Recent Talks
List of all the talks in the archive, sorted by date.
Abstract
This seminar talk will give a short overview of the current status of the field of Astroparticle Physics. The subject includes a great variety of instruments working in different energy ranges (from a few MeV to 1020 eV) and studying different particles (neutrinos, protons, gamma-rays and more). Finally, a short discussion regarding the connection between the observations and the physics at the Large Hadron Collider will be discussed.
Abstract
The distribution of matter in galaxies of different luminosities and Hubble types, as inferred from observations, plays an important role in cosmology, extragalactic astrophysics, astroparticle physics, as well as in a number of issues in high-energy astrophysics, galactic astronomy, star formation and evolution and general relativity. Not withstanding the general successes of the ΛCDM model in explaining the structure and evolution of the universe, there is a growing conviction that the structural properties of the dark and luminous components in galaxies hold important clues about the nature of dark matter and about the processes that are responsible for galaxy formation. This talk is part of an international initiative known as "Dark Matter Awareness Week".The overall purpose of this event is to increase the awareness of the phenomenology of the mass discrepancy phenomenon in galaxies amongst the many scientists currently working with a theoretical, observational, experimental and simulation approach on issues involving dark matter or its alternatives. The content of the talk will be at the level of a journal club talk with an important dose of review.
Abstract
In this talk I will summarise the events that led to the discovery of the first four pulsars, recount several instances where pulsars were almost discovered and reflect on what lessons we might draw from these stories.
Abstract
Rutherford discovered the atomic nucleus in 1912 in an experiment on a table top. The LHC will be producing its first major results by 2012, involving teams of thousands and apparatus that is bigger than Rutherford's entire laboratory. How did science come to this, and what are the questions the LHC hopes to answer? What is Higgs' boson, and is it really Higgs that invented it? I will explore the role of symmetry and asymmetry in physics, and illustrate how the ideas that have been associated with Higgs' name have a long history.
Abstract
This seminar talk will give a short overview of the current status of the field of Astroparticle Physics. The subject includes a great variety of instruments working in different energy ranges (from a few MeV to 1020 eV) and studying different particles (neutrinos, protons, gamma-rays and more). Finally, a short discussion regarding the connection between the observations and the physics at the Large Hadron Collider will be discussed.
Abstract
CANARY is a technical demonstrator for the proposed EAGLE instrument for European ELT. EAGLE will have twenty Integral Field Units patrolling a 5 arcminute field and requires a new form of adaptive optics to provide the required image quality for its 0.0375 arcsec image sampling: Laser Guide Star Multi-Object AO. This entails several significant technical innovations: open-loop control, atmospheric tomography, and new calibration methods. The CANARY demonstrator is currently in its first, natural guide star, phase, and the first results have been obtained on sky. CANARY Phase A is described and the first results are presented. The next, laser guide star, phase is then outlined.
Abstract
The RV method is responsible for discovering the majority of planets that orbit stars other than our Sun. However, one problem with this technique is that stellar jitter can cause RV variations that mimic or mask out a planet signature. There have been several instances in the past when stars have shown periodic RV variations which are firstly attributed to a planet and later found to be due to stellar spots, e.g. BD+20 1790 (Figueira, P et al. 2010) and CJ674 (Turnball et al. 204). So far the method of choice to overcome these problems is to avoid observing stars which show levels of high activity. However, this does not solve the problem: it merely avoids it. We have therefore been developing a code which separates out stellar jitter from the RVs to enable active planets to be looked at for planets. I will talk about our technique as well as show some exciting preliminary results.
Abstract
Fibrils are thin elongated features visible in the solar chromosphere in and around magnetized regions. Because of their visual appearance they have been traditionally considered a tracer of the magnetic field lines. In this work we challenge that notion for the first time by comparing their orientation to that of the magnetic field, obtained via high-resolution spectro-polarimetric observations of Ca II lines. The short answer to the question posed in the title is that mostly yes, but not always.
Abstract
The so called "dark ages" of the universe began about 400.000 years after the Big Bang as matter cooled down and space became filled with neutral hydrogen for hundreds of millions years. How the Universe was heated and reionized during the first billion years after the Big Bang is a question of topical interest in cosmology. I will show that current theoretical models on the formation and collapse of primordial stars suggest that a large fraction of massive stars should have imploded, forming high-mass black hole X-ray binaries. Then, I will review the recent observations of compact stellar remnants in the near and distant universe that support this theoretical expectation, showing that the thermal (UV and soft X-rays) and non-thermal (hard X-rays, winds and jets) emission from a large population of stellar black holes in high mass binaries heated the intergalactic medium over large volumes of space, complementing the reionization by their stellar progenitors. Feedback from accreting stellar black holes at that epoch would have prevented the formation of the large quantities of low mass dwarf galaxies that are predicted by the cold dark matter model of the universe. A large population of black hole binaries may be important for future observations of gravitational waves as well as for the existing and future atomic hydrogen radio surveys of HI in the early universe.
Abstract
In this talk, I will cover our contribution to the study of extremely red galaxy (ERG) populations presenting a multi-wavelength analysis of these objects, selected in the GOODS-South/Chandra Deep Field South field. By using all the photometric (from X-rays to radio) and spectroscopic information available on large deep samples of extremely red objects (EROs, 645 sources), infrared EROs (IEROs, 294 sources) and distant red galaxies (DRGs, 350 sources), we derive redshift distributions, identify AGN powered and star-formation powered galaxies (based on X-ray properties and a new IR AGN diagnostic developed by us), and, using the radio observations of this field, estimate robust (AGN- and dust-unbiased) star formation rate densities (SFRD) for these populations. Applying a redshift separation (1 ≤ z < 2 and 2 ≤ z ≤ 3) we find a significant rise (a factor of 1.5 — 3) of SFRD for EROs and DRGs toward high-z, while none is observed for IEROs. As expected, we find a significant overlap between the ERG populations, and investigate the properties of "pure" (galaxies that conform to only one of the three considered ERG criteria) and "combined" (galaxies conforming to all three criteria) sub-populations. We find ERG sub-populations with no AGN activity and intense star-formation rates. With average values of ~180 M⊙/yr at 2 ≤ z < 3, they reasonably contribute to the global star-formation rate density, reaching a > 20% level. Strong AGN behaviour is not observed in the ERG population, with AGN only increasing the average radio luminosity of ERGs by 10 — 20%. However, AGN are frequently found (in up to 27% of the ERG population), and would increase the SFRD estimate by over 100%. Thus, and while the contribution of SF processes to the radio luminosity in galaxies with AGN remains uncertain, a comprehensive identification of AGN in these populations is necessary to obtain meaningful results. The dust content to each population is also derived by correlating UV and Radio SFRs, giving a higher obscuration for more active SF sources. Also, know to be amongst the most massive galaxies in the high-z universe, I will show that ERGs may constitute up to 60% of the total mass in the universe at 1 ≤ z ≤ 3. Finally, preliminary and promising results are presented on the morphologies of ERGs (CAS and Gini/M20 parameters) based on the v1.9 ACS GOODS-S images.Upcoming talks
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Recent Colloquia
Recent Talks
