Scientific seminars exposed by scientists and technologists of the IAA and the many centers and research institutions who visit us. They show the intense scientific exchange, they are held at 12:30 every Thursday. Seminars are broadcasted live at IAA - CSIC Seminars Live.
For further information, please contact seminars (at) iaa.es.
17/12/2020 - 12:30
SO Web-Colloquia: On the formation of stellar clusters In this presentation, I will show how the analysis of the spatial distribution of young stars (YSO) and its comparison to the core population can reveal stellar formation episodes in star forming regions, and help us understand the fragmentation process. I will focus in particular on two very different regions: the relatively massive cluster NGC2264 and the Taurus association. Our recent study of the clump and YSO populations in NGC 2264... Dra. Estelle Moraux |
10/12/2020 - 12:30
SO Web-Colloquia: Stellar population gradients and kinematics of ETGs as revealed by MaNGA In this talk I will summarise the findings presented in a series of four papers dedicated to the study of early type galaxies (ETGs) with integral field spectroscopy (IFU) from the MaNGA survey. The formation channels and mass assembly of ETGs is still a matter of debate in current galaxy evolution models. The combined analysis of galaxy kinematics and stellar population gradients (age, metallicity, alpha-enhancement, initial mass function -IMF... Dra. Helena Domínguez Sánchez |
03/12/2020 - 12:30
From direct imaging to gravitational waves: tracing the life of gas giant exoplanets In two decades, the field of exoplanet science has undergone nothing short of a revolution. With such a variety of planetary systems detected, the next step in exoplanet research is to characterise the properties of these systems. In this talk I will focus on “life and adventures” of gas giant exoplanets, and present how future space missions such as JWST, ARIEL and LISA will help us understand the nature, formation and evolutionary history of... Dr. Camilla Danielski |
19/11/2020 - 12:30
SO Web-Colloquia: Flaring on the Sun at all scales The Sun shows activity across a wide range of size and energy scales. We shall take a journey from the smallest scale events to the largest energy releases in the solar system. The energy release is due to the magnetic fields on the Sun and how they interact. Using EUV/UV spectroscopy different layers of the solar atmosphere can be probed in order to understand the physical processes that occur. The EUV imaging spectrometer onboard the Hinode... Dr. Louise Harra |
12/11/2020 - 12:30
SO web.Colloquio: GRAVITY+, all Sky, High Contrast, Milli-Arcsecond Optical Interferometric Imaging and Spectroscopy GRAVITY and the VLTI have transformed high angular resolution astronomy with groundbreaking results on the Galactic Center, active galactic nuclei, and exoplanets. The GRAVITY+ project will soon boost optical interferometry to the next level, opening up the extragalactic sky for milli-arcsecond resolution interferometric imaging, giving access to targets as faint as K = 22 mag, and providing ever higher contrast for the observation of... Dr. Frank Eisenhauer |
05/11/2020 - 12:30
SO Web-Coloquia: The Arecibo Observatory Roadmap for the Future: science enhancement plans under UCF management The Arecibo Observatory (AO) has supported cutting-edge research in the fields of Astronomy, Planetary Science, and Space Atmospheric Science for decades. The unprecedented sensitivity of the Arecibo antenna has led to fundamental contributions in a wide variety of research programs, including the first detection of an exoplanet around pulsar (Wolszczan... Dr. Noemi Pinilla-Alonso |
29/10/2020 - 17:00
Our Galactic Center: A Unique Laboratory for the Physics & Astrophysics of Black Holes The proximity of our Galaxy's center presents a unique opportunity to study a galactic nucleus with orders of magnitude higher spatial resolution than can be brought to bear on any other galaxy. After more than a decade of diffraction-limited imaging on large ground-based telescopes, the case for a supermassive black hole at the Galactic center has gone from a possibility to a certainty, thanks to measurements of individual stellar orbits. The... Dr. Andrea Ghez |
22/10/2020 - 12:30
We’ve never imaged the Sun’s surface from that close. Solar Orbiter will change that In February 10, 2020, Solar Orbiter, the new ESA's Sun-exploring mission built in collaboration with NASA, was successfully launched atop an ULA Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Equipped with ten instruments, six for remote sensing and four for in-situ measurements of the solar heliospheric conditions, it will get as close as 0.28 astronomical units (or 42 million kilometres) to the Sun in a mission that can last more than ten... Dr. David Orozco |
15/10/2020 - 12:30
So Web-Colloquia: The star formation process on cloud-scales in nearby galaxies Where do stars form and how is their formation regulated across galactic disks are two critical questions for our understanding of the star formation process. High angular observations of nearby galaxies allow us to sample the star formation process across entire galactic disks reaching now regularly the scales of the star-forming units, namely Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs) and HII regions. Such data provide new insights on the molecular gas... Dr Eva Schinnerer |
08/10/2020 - 12:30
SO Web-Colloquia: Recent findings on nova explosions Nova events are the result of the interaction of low-mass binary systems. A compact white dwarf (WD) accretes material from an old and cold companion until a thermonuclear runaway takes place on its surface. Such explosive events can be considered the scaled-down siblings of supernova (SN) explosions, but its study has many advantages over SNe, as nova events are more numerous (some systems even exhibit recurrent explosions within decades) and... Dr. Toalá Sanz |
01/10/2020 - 12:30
SO Web-Colloquia: Following black hole evolution from z=5: mergers and outflows The growth and evolution of the most massive black holes, and their host galaxies, can be followed from z=7 and even earlier. The critical events that shape this evolution are major mergers, Eddington or super-Eddington accretion, violent star formation, and powerful outflows. I will present the results of a systematic study of 40 AGN at z~4.8 using Gemini, VLT, Herschel and ALMA. Our recent (2019) ALMA data allow a fresh look at major mergers... Dr. Hagai Netzer |
24/09/2020 - 12:30
The power of low activity black holes It is possible that most galaxies host a black hole at the centre, most of the time this being in a relatively quiescent state. The so-called low luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei are characteristic of this phase. These objects represent the vast majority of the active galactic nuclei (AGN) population in the near universe, and still the least conforming class with the standard AGN scenario. Their low luminosity is at odds with their often... Dr. Almudena Prieto |
17/09/2020 - 12:30
SO Web-Colloquia: J-PAS: First light results of the JPCam The Javalambre-Physics of the Acclerating Universe Asptrohysical Survey (J-PAS) have just started to scan thousands of square degrees of the northern sky with 56 narrow band filters and the JPCam instrument with the telescope 2.5m of the Javalambre Observatory. Before the JPCam started its operation, we have observed with the pathfinder camera one sq. deg on the AEGIS field (along the extended Groth Strip). This colloquium will present the... Dr. Silvia Bonoli |
10/09/2020 - 12:30
SO Web-loquio: Massive black hole binaries in the cosmos Massive black holes weighing from a few thousands to tens of billions of solar masses inhabit the centers of today's galaxies, including our own Milky Way. Massive black holes also shone as quasars in the past, with the earliest detected a mere one billion years after the Big Bang. Along cosmic time, encounters between galaxies hosting massive black holes in their centers have produced binary massive black holes that eventually coalesced by... Dr. Marta Volonteri |
03/09/2020 - 12:30
SO Web-loquio: Active Galactic Nuclei: fueling and feedback Dynamical mechanisms are essential to exchange angular momentum in galaxies, drive the gas to the center, and fuel the central super-massive black holes. While at 100pc scale, the gas is sometimes stalled in nuclear rings, recent observations reaching 10pc scale, or 60mas with ALMA, have revealed, within the sphere of influence of the black hole, smoking gun evidence of fueling. Observations of AGN feedback will be described, together with the... Dr. Françoise Combes |
30/07/2020 - 12:30
SO Webloquio:The Orion Radio All-Stars: new insights into YSO radio emission, using the VLA, VLBA, and ALMA With significant new observing capabilities, centimeter-wavelength radio astronomy is currently in a renaissance leading up to the advent of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), highlighting new opportunities and also technical challenges. The sensitivity upgrades of both the NRAO Very Large Array (VLA) and the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) have begun to provide us with a much improved perspective on stellar centimeter radio emission,... Jan Forbrich |
23/07/2020 - 12:30
X-ray Astronomy for non (X-ray) astronomers Observations of X-rays coming from outside the solar system were pioneered in 1962 by Riccardo Giacconi and colleagues. From that very day, it became evident that X-rays would reveal a very different Universe to that shown by optical or radio telescopes. Indeed, X-rays are typically produced in the environment of black holes, or where the ambient temperature exceeds millions of degrees. X-ray telescopes (which, for good reason, are in orbit)... Dr. Xavier Barcons |
25/06/2020 - 12:30
Peering into the Dark: Probing the Formation and Early Evolution of Massive Stars This presentation will focus on recent work aimed at understanding the formation and early evolution of massive protostars. The massive (M>8 Msol) stars into which these evolve are the primary drivers of galactic ecosystems. The energy and nuclear processed material these massive stars inject into their enviroment during their lives and ultimately as supernovae, shapes the physical and chemical evolution of the ISM in galaxies. These stars... Dr. Gary Fuller |
18/06/2020 - 12:30
Exploring the origin of gas-rich ultra-diffuse galaxies with HI kinematics Ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) are one of the most discussed topics in extra-Galactic astronomy in the last lustrum given their puzzling properties: they have luminosities typical of dwarf galaxies, but optical scale lengths similar to very massive spirals. This intriguing combination is hard to explain, and up to date the precise formation mechanism of UDGs remains unknown. With the goal of learning more about their origins, our group has... Pavel E. Mancera Piña |
04/06/2020 - 12:30
TuMaG: un magnetógrafo para Sunrise III After the scientific success of the two first flights of the Sunrise stratospheric balloon mission, the international consortium led by MPS (Göttingen, Germany) decided to re-issue the mission for a third time. For Sunrise III, a new gondola and navigation system will be provided by APL (Johns Hopkins University, MD) and the re-furbished telescope by MPS. The latter also provides the instrumental platform and the light distribution system while... Dr. José Carlos del Toro Iniesta |
28/05/2020 - 12:30
Galaxy clusters and their environment Clusters of galaxies are located at the intersection of cosmic filaments. I will first describe how we have found large extensions around clusters, at optical and/or X-ray wavelengths, suggesting that we are indeed detecting the cosmic web around clusters, and I will discuss some galaxy properties in one of these extended filaments. At the cluster scale, I will then describe our searches for substructures in X-rays and show how X-ray... Dr. Florence Durret |
14/05/2020 - 12:30
Gamma-ray Emitting Narrow Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies: Past, Present, & Future The detection of significant gamma-ray emission from about a-dozen radio-loud narrow line Seyfert 1 (NLSy1) galaxies by Fermi-Large Area Telescope has opened up a realm to explore the physical conditions needed to launch relativistic jets in a different central engine and host galaxy environment than that is known for more-common jetted active galactic nuclei, i.e. blazars. Promising results acquired from various multi-wavelength campaigns are... Dr. Vaidehi S. Paliya |
31/03/2020 - 12:30
HI mapping of nearby dwarf galaxies with SKA pathfinders: unique capabilities of KAT-7 and MeerKAT Dwarf galaxies are by far the most numerous galaxies in the Local Universe. Their simple structure and proximity provides a unique window to the detailed investigation of various processes necessary for galaxy formation and evolution. One of the most reliable approach for studying the evolution of galaxies is to look at their physical properties using the neutral hydrogen gas (HI). In this talk I will present ongoing work on the HI properties... Dr. Brenda Namumba |
19/03/2020 - 12:30
Study on astrophysical masers in the era of SKA/SKA-VLBI In my colloquium talk, out of the introduction topics mentioned above, I will focus my talk on trigonometry of maser sources yielded with the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Phase 1. This is one of the science cases that have been planned as Japanese scientific contributions to SKA1. Its key issue is the scientific and technical feasibility in the low frequency band, corresponding to SKA1-MID Band 2 around 1.6 GHz, in which atmospheric effects on... Dr. Prof Hiroshi Imai |
17/03/2020 - 12:30
Magnetic fields, rotation, and activity in M dwarf stars M dwarfs are known to generate the strongest magnetic fields among main-sequence stars with convective envelopes, but we are still lacking a consistent picture of the link between the magnetic fields and underlying dynamo mechanisms, rotation, and activity. For instance, models predict that the maximum magnetic flux a star can generate scales with convective energy stored in its envelope, but no accurate measurements existed until recently.... Dr. Denis Shulyak |
05/03/2020 - 12:30
Round Table: Dia de la Mujer To be provided Round Table |
27/02/2020 - 12:30
Proper motion study of the Galactic Centre Stellar proper motion studies in the centre of the Milky Way have been typically limited to the Quintuplet, Arches, and central parsec clusters. In this talk, I will present the primary results of a large-scale proper motion study of the central ~ 36' x16' of the Galaxy based on our GALACTICNUCLEUS survey (epoch 2015) combined with the HST Paschen-alpha survey (epoch 2008). This region of our Galaxy is not covered sufficiently by the existing... Dr. Banafsheh Shahzamanian |
20/02/2020 - 12:30
YOUNG RUNAWAY STARS Most stars have spatial velocities within a few km/s of the average velocity of their surroundings and can be considered to be gravitationally trapped. There are, however, a small number of stars that move at velocities of tens or even hundreds of km/s with respect to their environment and that will eventually escape from there. The archetypal runaway stars are mu Col and AE Aur that escaped in opposite directions from the vicinity of the Orion... Dr. Luis Felipe Rodriguez |
18/02/2020 - 12:30
Evolution of statistical techniques in Astronomy The requirement for more robust statistical tools is becoming increasingly higher owing to the demands of various large programmes and the technological advancement producing high-sensitive observations across the electromagnetic spectrum. Among the many existing analyses, the ones working on the time-series as set by the monitoring projects using single-dish/optical telescopes and those of spectral-line observations as rendered by ALMA/IFUs are... Dr. Venkatessh Ramakrishnan |
13/02/2020 - 12:30
From protostars to planets: the astrochemical link Protostars accrete their material from the natal cloud through accretion disks. These disks are progressively dispersed by the recently formed star to form protoplanetary discs in which planets are born. Although this process takes a few million years, now we think that the final chemical composition of the gas and dust in the proto-planetary disk is to a large extent determined by the chemical evolution in the natal cloud. Determining the... Dr. Asunción Fuente |
11/02/2020 - 12:30
Experiments with MUSE data: Finding SN remnants & other curious sources One of the ways of following up on the success story of CALIFA is to refine the spatial resolution, and MUSE is the tool for that. Its superb image quality allows for a different kind of science. While browsing through emission line images derived from MUSE datacubes, we have spotted a number of compact-looking sources with forbidden line emission ([OIII], [NII], [SII]) in excess of that typical of HII regions. NGC 4030, a late type spiral 30... Dr. Roberto Cid Fernandes |
06/02/2020 - 12:30
SO Colloquia: Extrasolar planets: recent advances and future challenges Recently a group of scientists has confirmed the presence of water in the atmosphere of a super Earth orbiting in the habitable zone of its host star. But what what does this milestone represent in the search for life outside Earth? What do we mean by habitable? What do we really know about extrasolar planets, their internal structure or origins? What is a super Earth, the most common planet category know to date for which no example is found in... Dr. Juan Cabrera |
04/02/2020 - 12:30
Cosmic butterflies: the product of tempestuous stellar marriages Planetary nebulae are some of the most strikingly beautiful astrophysical phenomena known, gracing many a glossy-paged, coffee-table book and earning them the nickname "cosmic butterflies". Classical stellar evolutionary theory states that all intermediate mass stars should produce a planetary nebula, forming as the star leaves the Asymptotic Giant Branch and evolves towards the white dwarf phase. While it remains the standard for astronomy... Dr. David Jones |
31/01/2020 - 12:30
NoiseChisel and Gnuastro: non-parametric detection and analysis of astronomical targets Astronomical instrumentation has greatly advanced over the last 40 years: with digital detectors, space telescopes and +8m class ground-based telescopes for example. However, the signal-based detection paradigm (for example from Petrosian or Kron in the 1970s, mostly used as implemented in SExtractor from the mid-1990s) is still the dominant method of low-level data analysis: detection, segmentation and measurements or catalog production. In... Dr. Mohammad Akhlagh |
30/01/2020 - 12:30
Mirror-slicer Array for Astronomical Transients. A new Integral Field Spectroscopy mode for OSIRIS at GTC MAAT (Mirror-slicer Array for Astronomical Transients) is proposed as a new mirror-slicer optical system that will allow the OSIRIS spectrograph at the 10.4 m GTC the capability to perform integral-field spectroscopy (IFS) over a seeing-limited field of view 14.20’' x 10'' with a slice width of 0.303''. MAAT will enhance the resolution power of OSIRIS by 1.6 times with respect to its 0.6'' wide long-slit. All the eleven OSIRIS grisms and VPHs... Dr. Francisco Prada |
23/01/2020 - 12:30
SO Colloquia: Extragalactic survey science in the 2020s: the role of radio continuum observations with the SKA Extragalactic surveys in the 2020s will reveal the full diversity of the galaxy assembly process: from environment-dependent evolution to the build-up of mass inside galaxies, and with a complete accounting of all relevant processes/constituents ensured by multi-wavelength coverage. Observations at radio wavelengths carry a unique potential in that they can probe star-formation activity and cold gas content, i.e. place constraints on both galaxy... Mark T. Sargent |
15/01/2020 - 12:30
Public Surveys and new instrumentation for Calar Alto Observatory The Calar Alto observatory (CAHA) is a key institution for the international astronomical community, for its highly competitive astronomical facilities (telescopes and instrumentation). From 2019 on, the current administration of CAHA includes the Junta de Andalucía as a new partner – replacing the Max Planck Gesellschaft -, and together with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) these two institutions manage the operation of the... Dr. Jesus Aceituno |
09/01/2020 - 12:30
Galaxy evolution and weak lensing studies in the J-PAS survey During the next year, the J-PAS survey will start imaging the northern sky with a unique photometric system composed of 56 narrow and 4 broad bands. The peculiar configuration and strategy of this survey pursue to provide accurate low-resolution spectra or photo-spectra (FWHM~125 \AA) allowing us to obtain high-quality photometric redshifts (\sigma_z~0.003 for LRGs) for millions of galaxies across 8000 deg^2 of the sky. Recently, the J-PAS... Dr. Luis Díaz García |
19/12/2019 - 12:30
The SKA precursor telecope MeerKAT as a galaxy evolution explorer MeerKAT is a radio telescope situated in South Africa's Karoo desert. It has recently been built as an SKA demonstrator and precursor telescope and was inaugurated in August 2018. Since then it has proven to be the world's most sensitive 20cm interferometer and is slowly moving towards standard operation. Thanks to its array layout MeerKAT is a superb telescope to observe in particular the HI line, hence tracing the most abundant atom in its... Dr. Józsa Gyula István Géza |
12/12/2019 - 12:30
NGC 7469 as seen by MEGARA: new results from high-resolution IFU spectroscopy In this talk I will present highlights from our recent work about the analysis of high-resolution (R ~ 20 000) GTC/MEGARA integral-field unit spectroscopic observations, obtained during the commissioning run, in the inner region (12.5arcsec×11.3arcsec) of the active galaxy NGC7469, at spatial scales of 0.62 arcsec. We explore the kinematics, dynamics, ionisation mechanisms and oxygen abundances of the ionised gas, by modelling the Hα-[NII]... Dr. Sara Cazzoli |
10/12/2019 - 12:30
SO-IAA Colloquium: Unveiling the nature of planetary systems The burgeoning field of exoplanets has yielded thousands of discoveries, which collectively have the potential to help us better understand our place in the Universe. Every month more and more planetary systems are being discovered,some of them in highly exotic configurations never observed previously. The combination of different techniques and studies are needed to unveil the real nature of these planetary systems. In this seminar, I will... Dr. Francisco Pozuelos |
05/12/2019 - 12:30
Gaia mapping mission and science of Solar System Objects I will present the generalities of the Gaia surveying mission, and current status. I will then discuss the improvement brought by Gaia over its 5 years and more of mission—starting with DR1—for the science of asteroids and other SSOs; and focusing especially on the astrometry and dynamics of asteroids. After reminding generalities on SSO observations by Gaia - and some of their peculiarities, we present some of the advances obtained from the... Dr. Daniel Hestroffer |
02/12/2019 - 12:30
Molecular outflows: evolution, structure and angular momentum We present a theoretical model in order to explain the formation and the evolution of the molecular outflows associated to protostars. In this model, we assume that the molecular outflow is a thin shell formed by the interaction between a fast stellar wind and a rotating cloud envelope in gravitational collapse. We obtain a set of partial differential equations, these equations are space and time dependent, and describe the physical properties... Dr. Alejandro López Vázquez |
28/11/2019 - 12:30
SO-IAA Colloquium: Recent advances about the exoplanetary exospheres The upper atmosphere of a planet plays a key role at protecting the lower altitudes from the effects of energetic stellar EUV and soft X-ray photons and keV-energy precipitating particles. Through a variety of transport processes, the upper atmosphere also participates in the net loss of a planet’s bulk composition into space. As such, the physics and chemistry occurring in the upper atmosphere influence the evolution of a planet over its... Antonio García Muñoz |
26/11/2019 - 12:30
Inverse Compton emission revealed by observations up to TeV energies of GRB 190114C The hunt for Gamma-Ray-Bursts (GRBs) at very high energy (VHE) started more than 20 years ago. A hint of emission was already claimed by Milagrito from the observations of GRB 970417. On 19 of January the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) clearly detected GRB 190114C above 0.2 TeV. This is the first highly significant detection (over 50sigma reached in the first few tens of minutes after the burst) of a GRB at VHE. GRB190114C... Dr. Elena Moretti |
19/11/2019 - 12:30
METIS instrument: the IMAGER and the SCAO METIS is one of the three first instruments for the European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), Europe’s next-generation ground-based telescope for optical and infrared wavelengths which is currently under construction at the ESO site at Cerro Armazones in Chile. METIS is the Mid-infrared ELT Imager and Spectrograph. This instrument will offer imaging, coronagraphy and medium-resolution spectroscopy over the full wavelength range from 3 to 14... Dr. Concepción Cárdenas |
14/11/2019 - 12:30
SO-IAA Colloquium: Outflows and their feedback effect in galaxies Galactic outflows are an essential component of galaxies' lifecycle. They regulate star formation and can even totally quench star formation in galaxies, hence transforming star forming galaxies into passive systems. I will review the properties of galactic outflows, their multi-phase nature, their driving mechanism, both in normal star forming galaxies and in galaxies hosting Active Galactic Nuclei, both in the local Universe and in... Dr. Roberto Maiolino |
12/11/2019 - 12:30
Study of the diversity of AGN dust models The dust component of active galactic nuclei (AGN) produces a broad infrared spectral energy distribution (SED), whose power and shape depends on the fraction of the source absorbed, and the geometry of the absorber respectively. This emitting region is expected to be concentrated within the inner ∼5 pc of the AGN which makes almost impossible to image it with the current instruments. The study the infrared SED by comparison between infrared AGN... Dr. Omaira González-Martín |
07/11/2019 - 12:30
SO-IAA Colloquium: Characterization of (exo)Planetary Atmospheres Characterization of planetary atmospheres has always been a challenge. While the next generation of facilities, such as ELT, JWST, and ARIEL, will improve our understanding of planetary atmospheres, the number of well-characterized exoplanet atmospheres is expected to remain limited. Large-scale simulations assist us with this shortcoming by predicting the diversity of the planetary atmospheres, connecting the spare observational measurements,... Dr. Karan Molaverdikhani |
31/10/2019 - 12:30
SO-IAA Colloquium: Neutral and molecular gas outflows as tracers of the impact of radio jets Our view of the gas and its physical conditions in the central region of AGN has been enriched by the discover of fast and massive outflows of HI and molecular gas. These outflows can be driven by radiation/winds but also by the interaction of the radio plasma with the ISM. Understanding the origin and quantifying their impact requires to trace their location and derive their physical conditions (density of the gas, mass, mass outflow rate and... Dr. Raffaella Morganti |