AstroBigné seminars season 2022-2023

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18/07/2023

Georgios Kyriakou & Giulia Macario

Highlights from the SKA Open Science School

In this brief talk, we report on the "SKA Open Science School" we attended at IAA, Granada, (8-10 May 2023). Various expert tutors held interactive sessions regarding open science policies, practices and implementation tools. Although the school was focused on open science in view of SKA, it has been instructive also for scientists in various fields. We have tried to collect the most relevant information we got from this experience. We will present an overview of the sessions as well as share our impressions and some relevant material.

04/07/2023

Francesca Bacciotti

A JEDI-YODA study: Layered outflows from ringed protoplanetary disk - the HL Tau case

JEDI - JEts and Disks @ Inaf - is the community of Italian researchers working on low mass star formation. I will briefly present our project and will describe a recent JEDI study on molecular outflows, that points to a connection between substructures seen in the flow and in the underlying disk, and its implications for planet formation. We will also welcome the JEDI new 'padawan' Thomas Nony, who will work in Arcetri on the project with a post-doc position funded by our Large Grant YODA (YSO's Outflows, Disks an Accretion).

 

Thomas Nony (UNAM, Morelia)

Using protostellar outflows to investigate the formation of massive stellar clusters

The origin of stellar masses and the link between core and stellar mass distributions (CMF and IMF respectively) are debated topics of great importance for studies of the interstellar medium. I will present our study of the evolution of the CMF in the molecular complex W43 (Nony et al. 2023), led within the ALMA-IMF program (Motte et al. 2022). We used the CO(2-1) line to identify molecular outflows and showed that a very large fraction of the high-mass cores forming in the proto-clusters, previously identified in 1.3 mm continuum maps, are in their protostellar phase. The slope of the protostellar CMF is thus significantly flatter than that of the prestellar CMF. Our results suggest that cores grow in mass mostly during the protostellar stage, through inflow from their environment. I will also show recent results from the comparison between hydrodynamical jet simulations and outflow observations in W43. We found that a two-velocity ejection mode and precession are key parameters to reproduce the kinematic structure of the modeled outflow.

20/06/2023

Olga Bayandina

Report on the CASA VLBI workshop 2023

CASA (Common Astronomy Software Applications) is the astrophysical data reduction package developed by the National Radio Astronomical Observatory (NRAO) for compact arrays (ALMA and VLA) but now able to process single-dish and VLBI data as well. The Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC (JIVE), the central organisation of the European VLBI Network (EVN), hosted the workshop on the VLBI functionality of CASA from 5 to 9 June this year. I will present the highlights of the workshop and share the links to the workshop materials.

23/05/2023

Guido Risaliti (UniFI/OAA)

Overview of the Laurea Magistrale in Physics and Astrophysics

I will describe the general structure of the "magistrale" degree program in Physics and Astrophysics in Firenze. Then I will focus on the astrophysics program, and I will discuss the role of INAF researchers as lecturers in specialistic courses and as supervisors of magistrale theses.

09/05/2023

Maria Cristina Fortuna (Leiden) & Lorenzo Pino

Illustrating science: behind the scenes of "Day-to-night winds blow iron gas across the terminator of KELT-9b"

With their extreme diversity, exoplanets and their atmospheres are among the most evocative objects in astrophysics. The atmospheres of planets form the interface between them and their environment. They determine planetary evolution and bear marks of formation processes: for this reason, they are our mandatory window into understanding how planets really are. They also determine a planet’s appearance, and are thus crucial to our first impression of how the planet looks like. Unfortunately, our current technology does not allow us to take a detailed picture of worlds outside of the Solar System. Yet, with a combination of science and imagination, we can create a realistic and inspiring one: an exciting interface where science and art can dialogue.
In this talk, we will guide you through to the creation of the image "Day-to-night winds blow iron gas across the terminator of KELT-9b", an artistic and scientific image that illustrates the findings in Pino et al. (2022). Lorenzo will describe the science of exoplanet high resolution spectroscopic phase curves, a technique recently developed and applied for the first time to exoplanet KELT-9b and currently used in other ongoing projects. Maria Cristina will focus on the process that led to the creation of the image. She will show you something from behind the scenes, illustrating the steps that from a scientific result led to the final image and the fruitful discussion that can arise when art and science talk together.

18/04/2023

Alice Mori (UniFI)

Reconstructing the accretion history of the Galaxy from the kinematics and metallicity distribution of halo stars

The ΛCDM model predicts a hierarchical formation for galaxies: the merging history is thus crucial to understand how they form and evolve. In the last years, many accreted substructures have been found in the Galactic halo, identified as stellar over-densities in specific regions of kinematics-related spaces with different chemical properties. We analysed the outcomes of high-resolution N-body simulations, which modelled a Milky Way-type galaxy accreting a satellite with mass ratio 1:10, with different orbital parameters and initial metallicity gradients, in order to check whether these methods were solid or not. We found that energy and angular momentum are not generally conserved for such a massive satellite, due to the dynamical friction, thus resulting in the satellite stars redistributing over a large fraction of the E−Lz space. As a consequence, different regions of the E−Lz can feature different MDFs even if caused by a single satellite merger event, due to the initial metallicity gradients. Nevertheless, we found solid trends in the global properties of the MDFs when moving throughout the E−Lz space. This global coherence could be exploited to interpret the observational data, fact that would be crucial now, given the unprecedented data flow, driven by the Gaia mission and the complementary spectroscopic surveys.

28/03/2023

Olga Bayandina

A Keplerian disk with a four-arm spiral birthing an episodically accreting high-mass protostar

In a new Nature Astronomy publication, Maser Monitoring Organisation (M2O - a global community for maser-driven astronomy) presents a new step in the understanding of the birth of high-mass stars. Using VLBI arrays from around the world, the team was able to discover spiral arms in the rotating disk of high-mass protostar G358-MM1. The team used a new technique called 'heat-wave mapping' which used the growth burst’s own flash of radiation to map the surface of the disk using methanol masers. Spiral arms feed disk material down to the inner radius of the system and are thought to occur due to the disk becoming unstable when it is too massive. Since G358-MM1 has already been observed to undergo growth bursts, the discovery of a spiral instability helps to associate the role of disk instabilities into the process of high-mass star formation. This association has been proposed in theoretical hypotheses but was not confirmed by observations until now.

28/02/2023

Marika Lepore (UniFI/OAA)

Unveiling the nature of the Spiderweb protocluster: a cool core cluster in the making

Protoclusters are defined as overdense regions in galaxy counts in the high-redshift Universe. Observing them is crucial in order to understand the processes of galaxy formation and evolution, the fueling of star formation and active galactic nuclei, the formation of brightest cluster galaxies and the origin and evolution of the intracluster medium.
Here we show how deep X-ray Chandra observation of the archetypal Spiderweb protocluster, coupled to Sunyaev-Zeldovich data, allowed us to identify for the first time a cool core at z>2, collecting key information on the evolutionary process of the central brightest cluster galaxy of the Spiderweb.

14/02/2023

Davide Fedele

How to find an hidden planet

I will present recent ALMA observations of the protoplanetary disk AS 209, showing substantial perturbations of the gas kinematics induced by an hidden newly-formed planet.

 

Manuela Lippi

ProDisCo: A systematic comparison between measured molecular abundances in comets and protoplanetary disks

The ProDisCo project combines diverse expertises in the same working group to examine and compare relative chemical abundances observed both in comets and star forming regions, and to investigate key clues on the physical, chemical, and evolutionary processes in act during the formation of our and other planetary systems. We plan to use archival data that were not fully exploited in the past, together with new results from observations performed with state-of-the-art instruments (e.g., James Webb Space Telescope, ALMA, VLT/CRIRES+). The collected data will be analysed using appropriate statistical techniques (e.g., exploratory data analysis, multivariate statistics), to retrieve the most information from the data.

31/01/2023

Michele Ginolfi (UniFI/OAA)

Sonifying the Universe with Herakoi, and other Computer Vision experiments

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized our society, our habits, and the way we do science. An active branch of AI is Computer Vision, which focuses on the ability of computers to "see, understand, take inputs and act", opening new fascinating possibilities for humans to interact with intelligent machines. In this talk, I will present some of my ongoing research experiments in the field, from algorithms for writing with eyes to self-driving mini-cars.
In particular, I will focus on the open-source software Herakoi, a motion-sensing sonification tool that allows users to interact with images and listen to the "sound" of their pixels, by virtually touching them. Herakoi's applications are endless, and its usage with astronomical images shows great potential in outreach and education, especially for visually impaired people.

17/01/2023

Astrobigné Organizing Committee

Astrobigné strikes back pdf

We will describe how the new format, presentation modalities and accepted topics are meant to recover the original Astrobigné philosophy.

 

Emanuele Nardini

SETI and geopolitics pdf

Have you ever thought about the possible geopolitical consequences of a successful Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence?

20/12/2022

Essna Ghose

Advancements and Arcetri's science with SOUL at the LBT

In this astrobigné, I will talk about the advanced status of commissioning and acceptance of the SOUL systems at LBT. Then I will report about the astronomical observations done with SOUL-LUCI by the Arcetri community. Finally we will have a look at the next generation instruments that will be soon available at SOUL foci.

13/12/2022

Luca Cacciapuoti (ESO)

In situ or transported? Millimeter dust grains in the envelopes of Class 0 YSOs and the case of L1527

Over the last decade, continuum observations of young protostellar envelopes have hinted to the presence of millimeter dust grains at scales well beyond the inner protoplanetary disc. We have also learnt that young sources represent a testbed where to look for an answer to the long-standing question of when and where planetary building blocks start to form. SMA, ATCA, NOEMA, CARMA and other radiointerferometers have paved the way to study dust properties in Class 0/I sources, while it is now an exciting time to exploit the potential of ALMA with which we can improve previous studies in spatial extension, sensitivity, frequency range. I will present a dust study of the source L1527 and later discuss about whether in situ growth or transport mechanisms are favored in the current picture.

06/12/2022

Seyma Mercimek

VLA 1623-2617 protostellar cluster unveiled by brand new images from the ALMA Large Program FAUST

In my talk, I will recap my Ph.D. projects, putting them in an astrochemistry concept. Then I will focus on the latest project, which unveils the disk of source W and hot topic structures streamers in the VLA1623-2617 protostellar cluster. The analysis of continuum and C18O (2–1) observations of the VLA 1623-2417 protostellar system at 50 au angular resolution is a part of the ALMA Large Program FAUST (Fifty AU STudy of the chemistry in the disk/envelope system of Solar-like protostars). On a small scale, the discovery of molecular emission towards the edge-on disk of source W makes it an excellent candidate to investigate the vertical structure of the molecular gas. On a large scale, the discovery of the bridge-like streamers of ~1500 au length between the multiple system suggests that the source W could be ejected.

29/11/2022

Pierfrancesco Di Cintio (ISC-CNR)

Investigating the halo/galaxy mass ratio - ellipticity relation in spheroids. Numerical simulations.

Deur (2014, 2020) and Winters et al. 2022 proposed an empirical relation between the dark to total mass ratio and ellipticity in elliptical galaxies from their observed mass-to-light ratio data M/L = (14.1 ± 5.4)ɛ. In other words, the larger is the content of dark matter in the galaxy, the more the stellar component would be flattened. Such observational claim, if true, appears to be in stark contrast with the common intuition of the formation of galaxies inside dark halos with reasonably spherical symmetry. By means of N-body simulations of galaxy formation with and without active dark matter halos, I show that, for fixed barionic mass, the end products of both cold collapses and protogalaxy mergings depart more and more from the spherical symmetry for increasing values of the halo mass. The relation M/L relation obtained from the numerical experiments is however rather different from that observed by Deur and collaborators. Some physical interpretations are also discussed.

22/11/2022

Alessandro Rossi (IFAC-CNR)

The DART/LICIACube mission: first results from the successful asteroid deflection test

The NASA/APL DART mission performed the first successful test of the kinetic impactor technique for planetary defense. The probe impacted the small asteroid Dimorphos, the secondary body of the Didymos binary system, changing its orbit around the primary asteroid. The new orbital period was measured by on ground telescopes and radars, showing a reduction of 33 minutes, from the original pre-impact value of 11.92 hours to the post-impact value of 11.372 hours. The ASI probe LICIACube, which traveled as a piggy-back on-board DART and was released 15 days before the impact, took the only available in-situ images of the event allowing the characterization of the experiment. In addition to the LICIACube images, many ground and space-based telescopes covered the event, revealing interesting aspects of the evolution of the ejecta plume of this artificially activated asteroid. While the data analysis is still ongoing, the first released images and results will be shown and discussed.

15/11/2022

Hui Li (LANL)

Binaries of Stellar Mass Black Holes in AGN Disks

We discuss the scenario of stellar mass binary black holes in AGN disks, their formation and orbital evolution in multi-dimensions. We will present simulations showing how gas flows (including MHD) strongly affect their evolution. Implications for gravitational wave events will be explored as well.

08/11/2022

Giulia Tozzi (UniFI/OAA)

The optically elusive, changing-look active nucleus in NGC 4156

In this talk, I will report on the serendipitous discovery of the nearby galaxy NGC 4156 as a changing-look active galactic nucleus (AGN). The unexpected appearance of broad-line emission in the spectra acquired in 2019 at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo has indeed revealed the recent transition of NGC 4156 from a type 2 towards a type 1 AGN. The TNG data were taken during an observing program led by undergraduate students from the University of Florence, thus making such a result even more unique than the discovery itself. New 2022 follow-up observations with TNG hint at a further evolution backwards to a nearly type 2. In the near future, we will monitor NGC 4156 in the X-rays with Swift and in the optical to hopefully constrain the relevant timescales of the changing-look process ongoing in NGC 4156.

25/10/2022

Runa Briguglio

Contactless actuators and pyramid wavefront sensor, the SPLATT concept for space active optics

In the last few years the concept of an active space telescope has been greatly developed, to meet demanding requirements with a substantial reduction of tolerances, risk and cost. This is the frame of the SPLATT project, a R&D activity funded by INAF under the TecnoPrin 2019. We investigated, both in simulation and in the optical laboratory, two main elements: an active segmented primary with contactless actuators and a pyramid wavefront sensor (PWFS) to drive the correction chain. The key-point is the synergy between them: the sensitivity of the PWFS and the intrinsic stability of a contactless-actuated mirror segment. The talk is a summary of the last results as presented at the International Conference on Space Optics, held in Dubrovnik two weeks ago.

18/10/2022

Marion Villenave (JPL)

Probing protoplanetary disk evolution using multi-wavelengths observations

To form giant planets during protoplanetary disk lifetime, small micron sized particles must grow rapidly to larger grains. A full understanding of that process requires a detailed characterization of the radial and vertical structure of the gas-rich disks associated with young pre-main sequence stars. Multi-wavelengths observations of protoplanetary disks, for example in the millimeter and near-infrared, allow to probe two widely separated grain sizes that are differently affected by evolutionary mechanisms such as radial drift and vertical settling. In this talk, I will present constraints on both mechanisms using multi wavelengths observations, with a longer focus on disks seen edge-on. Highly inclined disks are of particular interest because they provide a unique point of view to unambiguously disentangle their vertical and radial dimensions. The modeling of multi-wavelength observations of such disks allows to identify high density regions, favorable for grain growth and planet formation, and to study the efficiency of planet formation in protoplanetary disks.

04/10/2022

Angelos Tsiaras

From HST to JWST - First view of exoplanets with the Webb

In the last 15 years, significant progress has been made in the field of atmospheric characterisation of exoplanets, utilising the most advanced instruments both on the ground and in space. Today, we are entering an era of very exiting prospects for the field of exoplanet characterisation. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been successfully launched, deployed and aligned, while ESA’s M4 mission, Ariel, has been adopted and is planned to fly in 2029. This era will be characterised by the large volume of data that will be delivered from the new observatories. In my talk I will discuss the challenges we have to face in order to analyse the large data volume expected in the next decade. I will discuss the lessons learnt in the past years using the Wide Field Camera 3 on HST - the most successful instrument for exoplanet characterisation - and I will present a next-generation pipeline for the analysis of exoplanet spectroscopic observations, together with the first implementation on JWST data.

27/09/2022

Giannandrea Inchingolo

Science Art and Games for Public Engagement and Education pdf

I am a Creative Scientist who just joined the Outreach and Education team at OAA. I will present to you PIXEL, a board game we recently developed with the INAF national WG on game-based learning a the GAME Science Research Center. This game will be the core tool for several game-based activities we will develop in OAA for schools and the general public. I will also share my project of Science Art for public engagement Into the (un)known, an immersive and multi-sensory exploration of the Cosmos that I exhibited at the Genoa Science Festival in 2020 and the Venice Cinema Biennale in 2021.

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