy Build-up During the Cosmic Reionization Epoch
4 luglio 2022
Speaker: Pascal Oesch (University of Geneva) Title: Our Panchromatic View of Galaxy Build-up at Cosmic Dawn into the JWST Era Abstract: The first deep images with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have transformed our view of the Universe. Over the following more than two decades, HST continued to extend our cosmic horizon reaching to only ~400 Myr after the Big Bang at z~11. In combination with other observations across the electromagnetic spectrum, from the rest-frame optical with Spitzer/IRAC, and now all the way to (sub)mm wavelengths with ALMA/NOEMA, we are gaining a more and more complete census and understanding of galaxy build-up across 97% of cosmic history. Yet some critical gaps remain, mainly because (1) our galaxy samples are still mostly rest-UV selected at z>3, and (2) we still only have highly-incomplete spectroscopic information at z>6. In this talk, I will present an overview of our current understanding of star-forming galaxies at z>3 based on our panchromatic view from HST+Spitzer+ALMA/NOEMA data. This will be completely revolutionized over the next months, however, as the first observations with the JWST are being taken. In particular, JWST will provide deep rest-frame optical data out to z=10, both in imaging and spectroscopy, which is truly unprecedented. JWST will thus finally allow us to probe the physics of the first generations of galaxies that ended the cosmic Dark Ages and started the reionization of the Universe. Join Zoom Meeting https://uniroma1.zoom.us/j/81122901013?pwd=M1hnRHRXZkEyeW1QMFlPQ2FXa0dNZz09 ID riunione: 811 2290 1013 Passcode: 686688

Elena Maria Rossi, Leiden Observatory: A multi-tracer study of the Local Group of galaxies
8 giugno 2022
The Local Group, and the Milky Way in particular is a unique laboratory to study the process of galaxy assembly because of our vantage point. This is especially true in this era of current and up-coming (all sky) surveys like e.g. Gaia, WEAVE, 4MOST, DASI, LSST, and Euclid, that are delivering an unprecedented astrometric, spectroscopic and photometric view of the Galactic stellar population. In this talk, I will review my group's work --both theoretical and observational -- towards the understanding of the mass distribution and other properties of the Milky Way using different dynamical tracers such as stellar streams and hypervelocity stars. Looking at the future, I will also show my vision for Galactic studies in the LISA era, when gravitational waves will deliver complementary information with respect to electromagnetic waves.

Samaya Nissanke, University of Amsterdam: Gravitational waves and multi-messenger astrophysics
26 maggio 2022
Abstract: Since the revolutionary discovery of gravitational wave (GW) emission from a binary black hole merger in 2015, the exquisite GW detectors LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA have detected more than 90 compact object mergers. Most notably, one of these mergers corresponds to the first binary neutron star merger, dubbed GW170817. This event has been transformative because it was observed in both gravitational and electromagnetic radiation, thus opening up a new era in multimessenger astrophysics. The multi-messenger characterisation of such an event has enabled major advances into diverse fields of modern physics from gravity, high-energy and extragalactic astrophysics, nuclear physics, to cosmology. In this talk, I will discuss work in strong-field gravity astrophysics and how combining observations, theory and experiment is key to make progress in this field. I will present the opportunities and challenges that have emerged in multi-messenger astrophysics, and what the future holds in this new era. Join Zoom Meeting https://uniroma1.zoom.us/j/81122901013?pwd=M1hnRHRXZkEyeW1QMFlPQ2FXa0dNZz09 ID riunione: 811 2290 1013 Passcode: 686688

Rachel Somerville, Center for Computational Astrophysics Flatiron Institute: Developing new galaxy formation models that will help us Learn the Universe
5 maggio 2022
Understanding and simulating galaxy formation from first principles is a huge computational challenge because of the vast range of scales and rich array of physics involved. Upcoming experiments will map galaxies and gas across unprecedented volumes and probe further back into cosmic time than ever before. These experiments have the potential to probe fundamental physics questions such as the nature of dark matter and dark energy, and the initial conditions of the Universe. But in order to extract the full scientific potential from these data, we need to understand how luminous tracers (stars and gas) are related to the underlying matter density field, and we must develop techniques that can accurately forward model the galaxy formation process with a computational efficiency that is orders of magnitude higher than standard numerical hydro/N-body techniques. I will describe the philosophy and status of the SMAUG (Simulating Multiscale Astrophysics to Understand Galaxies) project, and how it will form a pillar in the new Simons Collaboration "Learning the Universe", which will combine new galaxy formation models, new machine learning techniques, and simulation based inference to obtain constraints on cosmology and astrophysics.

Georges Meynet, University of Geneva: Stars at the Extreme: First Stars, Spinstars and Supermassive Stars
6 aprile 2022
The presentation will focus on stars at some extreme either from the point of view of their mass (supermassive stars), rotation (spinstars) or initial composition (Pop III stars). The talk will begin by a general overview of the main challenges faced by the modeling of massive stars with a special focus on the transport processes in convective and radiative zones. Then the presentation will continue discussing recent results about the binary statistics of Pop III populations, the chemical and radiative feedback of Pop III stars, the evolution of very massive stars i.e. stars with masses between 150 and 300 solar masses at different metallicities addressing the question of the progenitor of Pair Instability supernovae and the limits of the mass domain for the black hole mass gap. Finally, new models for the formation of supermassive stars that are candidates as seeds for the formation of supermassive black holes at high redshift will be presented

Felix Aharonian, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and Max-Planck-Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK), Heidelberg, Germany: PeVatrons and the "Century-old-Mistery" of Galactic Cosmic Rays
2 marzo 2022
Despite the recent advances in Cosmic Ray studies, the origin of Galactic Cosmic Rays (CRs) is still considered a "century-old mystery" - we do not know yet which sources contribute to CR fluxes measured in the Earth's vicinity. Identifying the major CR contributors with astronomical source populations is one of the highest priorities of the field. The best carriers of information about CR factories are gamma-rays and neutrinos - the only stable and neutral secondary products of CR interactions pointing to the CR production sites. The recent years' outstanding achievement of gamma-ray astronomy was the discovery of TeV gamma-radiation from SNRs generally supporting the SNR paradigm of the origin of Galactic CRs. On the other hand, the lack of the extension of gamma-ray spectra of young SNRs well beyond 10 TeV raises doubts about their ability to contribute to the highest energy galactic CR spectrum in the so-called "knee" region above 1 PeV. Meanwhile, the ultra-high-energy (UHE; E> 100 TeV) gamma-ray observations of the clusters of young massive stars demonstrate mounting evidence of these objects (and related superbubbles) being prime contributors to Galactic CRs at PeV energies. I will discuss these observations in the context of the concept of "Young Stars versus Dead Stars". The hunt for CR PeVatrons cannot be reduced merely to the identification of the sources contributing to the local "CR fog". The term 'cosmic rays' has broader implications; after matter, radiation and magnetic fields, the relativistic nonthermal plasma constitutes the fourth substance of the observable Universe. The localisation and exploration of physical conditions and processes in these extreme CR factories, independent of their relative contributions to the 'CR fog', is a fundamental issue in its own right. I will highlight the recent exciting achievements of UHE gamma-ray astronomy in elucidating the cites of extreme CR accelerators in the Milky Way and discuss the implications of the discovery of a large number of CR PeVatrons by the LHAASO collaboration.

Volker Bromm, University of Texas at Austin: What do we know about the first stars and galaxies?
8 febbraio 2022
I will review the emerging theoretical framework for how stars, galaxies, and black holes transformed the early universe. Predictions for the enrichment of the intergalactic medium with heavy chemical elements, the rate of supernova explosions and gamma-ray bursts, as well as the number density and properties of the first galaxies, sensitively depend on the particle-physics nature of dark matter. To constrain the elusive first generation of stars, we can bring to bear a powerful combination of probes at high redshifts and in our local neighborhood. The latter approach, known as “stellar archaeology” holds particular promise in light of ongoing and planned large surveys of metal-poor stars, both in the Milky Way and its dwarf satellites. It is exciting to contemplate the decade ahead, when the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will allow us to confront theory with observations at the edge of time.

2021

Licia Verde, ICREA and Institute of Cosmological Sciences, University of Barcelona: "The future beyond precision cosmology"
14/12/2021
The standard cosmological model (the LCDM model) has been established and its parameters are now measured with unprecedented precision. This model successfully describes observations from widely different epochs of the Universe, from the first few minutes, all the way to the present day. However, there is a big difference between modelling and understanding. The next decade will see the era of large surveys; a large coordinated effort of the scientific community in the field is on-going to map the cosmos producing an exponentially growing amount of data. But precision is not enough: accuracy is also crucial. The "unreasonable effectiveness” of the LCDM model offers challenges and opportunities. I will present some of the lines of enquiry explored by my group in this direction.

Samaya Nissanke, University of Amsterdam: "Gravitational waves and multi-messenger astrophysics"
30/11/2021

Giovanna Tinetti, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London: "Decoding the light from other worlds"
09/11/2021
Thousands of planets orbiting stars other than our own are being discovered (extrasolar planets). Since their discovery in the 1990s this field of astronomy and planetary science has exploded, being today one of the most exciting and dynamic. Even within the limits of our current observational capabilities, studies of extrasolar planets have provided a unique contribution to improving our view of the place that the Solar System and the Earth occupy in the galactic context. The arrival of more performing and dedicated facilities from space and the ground in the coming decade, will provide an unprecedented opportunity to study these worlds in great detail. In this talk, I will review highlights and pitfalls of our current knowledge of this topic and discuss the scientific and technical steps to be taken in this fascinating journey of remote exploration of the planets in our Galaxy.

Pavel Kroupa, University of Bonn and Charles University of Prague: How observations of stellar populations constrain cosmological models
19/10/2021
Quasars are found to appear a few hundred Myr after the Big Bang, but pressing matter together into super-massive black holes (SMBHs) so quickly appears to be impossible. At a later stage, the spheroidal component of a galaxy (its bulge if it is not an elliptical galaxy) is observed to show a correlation between its mass and that of the central SMBH it harbours, although spheroids with a mass lower than a few 1E9 Msun appear to only host a nuclear star cluster. I will discuss a theory for the formation of SMBHs which accounts for these observations using standard, non-exotic physics.

Ralf Klessen, Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Heidelberg: Star formation through space and time
23/09/2021
Stars and star clusters are the fundamental visible building blocks of galaxies at present days as well as in the early universe. They form by gravitational collapse in regions of high density in the complex multi-phase interstellar medium. The process of stellar birth is controlled by the intricate interplay between the self-gravity of the star-forming gas and various opposing agents, such as supersonic turbulence, magnetic fields, radiative feedback, gas pressure, and cosmic rays. Turbulence plays a dual role. On global scales it provides support, while at the same time it can promote local collapse. This process is modified by the thermodynamic response of the gas, which is determined by the balance between various heating and cooling processes, which in turn depend on the chemical composition of the material. In this talk I will try to give an overview of the our understanding of the star-formation process, discuss some examples of the recent progress in the field, and speculate about the implications for stellar birth in the high-redshift universe.

Piero Madau, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California Santa Cruz: The dark and luminous side of structure formation
22/06/2021
The beaded filamentary network of intergalactic gas in which galaxies form and evolve, and which gives origin to a “forest” of hydrogen Lyman-alpha absorption lines in the spectra of distant quasars, encodes information on the physics of structure formation, the nature of the dark matter, the temperature and ionization state of baryons in the Universe. The potential of the Lyman-alpha forest for constraining with percent accuracy the matter density distribution on medium to small cosmological scales has motivated the construction of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), which will measure absorption line spectra backlit by nearly a million high-redshift (z >2) quasars. In this talk I will describe the multiple steps needed to connect flux fluctuations in quasar spectra to physical parameters, present an unprecedented suite of hundreds of high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations of structure formation with different thermal histories, and use it to perform a statistical comparison of mock spectra with the observed 1D flux power spectrum and other data. A likelihood analysis shows that, over the last 13 billion years, gas in the cosmic web experienced four main heating and cooling epochs.

Debora Sijacki, Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, UK: The evolution of massive black holes through cosmic times
01/06/2021
In this talk I will review current theoretical efforts in understanding supermassive black hole formation, accretion and feedback throughout cosmic time. Specifically, I will discuss possible links between large scale cosmological environments and supermassive black hole assembly and outline several possible interaction channels between active black holes and their host galaxies. In the second part of the talk I will focus on novel computational methods that allow us to follow black hole physics on much smaller scales in full galaxy formation simulations to unravel how black hole mass and spin evolve during the binary hardening stages or during launching of powerful jets.

Roberto Maiolino, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK: Quenching star formation in galaxies
18/05/2021
In the local universe stars only make up about 7% of all baryons, indicating that star formation has been extremely inefficient across the cosmic epochs. Within this context, even more impressive is the fact that in a significant fraction of galaxies star formation has been totally “quenched”, resulting into the population of passive and quiescent local galaxies. Understanding what are the mechanisms responsible for suppressing or even quenching star formation in galaxies has been one of the main challenges of astrophysics in recent years and it is one of the research areas in which most of the efforts have been directed, both in terms of cosmological simulations and in terms of observing campaigns. I will give an overview of the potential causes and physical processes that might be responsible for regulating or even leading to the complete suppression of star formation in galaxies. I will illustrate that there are a variety of possible culprits. Among these I will show that supernova explosions can play a role, but the energy injected in the insterstellar and intergalactic medium by accreting supermassive black holes can have a truly dramatic effect on their host galaxies. The environment in which galaxies live (e.g. galaxy groups or clusters) can also play an important role, by suppressing star formation especially in satellite galaxies. I will discuss observational evidence for these various effects by using results from extensive multi-wavelength datasets. I will conclude by emphasizing open, outstanding problems and the possibility of tackling them with the next generation of observing facilities.

Joseph Silk, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, The Johns Hopkins University, University of Oxford: The future of cosmology
16/04/2021
One of the greatest challenges in cosmology is understanding the origin of the structure of the universe. The cosmic microwave background and large-scale surveys of galaxies have provided unique windows for probing cosmology and its inflationary origin. But where do we go next? Future experiments are planned with the next generation of observatories that will increase the current precision of cosmological measurements by an order of magnitude. However we need to do far better if there is to be a guaranteed science return that will definitively probe our cosmic origins. I shall argue that the ultimate goal for our future strategy must be astronomy from lunar-based telescopes.

Benedetta Ciardi, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics: Exploring cosmic reionization with 21cm telescopes
09/03/2021
Cosmic reionization is the last major phase transition undergone by our Universe. Although most studies agree on the general characteristics of H reionization (for example that is driven by stars and it is mostly if not fully complete by z ≈ 6), its details are still largely unknown, among which the contribution from and role played by more energetic sources. In this talk, I will discuss the ingredients needed for a correct modeling of cosmic reionization and present results from recent radiative transfer simulations accounting for a variety of source types (such as stars, quasars, X-ray binaries). I will then discuss the observability of reionization in terms of various diagnostics associated to the 21cm signal from neutral hydrogen and present the latest results from the LOFAR radio telescope. Join Zoom Meeting https://uniroma1.zoom.us/j/89931306878?pwd=WG5RYlYyZzRSMzJsOFpSRHczWEFCZz09