Calendar

Speaker:  Darius Modirrousta Galian

Titolo: Theoretical exoplanetology

Seminario: Why does 55 Cancri e have a H/H 2 -rich atmosphere? Why is there a bimodal distribution of exoplanet radii with one peak at ~ 1.3R ⨁ , the other and ~ 2.4R ⨁ , and the minima at ~ 1.8R ⨁ .
Why do some airless magma ocean super-Earths have albedos close to ~ 50% when earth-based magmas have measured albedos of ~ 10%? Conversely, why are some hot Jupiters so dark with albedos of ~ 1% or below? New data from astronomical measurements shows that
the universe is far more complex and interesting than what traditional literature predicted. Understanding these bodies and phenomena is not a trivial task, but by coupling different scientific fields with observational data it may be possible to shed some light on these systems.

Speaker:  Ruggero Biondo

Titolo: Data-driven Numerical Reconstruction of the Interplanetary Parker Spiral

Abstract: Over the last decade the science community, governments and private partners have shown a growing interest in the topic of Space Weather: a broad discipline aimed to the forecasting of potential threats to space and ground-based systems and operations. The ability of the state-of-art codes to reconstruct the stationary conditions of the interplanetary plasma is still limited, as shown by the comparisons between model predictions and in-situ measurements acquired by various spacecrafts. Therefore, it is necessary to develop leaner codes and to improve the agreement between forecasts and observed data on the other. The aim of this work is to lighten the procedures involved in determining the inner heliospheric boundary and to bind the numerical simulations to direct measurements of the parameters of the interplanetary plasma. To do this, the ambient plasma parameters of the inner heliosphere are reconstructed, using the 1 AU data provided by the Solar Physics Group in INAF-Turin Astrophysical Observatory from different spacecrafts located in the lagrangian point L1 such as DSCOVR and GGS Wind, by going backwards to 0.1 AU following the spiraling arms of the Interplanetary Parker Spiral. The back-reconstructed plasma parameter at 0.1 AU are thus employed as inner boundary conditions for the solar wind expansion up to 1 AU based on a MHD simulation. This innovative approach provides a new method to reconstruct the conditions of the interplanetary plasma from the Sun to 1 AU and beyond

Speaker: Giuseppe Morello

Titolo: Towards high-precision modeling of star+exoplanet multiwavelength light-curves

Abstract: I will present new tools and methodologies purposely developed for modeling observations of transiting exoplanets and eclipsing binaries with precision down to <10 parts per million (ppm).

ExoTETHyS is a python package that aims to collect the functions needed to model the high-precision spectrophotometric observations obtained with JWST and ARIEL (not only). The current version includes a user-friendly stellar limb-darkening calculator that outperforms existing codes by one order of magnitude in terms of light-curve model accuracy. I will introduce to the current use of ExoTETHyS and discuss the planned developments.

I will also show the results from the consistent reanalyses of Spitzer and Hubble data with bayesian approaches and improved data detrending techniques.

Speaker: Fabio Reale (UNIPA)

Authors: F. Reale(1,2), P. Testa(3), A. Petralia(2), D. Graham(4), D. Kolotkov(5)
(1) Dipartimento di Fisica & Chimica, Università di Palermo;
(2) INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo;
(3) Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, USA;
(4) Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, NASA Research Park, Moffett Field, USA;
(5) Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

Titolo: Impulsive heating in the solar corona: large scale magnetic rearrangements

Abstract:

Speaker: Massimo Brescia (INAF-Osservatorio Asstronomico di Capodimonte).

Titolo: Leverage data science in modern astrophysics
Abstract:
The exploration of the Universe is one of main topics within the research in Physics Sciences. All incoming and on going astrophysical surveys are characterized by a huge amount of heterogeneous multi-wavelength data, which will require efficient automatic methods to be exploited in an optimal and competitive way by the italian scientific community.
Astrophysics data are then characterized by large volume, velocity and
variety, the three conditions at thebase of the Big Data paradigm. Therefore, an approach based on data mining, statistics,
machine and deep learning, in one word Astroinformatics, is required. We
will discuss a variety of such methodologies, already available and validated in several astrophysical contexts, with  the aim at proposing a pragmatic
way to approach the scientific topics of the incoming multi-messenger
Astrophysics.

Speaker: Elisa Guerriero (UNIPA)

Titolo: Development polishing process for bare aluminum mirrors to ARIEL space mission

Abstract: ARIEL is the 4th medium-class mission of ESA’s Cosmic Vision Programme to see and to study the exoplanets’ atmospheres in VIS/IR. The technical innovation of the project is the use of bare aluminum for the mirrors. This material is light, cheap, and available in large quantities, but difficult to polish because it is not very dense. In this seminar, I will talk about my work at Media Lario S.r.l. for the development of the aluminum polishing process, the critical issues and the results obtained.

Speaker: Darius Modirrousta Galian (UNIPA)

Titolo: Exploring Super-Earth Surfaces: Albedo of Near-Airless Magma Ocean Planets and Topography

Abstract: