2019

6-12-2019 ore 11 – Aula IB09 –  ARTOV-IAPS, Via Fosso Del Cavalier 100.

Ranieri Baldi – Università di Torino – The multi-band properties of lowluminosity radio galaxies in the local Universe 

Radio galaxies produce the most energetic phenomena in the Universe. They are typically associated with giant elliptical galaxies hosting the most massive black holes (> 10^8 solar masses). In the local Universe (z<0.3) the optical classification of radio galaxies reflects a clearer separation in nuclear and host properties than that based on the radio morphology. However, the results from my mutli-band studies demonstrates that the picture of the radio-loud AGN population provided by the classical samples of radio galaxies, i.e. 3C sample, is incomplete. Indeed, moving to low-luminosity active nuclei, the bulk of this population is dominated by objects which differ from powerful radio galaxies, by showing compact radio structures and more heterogeneous host properties. Furthermore, a new class of radio galaxies emerges from radio surveys: the FR0s, which lack of large scale (>10 kpc) radio structures and dominate the local Universe in space density. Considering their properties, I will speculate about their possible origins and the possible cosmological scenarios they imply

27-11-2019 ore 11:00- Aula IB09, ARTOV-IAPS, Via Fosso Del Cavalier 100.

Teo Muñoz-Darias  Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias Accretion and outflows in stellar-mass black holes

Black-hole (BH) transients are a type of X-ray binary in which a stellar-mass BH accretes material from a low-mass star via an accretion disc. They spend most part of their lives in a dim, quiescent state, but display powerful outbursts when their luminosity increases by up to seven orders of magnitude in all wavelengths. X-ray and radio observations performed during the last couple of decades have provided a rich data base on BH transients. A strong coupling between the properties of the accretion flow and the presence of outflows, such as radio-jets and hot X-ray winds, has been found to be a fundamental characteristic of these systems, and, to a great extent, of X-ray binaries in general. In addition to this, and particularly since the spectacular case of the 2015 outburst of the BH transient V404 Cygni, cold optical accretion disc winds have been discovered in several systems, suggesting that these might also have a significant impact on the entire BH accretion process. I will review the state-of-the-art of this field, with emphasis on the studies that we are currently carrying out on these novel optical winds with a suite of the largest telescopes.

13-11-2019 ore 11:00 – Aula IB09, ARTOV-IAPS ,Via Fosso Del Cavalier 100.

Maria Teresa Capria – INAF/IAPS, Roma Comet Interceptor, the new ESA mission to a dynamically new comet

Comet Interceptor is the mission selected by ESA on June 2019 as its first F-class mission, and is also the first mission that will have as a target an encounter with a dynamically new comet. The launch, in 2028, will be shared with the Ariel exoplanet telescope.

A dynamically new comet is a long-period comet that has been displaced from the Oort cloud, the shell of icy bodies surrounding the planets from ~ 2000 au to ~ 50000 au, and is entering the inner Solar System for the first time. All the six cometary nuclei visited until now by a spacecraft are short-period comets, and have passed many times close to the Sun.

After the launch, Comet Interceptor will wait at the stable Lagrange point L2 for up to 2-3 years for the discovery of a suitable new comet by a ground-based observatory. As soon as the orbit will be computed and the ecliptic crossing point predicted, Comet Interceptor will leave L2 to intercept the path of the comet close to the ecliptic plane. The mission has a multi-spacecraft architecture: after the departure from L2 the 3 small spacecrafts will separate and proceed towards their target.

23-10-2019 ore 11, Aula IB09, ARtOV-IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavalier 100.

Studies of Solar Eruptions from space: entering the new era of multi-channel coronagraphs.

Over the last decades continuous monitoring of the Sun provided by the space based observatories gave us a new view of solar storms (or Coronal Mass Ejections – CMEs), the main drivers (together with the solar wind and solar energetic particles – SEPs) of geomagnetic storms on Earth. The development of CMEs has been studied mostly with White Light (WL) coronagraphs, and UV/EUV spectrometers from space-based instruments. UV/EUV spectra sampled during CMEs provide unique physical information on the erupting plasmas, but the field-of-view of spectrometer was limited to the projected size of the slit, while multi-channel EUV imagers (e.g. SDO/AIA) have a very limited field of view (h < 1.3 Rsun). On the other hand, coronagraphic WL images provided information on the 2D kinematical properties of CMEs, but these instruments are sensitive only to the plasma densities. Now, the forthcoming space missions will observe for the first time CMEs in multi-channel WL+UV/EUV coronagraphs, thus providing for the first time the capability to apply to 2D images diagnostics developed so far only for spectroscopic data. This is the case for instance of the Metis WL+UV coronagraph on-board the ESA Solar Orbiter mission (to be launched February 6th 2020), and of the giant ASPIICS coronagraph on-board the ESA PROBA-3 mission (to be launched in mid2021). In this talk I will shortly review previous results, discuss major open problems on CMEs, and describe future opportunities from the next future instrumentation.

16-10-2019,  ore 11, Aula Convegni, ARtOV-IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavalier 100.

Active galactic nuclei as cosmological probes.Elisabeta Lusso – Univ. Firenze

I will present the latest results on our analysis of the non-linear X-ray to ultraviolet luminosity relation in a sample of optically selected quasars from SDSS, cross-matched with the most recent XMM-Newton and Chandra catalogues. I will show that this correlation is very tight, implying that the observed relation is the manifestation of an ubiquitous (but still unknown) physical mechanism, that regulates the energy transfer from the accretion disc to the X-ray emitting corona in quasars. I will also discuss what the perspectives of quasars in the context of observational cosmology are and present new measurements of the expansion rate of the Universe in the redshift range z=0.5-5.5 based on a Hubble diagram of quasars. The distance-redshift relation of quasars at z<1.4 is in agreement with that of supernovae and with the concordance model. Nonetheless, a deviation from the ΛCDM model emerges at higher redshift, with a statistical significance of ~4σ. We found that, if an evolution of the dark energy equation of state is allowed, our data suggest a dark energy density increasing with time.

9-10-2019, ore 11:00, Aula IB09, ARtOV-IAPS –

Via Fosso Del Cavalier 100. Cosmology & Astrophysics with Galaxy Clusters: the Role of Simulations Stefano Borgani – INAF/OA Trieste

I will overview recent advancements in the study of galaxy clusters through cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. I will discuss how improvements in the numerical description of galaxy formation processes, related to star formation and gas accretion onto super-massive black holes, is leading to the production of a realistic population of clusters from simulations. I will first show few examples of the use of such synthetic clusters for cosmological applications, in particular for the calibration of biases in the measurements of their mass. I will then highlight how the combined information from the thermo- and chemo-dynamical properties of galaxy clusters can be used as fossil records of the past history of feedback and to shed light on the cosmic cycle of baryons at different cosmic epochs.

25-09-2019, ore 11:00, Aula IB09, ARTOV-IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100.

Martian deltas and lakes: insights and outstanding questionsGaetano Di Achille – INAF/OA Abruzzo

Martian deltas and lakes have always been among the main targets of all
space missions for their paleoclimatic and astrobiological significance. At
the dawn of a new space age that should lead men to Mars, the state of
the art of Martian deltas and lakes is reviewed to discuss the main
geological issues about their origin, formation timescales, and
paleoclimate implications. This has profound associations with overall
debates about Mars geology, such as the Early climate (icy highlands vs.
warm and wet), the origin of surface flow (fluvial or volcanic), the
presence of a Northern ocean, and the biological potential of the planet.
The latter issues are discussed in the context of the future space missions
outlining how the next chapter of Martian deltas and lakes
exploration could maximize the scientific return on the understanding of
the Mars paleoclimate and the search for life.

10-07-2019, 11:00, Aula IB09, ARTOV-IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
Cosmic rays and Supernova Remnants: past, present and future of a long and tricky love story
Martina Cardillo – INAF/IAPS, Roma

Supernova Remnants are the main candidate for Galactic CosmicRay acceleration. They have the right energy and the right physical conditions. However, in spite of a huge amount of data, we have not a direct evidence of cosmic ray particle acceleration in the Supernova Remnants yet. This could be due to the limited sensitivity of actual instruments or could be mean that there are other kinds of sources able to accelerate particles to very high energies. The future, with its new instruments and new theoretical models, will help us to understand better if there is an unsolvable problem between Cosmic Rays and Supernova Remnants or if the issue is only a great misunderstanding.

03-07-2019, 14:30, Aula IB09, ARTOV-IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
Learning about gas giant interiors from their gravity fields
Daniele Durante – Uni “La Sapienza”, Roma

Recently, the Juno and Cassini spacecrafts shed light on the interiors of the two gas giants of our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn. Juno’s first two passes suggested the presence of a diluted core, extended up to 0.5 Jupiter’s radii. The analysis of the first two gravity-dedicated perijove passes revealed Jupiter’s gravity field North-South asymmetry, which has been explained by the surface wind dynamics. Comparing the observed zonal harmonics with theoretical predictions has shown that the surface zonal winds extend to a depth of thousands of kilometers. At the same time, Cassini’s Grand Finale orbits allowed the most accurate determination of Saturn’s gravity field since the spacecraft passed very close to the cloud tops. The analysis of Doppler data revealed that Saturn’s gravity deviates significantly from an earlier theoretical prediction of a uniformly rotating body: to explain Cassini’s data, Saturn requires a strong differential rotation extending deep into the planet. The Juno and Cassini missions enabled comparisons to be made between the interior structure and surface dynamics of the two gas giants in the same timeframe. We will explore the implications of Juno’s and Cassini’s gravity measurements on the interior of their target planets.

20-06-2019, 11:00, Aula IB09, ARTOV-IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
The earliest asteroidal bombardment of the Earth-Moon system
Simone Marchi – Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, USA

In the aftermath of the giant collision resulting in the formation of the Moon, about 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth experienced a protracted time of bombardment by leftover planetesimals. In this talk I will present a new bombardment model of the Hadean Earth that has been calibrated using existing lunar, asteroidal and terrestrial geochemical data. We find that the surface of the Hadean Earth was widely reprocessed by impacts through mixing and burial by impact-generated melt. This model may explain the absence of early terrestrial rocks. In addition, by tracking the magnitude and timing of large collisions, we find that existing oceans would have repeatedly boiled away into steam atmospheres as late as about 4 billion years ago. These findings have important implications for the formation and stability of early habitable environments and the onset of life. Finally, I will discuss recent developments in understanding the effects of collisions on the tectonic evolution of the early Earth, as well as the formation of impact-induced geochemical heterogeneities that could still persist in terrestrial mantle rocks.

18-06-2019, 14:30, Aula IB09, ARTOV-IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
The fate of the solar system in an open cluster
Francesco Flammini Dotti – Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool university

The fate of the solar system can be differentiated by its own environment.
Although it is still not clear where the solar system may have formed, an interesting scenario is represented by a star cluster: most stars form in them, and the Sun may have formed in an Open Cluster.
In this work we want to focus whatever the solar system nowadays structure remains intact.
Here, we dynamically evolve Open star clusters with planetary systems by combining two N-body codes: the star cluster code NBODY6++GPU code and the planetary system code REBOUND.
We use different sets of initial conditions, such as the virial ratio and stellar density, and evolve the system for 50 Myr.
After a general introduction, I will talk about the numerical problem by focusing on the initial conditions and pointing out the limits of the actual work.
Some results will be discussed and, finally, the most plausible scenario for the solar system will be described according to the most recent literature.

05-06-2019, 14:30, Aula IB09, ARTOV-IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
The Transient High-Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor (THESEUS)
Lorenzo Amati – OAS, Bologna on behalf of the THESEUS International Collaboration

The Transient High-Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor (THESEUS) is a space mission concept currently under Phase A study by ESA as candidate M5 mission, aiming at exploiting Gamma-Ray Bursts for investigating the early Universe and at providing a substantial advancement of multi-messenger and time-domain astrophysics. Through an unprecedented combination of X-/gamma-rays monitors, an on-board IR telescope and automated fast slewing capabilities, THESEUS will be a wonderful machine for the detection, characterization and redshift measurement of any kind of GRBs and many classes of X-ray transients. In addition to the full exploitaiton of high-redshift GRBs for cosmology (pop-III stars, cosmic re-ionization, SFR and metallicity evolution up to the “cosmic dawn”), THESEUS will allow the identification and study of the electromagnetic counterparts to sources of gravitational waves which will be routinely detected in the late ’20s / early ’30s by next generation facilities like aLIGO/aVirgo, LISA, KAGRA, and Einstein Telescope (ET), as well as of most classes of transient sources, thus providing an ideal sinergy with the large e.m. facilities of the near future like LSST, ELT, TMT, SKA, CTA, ATHENA.

29-05-2019, 14:30, Aula IB09, ARTOV-IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
Gravito-magnetism and dark matter
Angelo Tartaglia – INAF-OATo and Politecnico di Torino

The talk will review various approaches to the problem of characterizing possible general relativistic effects of the rotation of galactic dark halos. Indeed, assuming, as it is usually done, that the Milky Way, as well as most known galaxies, is immersed in a huge dark matter halo, it is reasonable to conjecture that the halo too should rotate as the visible stars do. The consequence is that a gravitomagnetic contribution from the rotating halo is expected. Two proposals on how to reveal such effect, if it exists, will be discussed. In both cases the principle of the measurement is the generalized Sagnac effect: along a closed loop travelled in opposite directions by electromagnetic signals, a gravito-magnetic field, as well as a purely kinematical rotation, induces an asymmetry in the times of flight. Measuring the time difference provides an information on how big the gravitomagnetic source is. The first proposal is to set up a closed loop based on the Lagrange points of the sun/earth pair. The second proposal, on a much smaller scale, presents an earth based experiment, whose core is the diurnal modulation of the signal given by a ring laser fixed to the surface of the planet: the modulation would be originated by the oscillation of the ring with respect to the axis of the Milky Way, by an angle doubling the colatitude of the laboratory. Upper limits and orders of magnitude will be worked out.

22-05-2019, 11:00, Aula IB09, ARTOV-IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
Particle acceleration in relativistic jets and polarimetric signatures
Fabrizio Tavecchio – INAF-OA Brera

Extragalactic relativistic jets are outflows of magnetized plasma expelled by supermassive black holes residing in the centers of distant galaxies. Particularly interesting are blazars, objects in which the jet points toward the Earth. The emission of blazars extends into the gammaray band, flagging the existence of particles (electrons, possibly protons) with energies exceeding 10 TeV. It is believed that these ultrarelativistic particles particles are accelerated either by magnetic reconnection – possibly triggered by instabilities in magnetically dominated jets – or shocks – for weakly magnetized flows. After a general introduction I will discuss how polarimetry can be used to probe the acceleration mechanisms active in blazars, discussing in particular the potential role of the upcoming planned IXPE satellite.

15-05-2019, 11:00, Aula IB09, ARTOV-IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
The near-Earth space: a natural laboratory to decode the plasma Universe
Francesco Valentini – Uni Calabria

The massive campaign of space exploration carried out in the past century has revealed that the vast majority of ordinary matter in the Universe is in the plasma state. Astrophysical plasmas are generally turbulent, and dissipation of turbulent fluctuations leads to continuous plasma heating and acceleration. The near-Earth space plays a key role in the understanding of these phenomena, as it represents an excellent natural laboratory where to perform direct measurements of electric and magnetic fields and plasma properties. In this huge amount of data, the answer to several scientific questions is hidden. In this scenario, the numerical approach is essential to provide support to the interpretation of the observational measurements and to navigate the jungle of data from space. In this talk, I will present the hybrid Vlasov-Maxwell code employed to model the kinetic dynamics of the interplanetary plasmas. I will discuss the comparison of numerical and observational data, performed through the so-called Virtual Spacecraft (VS) technique, and, finally, concerning the analysis of data from space, I will focus on the research activities planned within the AIDA project, recently funded by the EU within the Horizon 2020 program.

17-04-2019, 11:00, Aula IB09, ARTOV-IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
HERMES: The High Energy Rapid Modular Ensemble of Satellites
Yuri EVANGELISTA – INAF/IAPS

HERMES (High Energy Rapid Modular Ensemble of Satellites) is a mission concept based on a constellation of nano-satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), hosting new miniaturized detectors to probe the X-ray temporal emission of bright high-energy transients such as Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB). Transient localization is gained by comparing time delays among the same event detection epochs occurred on – at least – 3 detectors, spaced out on different satellites. HERMES X-ray transients monitoring represents the keystone capability to support the 2020 interferometers new generation which will search for events in a sky volume 100 times larger than in the GW170817 case.
INAF, in collaboration with INFN, Politecnico di Milano, University of Pavia and University of Udine, is developing the modular X/gamma-ray monitor to be placed on-board 3U CubeSat buses, with the main goal of providing fast localization of long and short GRBs in a Field of View of several steradians with an accuracy of from few degrees down to few arcminutes.

10-04-2019, 11:00, Aula IB09, ARTOV-IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
The Transient High-Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor (THESEUS)
Lorenzo AMATI – INAF/OAS Bologna

The Transient High-Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor (THESEUS) is a space mission concept currently under Phase A study by ESA as candidate M5 mission, aiming at exploiting Gamma-Ray Bursts for investigating the early Universe and at providing a substantial advancement of multi-messenger and time-domain astrophysics. Through an unprecedented combination of X-/gamma-rays monitors, an on-board IR telescope and automated fast slewing capabilities, THESEUS will be a wonderful machine for the detection, characterization and redshift measurement of any kind of GRBs and many classes of X-ray transients. In addition to the full exploitaiton of high-redshift GRBs for cosmology (pop-III stars, cosmic re-ionization, SFR and metallicity evolution up to the “cosmic dawn”), THESEUS will allow the identification and study of the electromagnetic counterparts to sources of gravitational waves which will be routinely detected in the late ’20s / early ’30s by next generation facilities like aLIGO/aVirgo, LISA, KAGRA, and Einstein Telescope (ET), as well as of most classes of transient sources, thus providing an ideal sinergy with the large e.m. facilities of the near future like LSST, ELT, TMT, SKA, CTA, ATHENA.

03-04-2019, 11:00, Aula IB09, ARTOV-IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
Exoplanets high-contrast high-resolution fast-imaging for SHARK-VIS@LBT
Gianluca LI CAUSI INAF/IAPS

Direct imaging of exo-planets requires removing the star light to better than thousandth to millionth of the extreme adaptive optics residuals. I will present the status of the upcoming SHARK-VIS high-contrast imager at the LBT, and the fast-imaging techniques we are developing to achieve this goal, already tested on sky with the SHARK-VIS pathfinder.

27-03-2019, 11:00, Aula IB09, ARTOV – IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
AGN variability: from physics to cosmology
Maurizio Paolillo – Uni Napoli, Napoli

I will discuss our current understanding of AGN variability as a tool to investigate the fundamental properties of accreting supermassive Black-Holes, to select populations of accreting sources, to trace their accretion history through cosmic time, and the future opportunities to use it as a tool for cosmological studies, with particular emphasis to future monitoring facilities such as LSST, or X-ray missions such as Athena or eXTP.

20-03-2019, 11:00, Aula IB09, ARTOV – IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
Complete picture of the ISM in the Local Universe
Viviana Casasola – INAF- IRA, Bologna

Understanding the interplay between the various components of the interstellar medium (ISM: dust, atomic and molecular gas) in galaxies of the Local Universe is of fundamental importance for studies of galactic formation and evolution. In the last decade, thanks in particular to Herschel, we made a considerable effort in the study of one of these components, the dust. In this framework, the European DustPedia project has been devised aimed at performing a complete characterization of dust in the Local Universe. However, we need information on all the phases of the ISM to draw definitive conclusions on it. I present the main scaling relations computed using uniformly homogenized data of molecular and atomic gas, dust, metallicity, stellar mass, and morphology for a sample of ~450 nearby, late-type galaxies extracted from the DustPedia sample. Only such a large and coherent dataset of all phases of the ISM can provide a complete view of the ISM in the Local Universe and permit to link it with that of the Milky Way and of the high-redshift Universe.

13-03-2019, 11:00, Aula IB09, ARTOV – IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
Spinning like crazy
Alessandro Papitto – INAF-OA Roma

Neutron stars are so small and compact that they can spin extremely quickly. Pulsars that spin at a period of a few milliseconds are the fastest stars known. Their huge velocity makes them ideal probes to measure the state of ultradense matter and test the theory of General Relativity. Millisecond pulsars attain their very fast rotation during a Gyr-long phase of accretion of matter from a low mass companion star, which drives a bright X-ray emission. When the mass transfer stops magnetospheric pulsed emission powered by the star rotation – and observed preferentially in the radio and gamma-ray bands – sets in. In 2013, the discovery of a ‘transitional’ millisecond pulsar that swings between an accretion-powered X-ray pulsar regime and a rotationally-powered radio pulsar state on a time scale of a few weeks, or even shorter, proved this evolution. The incredibly rich phenomenology of transitional millisecond pulsars is a collection of the different possible outcomes of the interaction between the pulsar wind of particles and radiation and matter in an accretion disk. The observation of optical pulsations from one of these pulsars at the INAF Galileo Telescope is just the last unexpected discovery. It suggests a dwarf 100-km sized pulsar wind nebula and opens a window to observe the relativistic pulsar wind close to the region where electrons are accelerated. I will review the recent success of transitional millisecond pulsars observations and try to address the many enigmas they posed.

07-03-2019, 14:30, Aula IB09, ARTOV – IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
Survival of astrobiologically relevant organic materials in the interplanetary medium
Elisabetta Palumbo – INAF- OA Catania

Laboratory experiments have shown that after ion bombardment (keV-MeV) of ice mixtures made of simple molecules containing C, N, and O (e.g. H2O, CO, CH3OH, CH4, NH3, N2) both volatile species and an organic refractory material are formed. This organic material contains different chemical groups, including triple CN bonds that are thought to be of interest for astrobiology. It is widely accepted that organic materials similar to those produced in the laboratory could be present on astrophysical objects such as comets. Once expelled from comets, these materials are exposed to solar radiation during their interplanetary journey. In the young Solar System some of these processed materials could have reached the early Earth and contributed to its chemical and prebiotic evolution. Here we describe the results obtained on a set of organic samples that have been exposed to the unshielded solar UV photons outside the International Space Station. The organic samples were prepared by 200 keV He+ irradiation of N2:CH4:CO ice mixtures. The analysis of the exposed samples has shown that organic material containing the CN triple bond can survive in interplanetary dust particles larger than 20-30 µm for a time longer than 10^4 years.

07-03-2019, 11:00, Aula Convegni, ARTOV – IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
Solar Wind Structures and their Effect upon the Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Atmosphere: Space Weather
Bruce Tsurutani, Pasadena, California-USA

Interplanetary and solar phenomena and their respective concomitant geomagnetic activities at Earth will be discussed. Of particular importance are: solar flares, collisionless shocks, sheaths, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs), magnetic clouds (MCs), solar filaments, corotating interaction regions (CIRs), high speed streams, Alfvén waves, and the heliospheric current sheet/plasma sheet. Geomagnetic activity topics are: sudden ionospheric TEC enhancements, geomagnetic storms, substorms, convection events, chorus generation, Sudden Impulses (SI+s), dayside auroras, the formation of new radiation belts, relativistic electron acceleration and losses, prompt penetration electric fields (PPEFs), the dayside ionospheric superfountain effect, and supersubstorms. The various topics will be ordered by solar cycle phases: solar maximum, the declining phase and solar minimum. Extreme space weather will also be covered including past historical events and predictions of possible even larger events.

28-02-2019, ore 14.30 – Aula IB09
Digging under the surface: how to infer subsurface structure of planetary and minor bodies from surface geology
Matteo Massironi – Uni Padova, Padova

20-02-2019, 14:00, Aula IB09
Galactic black-hole binaries: failed transition outbursts and high energy emission
Melania Del Santo – INAF- IASF, Palermo

13-02-2019, 11:00, Aula IB09
The near-Earth space: a natural laboratory to decode the plasma Universe
Francesco Valentini – Uni Calabria, Cosenza

06-02-2019, 11:00, Aula IB09
Astrochemistry in star-forming regions: the “kitchen”
Francesco Fontani – INAF- OA Arcetri

30-01-2019, 14:00, Aula IB09, ARTOV – IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
The Key Science Projects of the Cherenkov Telescope Array
Stefano Vercellone – INAF/OABrera, Brera

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be the next generation gamma-ray observatory, open to the scientific community, to investigate the very high-energy emission from a large variety of celestial sources in the 20 GeV – 300 TeV energy range. The full array, distributed over two sites, one in the northern and one in the southern hemisphere, will provide whole-sky coverage and will improve the sensitivity with respect to the current major arrays such as H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS by a factor of five to twenty, depending on the energy. CTA will investigate a much higher number of already known classes of sources, going to much larger distances in the Universe, performing population studies, accurate variability and spatially-resolved studies.
We review the current status of the CTA project and discuss the main CTA Key Science Projects, which will focus on major scientific cases, allowing us to provide legacy data-sets of high value to a wider community in a context of synergies with other major multi-wavelength facilities.

23-01-2019, 14:00, Aula IB09, ARTOV – IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
To be defined
Elisabetta Dotto – INAF- OARoma, Monteporzio
Abstract

16-01-2019, 14:00, Aula IB09, ARTOV – IAPS – Via Fosso Del Cavaliere, 100
La missione BepiColombo e la strumentazione italiana a bordo
A cura del gruppo di divulgazione Bep-it! Nella notte tra il 19 e il 20 ottobre del 2018 la sonda BepiColombo è partita alla volta di Mercurio. BepiColombo è una missione dell’Agenzia Spaziale Europea (ESA) in collaborazione con l’Agenzia Spaziale Giapponese (JAXA). Nel talk, il gruppo di divulgazione italiano Bepi-it! per BepiColombo, illustrerà la missione e i suoi obiettivi scientifici, aggiornandoci anche sullo status degli strumenti a valle della fase di commissioning NECP che si è appena conclusa.
BepiColombo, durante la sua crociera di 7 anni, viaggerà in maniera “compatta”: un motore elettrico (MTM) spingerà il satellite europeo MPO e giapponese MMO, in una “pila” di più di 6 metri. Il modulo Europeo, in particolare, avrà a bordo 11 strumenti, 4 dei quali saranno “made in Italy” (e tre di essi a forte partecipazione IAPS): la suite di 4 sensori SERENA che studieranno l’esosfera e la sua interazione con la superficie, la magnetosfera e il vento solare; la suite di 3 strumenti ottici SIMBIO-SYS che forniranno immagini della superficie del pianeta sia in 2D sia in 3D, indicandone anche la composizione; ISA che misurerà le accelerazioni non gravitazionali e che sarà di supporto a MORE nella stima del campo di gravità di Mercurio, dando informazioni preziose sul suo interno, e nei test della teoria della relatività di Einstein.