AstroBigné seminars season 2013-2014
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01/07/2014
Luca Moscadelli (star formation)
Outflow Structure on small scales in high-mass protostars
High angular resolution and sensitivity are mandatory to study the outflows associated to SINGLE high-mass protostars. First results of a survey employing water maser VLBI and continuum VLA observations are presented.
Stefano Zibetti (extragalactic)
The unquiet social life of galaxies: cannibalism in two nearby low-mass systems pdf
27/05/2014
Giovanni Cresci (extragalactic)
Blowin' in the wind
I will present SINFONI IFU observation of both "negative" and "positive" feedback in action in an outflowing obscured quasar at z~1.6.
Luca Franci (high energy)
Bar-mode instability in magnetized relativistic stars
I will present results on the dynamics and the onset of the classical bar-mode (m=2) instability in differentially rotating relativistic star models in presence of magnetic fields. The study has been achieved by performing full 3D ideal magneto-hydrodynamics simulations in full General Relativity. Magnetic fields of order 1e14 Gauss, or less, have negligible effetcs on both stable and unstable models, while stronger magnetic fields are able to completely suppress the hydrodinamical instabilities which are present in the un-magnetized case.
Valdemaro Biliotti (technology)
Modulation control in the wavefront sensor for the adaptive optics of E.R.I.S.
13/05/2014
Sperello di Serego Alighieri (extragalactic)
The polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background: a fundamental whisper
A concise view on some fundamental physical and cosmological arguments uncovered by the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background.
Carmelo Arcidiacomo (technology)
The LINC-NIRVANA pathfinder
08/04/2014
Marco Bonaglia (technology)
Review of the ARGOS commissioning
2013 saw the beginning of the commissioning phase of ARGOS at the LBT: the laser system was installed on telescope and the first on-sky propagation was performed. In early 2014 the LGS wavefront sensor was also installed and it saw its first light. I will briefly review this commissioning activity and highlight the results obtained.
Eleonora Sani (technology)
Highlights from the LBT Users' Meeting
Paolo Tozzi (extragalactic)
The history of cosmic Iron production from observations of distant X-ray clusters: the case of WARP1415
25/03/2014
Arturo Gomez Ruiz (star formation)
What's new from Submillimeter/Terahertz Observations of protostellar outflows
I will talk about the new information that submillimeter/Terahertz observations bring us to the study of protostellar outflows, in particular molecular line observations with APEX, SOFIA, and Herschel observatories.
Giovanni Cresci (tech for extragalactic)
iFun@LBT
I will briefly describe the idea and proposal for a low budget, fast track near-IR IFU for LBT, in the context of the recent call for new instrumentation at LBT.
Federico Landini (solar astrophysics)
Darkening the shadows in solar coronagraphy
I will talk on the importance of reducing the stray light in solar coronagraphy, i.e., on the design process that allows to minimize the light that survives in the shadow of an occulter. In particular, I will focus on the experimental evaluation of the performance improvement that an optimized coronagraph occulter may guarantee.
11/03/2014
Fabrizio Massi (star formation)
Probing Massive Star Forming Regions with LBT: the latest results from AO observations
I will present the results of Near-Infrared, high-angular resolution (< 0.1") images of massive young stellar objects obtained with adaptive optics and PISCES at LBT. The jet from IRAS20126+4104, an intermediate mass protostar, is shown with unprecedented details.
Martina Cardillo (high energy)
My relationship with Cosmic-Rays: from data to theory passing through modeling
I knew Cosmic-Rays during my master on Universe Science at the Università di Roma Tor Vergata, thanks to the professor Marco Tavani. From that moment, my relationship with them started inside the AGILE team. I studied Cosmic-Rays from an experimental point of view, focusing my work on their acceleration by Supernova Remnants. During my PhD I learned to model gamma-ray emission detected from their acceleration, obtaining important improvements of our relationship. My aim in these two post-doc years with the High Energy Team of Pasquale Blasi is to improve my knowledge of Cosmic Rays from a theoretical point of view, in order to learn the better way to behave with them.
Francesca Bacciotti (star formation)
Jets (and disks) around young stars: prospects from AO observations
Three decades after the discovery of stellar jets many questions about their nature are still open. In recent years the interest of investigators has moved from establishing the structure and propagation modes of these beautiful nebulae toward understanding what is their role in star formation, and lately what is the feedback they can have on circumstellar disk in the region of planet formation. I will illustrate how recent advances in the construction of instruments for high angular resolution can open new prospects in these studies.
25/02/2014
Gina Santangelo (star formation)
Are we measuring the right water abundance in shocks? pdf
I will present water observations in low-mass protostellar outflows with Herschel, obtained within the framework of the Guaranteed Time Key Project WISH (Water In Star-forming regions with Herschel), in comparison with VLT observations of H2, which indicate a stratification of the molecular gas in velocity and excitation. I will discuss the implications on the water abundance estimates obtained so far and how this new observations can be used to shed a light on this hot topic.
Leonardo Testi (exoplanets)
Ice, fire and dust: the troubled path of planet formation
I will discuss a few key issues in protoplanetary disk evolution with emphasis on planet formation. I will highlight some recent successes and the many interesting problems that we hope to sort out in the future with a combination of radio, millimetre and infrared observations.
Guido Risaliti (extragalactic)
An Ultra-fast outflow reveals strong feedback in a powerful quasar
11/02/2014
Claudio Codella (star formation)
Heart of Darkness: going up the flow pdf
Investigating (with the help of Joseph Conrad and Francis Ford Coppola) the deeply obscured protostellar regions.
Luca Del Zanna (high energy)
Dissipative effects in numerical simulations of relativistic plasmas pdf
In this talk I will briefly describe the numerical investigation of non-ideal effects in relativistic plasmas for a couple of cases: the shear viscosity in the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) fireball created after the collision of heavy ions in accelerators, and the mean-field resistive and dynamo effects believed to be at work in accretion tori around Kerr black holes.
Elena Tundo (extragalactic)
CLUSTERS! In the SWXC survey pdf
I present the Swift X-ray Cluster Survey and its on-going optical follow up, and outline the scientific questions we can (try to) answer studying the galaxy populations in the SWXCS sample.
28/01/2014
Sperello di Serego Alighieri & Simone Bianchi (extragalactic)
Energy Balance in Dusty Environments: Truth and Myth pdf
Enrico Pinna (technology)
A call for AO scientific topics for SHARK pdf
Barbara Balmaverde (extragalactic)
The HST view of the broad line region in low luminosity AGN pdf
Do the less powerful Liners and Seyferts fit well within the standard AGN unification model?
14/01/2014
Paolo Tozzi (extragalactic)
Is it a Phoenix or a turkey?
Linda Podio (star formation)
The chemistry of molecular ions in protostellar shocks pdf
I present a census of molecular ions in the prototypical protostellar shock L1157-B1. This is obtained by means of a highly-sensitive unbiased spectral survey in the millimeter and submillimeter range, executed with the IRAM-30m telescope, as part of the ASAI Large Program, and with Herschel/HIFI, as part of the Guaranteed Time Key Project CHESS. Thanks to the unprecedented high sensitivity we detect for the first time in a shock N2H+, HOCO+, and SO+ emission. We infer the abundance of the observed molecular ions and compare them with steady-state abundances in the cloud and their evolution in the shock computed using the chemical code Astrochem. This allows us to distinguish between molecular ions which are tracing pre-shock chemistry, and those which are a useful probe of the shock properties and chemistry.
10/12/2013
Marcella Iuzzolino (technology)
Giano and its interfaces @TNG pdf
Nicoletta Sanna (technology)
Very high S/N IR spectroscopy from GIANO to HIRES ppt pdf
Teresa Fornaro (exobiology)
Infrared spectral investigations of UV irradiated nucleobases adsorbed on mineral surfaces pdf
The interaction between electromagnetic radiation and bio-molecules in heterogeneous environments is a prebiotically relevant process. Minerals may have a pivotal role in the prebiotic evolution of complex chemical systems, mediating the effects of electromagnetic radiation, influencing the photostability of bio-molecules, catalyzing important chemical reactions and/or protecting molecules against degradation. In particular, nucleobases are relevant bio-molecules to investigate both in the prebiotic context, because they are coding components of nucleic acids, and from the standpoint of the survival of biological systems in space conditions. We focused our study on the characterization of the nature of the interaction between nucleobases and the surface of the minerals magnesium oxide and forsterite by infrared vibrational spectroscopy. Furthermore, we investigated the photostability of nucleobases adsorbed on such minerals through in situ UV irradiation experiments.
26/11/2013
Joana Santos (extragalactic)
The baryonic properties of the (likely!) most massive, distant galaxy cluster pdf
Elena Amato (high energy)
Cosmic Ray Electrons and Positrons from Pulsar Wind Nebula pdf
Eugenio Simoncini (planetary science)
Disequilibrium in planetary atmospheres: a new physical method coupled with new computational tool pdf
The study of the habitability of planetary atmospheres is gain an increasing interested in the last decades, due to the discovery of many extrasolar planets (~1000 nowadays). It has long been observed that Earth's atmosphere is uniquely far from its thermochemical equilibrium state in terms of its chemical composition. Studying this state of disequilibrium is important for its potential role in the detection of life on other suitable planets. We developed a methodology to calculate the extent of atmospheric chemical disequilibrium. This tool allows us to understand, on a thermodynamic basis, how life affected - and still affects - geochemical processes on Earth, and if other planetary atmospheres are habitable or have a disequilibrium similar to the Earth's one. This work has been developed with the help of a new computational framework aimed at handling ODEs with ease and based on a robust and fast ODE solver. In this work we present a first computation of the extent of disequilibrium for the present Earth's atmosphere. The proposed thermodynamic analysis is necessary for a future comparison with other planets' atmospheric disequilibrium. Our results have an impact in the definition of Habitable Zone.
12/11/2013
Rino Bandiera (high energy)
Statistical properties of the X-ray emission from aged Pulsar Wind Nebulae pdf
I propose a scenario that allows a natural explanation for two observed trends in aged pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe): a steady increase of the PWN X-ray size with its age, up to ages of about 105 yr, and a rather narrow correlation between pulsar spin down power and PWN X-ray luminosity.
Breezy Ocaña Flaquer (extragalactic)
TANGO, Molecular Gas in a Sample of Radio galaxies pdf
The goal of TANGO (Thorough ANalysis of radio Galaxies Observation) project is to understand the fueling mechanism of the AGN in powerful radio galaxies. I will quickly present both the state of the art and the ongoing work related to the project.
05/11/2013
Leslie Hunt (extragalactic)
New light on dark gamma-ray burst host galaxies with Herschel pdf
Fabien Patru (technology)
Direct interferometric imaging with telescopes and hypertelescopes
I would like to share with you my interests for alternative imaging approaches. Interferometric techniques can improve diffraction limited and high contrast images, either with an AO-equiped telescope (BIGRE-DAM) or with a large interferometer (LBT-I, hypertelescope).
Luca Fini (technology)
The art of benchmarking pdf
How fast is my PC? Not so easy to tell...
15/10/2013
Giovanni Cresci (extragalactic/technology)
NIRSpec: testing the near-IR Spectrograph on JWST pdf
Guido Agapito (technology)
GMT NGSAO pdf
17/09/2013
Barbara Balmaverde (extragalactic)
Multi-band constraints on the nature of emission line galaxies
We explore the nature of emission line galaxies by combining Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Chandra, and Very Large Array (VLA) observation of a sample of nearby bright galaxies from the spectroscopic Palomar survey. No connection is found between X-ray and emission line luminosities from ground-based data, unlike what is found for brighter AGN. Conversely, a strong correlation emerges when using the HST spectroscopic data, which are extracted on a much smaller aperture. We suggest that ground-based line measurements are strongly affected by diffuse emission from the host galaxies and that the EW[O III] value is a robust predictor of the nature of an emission line galaxy.
Luca Zangrilli (solar physics)
Active Regions as sources of slow solar wind pdf
The sources of the slow solar wind have not been unequivocally identified yet, although data from HINODE mission provided evidence of outflows in Active Regions (AR) and of its association with solar wind. Recently, AR flows in the intermediate corona have been detected for the first time by means of SOHO/UVCS observations.
Yves Gallant (high energy)
Pulsar Wind Nebulae: MHD modeling and infrared observations in the context of high-energy astronomy
