Últimas charlas

I will present ATLAS-Teide, the new robotic facility of the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), built and installed by the IAC at the Teide Observatory in mid-January 2025. ATLAS-Teide is part of the IACs Strategic Plan of the Canary Observatories, supported by projects EQC2021-007122-P and ICT2022-007828, both funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU. The system operates within the global ATLAS network under a collaborative agreement between the IAC and the University of Hawaii, covering both operations and scientific exploitation.

ATLAS is one of the most successful planetary-defense early-warning projects. The network currently includes four 50-cm Wright–Schmidt telescopes in Hawaii, Chile, and South Africa. Each unit surveys roughly a quarter of the night sky, imaging each field four times per night to V ~ 19.5, and is designed to detect ~20 m impactors days in advance and ~100 m objects weeks ahead.

ATLAS-Teide is the fifth ATLAS unit and introduces a cost-effective, modular design based on commercial off-the-shelf components. Each module combines four Celestron RASA 11 telescopes on a PlaneWave L-550 direct-drive equatorial mount with QHY600PRO CMOS cameras sharing a common field. A single module delivers the performance of a 56-cm aperture with a 7.5 deg2 field of view and 1.26 arcsec/pixel scale. The full facility comprises four modules in a roll-off-roof building, replicating the survey capability of existing ATLAS units-covering ~6000 deg2 four times per night with 30-second exposures to V ≈ 20.2. ATLAS-Teide is already providing high-cadence observations, reporting astrometry for thousands of asteroids nightly, discovering new NEAs and transients (including supernovae). I will also present first scientific results from the facility.

The discovery of dark matter (DM) followed cosmic gravitational observation (Zwicky, 1933), which remains inconsistent within known physics. Solar system observables exhibit unexpected planetary dependencies, even though no remote force beyond gravity exists. The question arises whether persisting local mysterious / anomalous/ … observations are signals from the dark sector. Gravitational focusing of DM streams should result to short focal ranges since the impact goes with 1/(speed)². Also, the inner mass distribution of solar system bodies can perform as gravitational lenses for streaming DM with flux amplification up to ~10⁹ x, compared to few % for isotropic DM. The analysis of a number of observations from near outer space fits in our streaming DM scenario.

Using measurements of cosmic positrons, the same analysis points to DM with the positrons being secondaries of parent DM. New direct measurements of cosmic rays can validate the first result. The telescopes in Tenerife might have relevant data worth re-analyzing them. An exciting Endeavor!

En esta presentación se describe el proceso de verificación realizado a los modelos de ingeniería de las monturas opto-mecánicas de la IPO, con el fin de asegurar el cumplimiento con los requisitos del subsistema. Para ello, se presentan las pruebas individuales de alineamiento mecánico y desempeño óptico para las monturas de los toroides de la escala 10mas de HARMONI, tanto a temperatura ambiente como a temperaturas criogénicas.

El Departamento de Electrónica del IAC ha desarrollado un Sistema de Adquisición de Datos embebido de alto rendimiento (eDAS) para realizar la lectura de una matriz MKIDs y llevar a cabo procesamiento digital de señal en tiempo real a nivel de hardware. El eDAS ha sido desarrollado utilizando el kit de evaluación Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC ZCU111 y PYNQ. El objetivo final es poder detectar cambios en la amplitud y la fase de la señal del MKID cuando un fotón llega al detector, con el fin de observar la firma de un único fotón. Aunque el sistema eDAS aún está en desarrollo, actualmente se ha implementado un canalizador (banco de filtros polifásico + FFT) en la cadena de adquisición de datos. En este momento, se está implementando una generación de peine de frecuencias basada en hardware para excitar los detectores.

Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) is the most successful theory for the formation of structure in the Universe. Although its predictions have been verified on large scales, they are still contested on the scale of dwarf galaxies, whose dynamical properties are often cited as evidence for the need to revise some of LCDM’s basic tenets. In this context, I will discuss the recent discovery of the faintest galaxies known to date, and how their properties may be used to place constraints on the clustering of dark matter on the smallest galactic and sub-galactic scales, as well as on the viability of some of the proposed alternatives to LCDM.

La Fabricación Aditiva comprende un grupo de tecnologías que permiten pasar de un modelo 3D a componentes fabricados, creándolos capa a capa hasta completar la pieza. Entre sus ventajas, las que más aplican a la Instrumentación Astronómica serían la complejidad de piezas y la consolidación, adición de funcionalidades, libertad de diseño y capacidades de aligerado. Esta charla muestra brevemente el trabajo desarrollado en el IAC, centrándose en la implementación de la tecnología en aplicaciones instrumentales. Se enfatizará en los esfuerzos pasados y presentes, así como en el establecimiento de un laboratorio de fabricación aditiva para el área. Se trata de una actualización de las charlas impartidas en el RIA y en el DNCT.

We performed full Stokes spectropolarimetric observations of loop footpoints in the active region NOAA 13363 during a C-class flare with the GREGOR Infrared Spectrograph (GRIS) on 2023 July 16. The observed spectral region included the photospheric Si I 10 827 A and Ca I 10 839 A lines and the chromospheric He I 10 830 A triplet. Simultaneously, high-cadence and high-resolution imaging observations were carried out with the improved High-resolution Fast Imager (HiFI+) in the Ca II H line and TiO bands. The observations were conducted under excellent seeing conditions, as confirmed by the Fried-parameter measurements. Speckle-restored HiFI+ Ca II H images revealed thin flare-related filaments and diffuse haze-like emissions, further confirmed by background-subtracted solar activity maps (BaSAMs), which localized chromospheric variability near the sunspot. The He I triplet showed enhanced emission during the flare events and developed intense red- and blue-shifted components, with the decisive shift of 90 km/s, suggesting the significant energy release and plasma motion triggered by the flare. Simultaneously, a delayed increase in the Si I line wing intensity was observed approximately 6 minutes after the He I emission, suggesting that the upper photosphere experienced secondary heating, possibly due to thermal conduction rather than energetic particles. This time delay and spatial correlation support a scenario where dynamic flare processes influence chromospheric and upper photospheric layers. Our results demonstrate a temporal and spatial coupling between chromospheric and upper photospheric regions, and the time delay rules out direct heating by flare-accelerated electrons, so we propose thermal conduction or ionization effects as possible mechanisms.

Measurements of the 511 keV emission reveal the presence of a steady injection of positrons that is very concentrated around the Galactic centre, and whose origin remains unknown. While astrophysical sources do not easily fit the observed morphology and intensity of this excess, MeV dark matter has been proposed as a compelling explanation with interesting consequences. In this seminar, I will introduce the "positron puzzle" and discuss its correlation to other anomalous emissions at the Galactic centre, especially focusing on the observational consequences of the dark matter explanation of the 511 keV excess. Finally, I’ll show how these observations can be used to constrain the properties of asteroid-mass primordial black holes and beyond Standard Model particles, such as sterile neutrinos or axion-like particles.

El Spanish Space Solar Physics Consortium (S3CP) es un grupo formado por cinco instituciones españolas, entre ellas el Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), que desde 2002 trabajan conjuntamente para profundizar en el conocimiento de la física solar. En el marco de este consorcio se han desarrollado tres espectropolarímetros solares que han participado en misiones estratosféricas y espaciales como Sunrise I (IMaX), Sunrise II (IMaX), Solar Orbiter (PHI) y Sunrise III (TuMag). Actualmente, se está desarrollando un nuevo instrumento, Photospheric Magnetic Field Imager (PMI), que formará parte de la carga útil de la misión Vigil de la Agencia Espacial Europea (ESA).
Esta charla ofrecerá un repaso a la evolución de la instrumentación electrónica en estos proyectos, con especial énfasis en los desarrollos basados en FPGA, cada vez más utilizados en este ámbito por su versatilidad y capacidad de procesamiento. Estos dispositivos han sido clave como controladores de sensores CMOS en cámaras científicas, como capturadores de imágenes (“frame grabbers”) y como unidades de procesamiento de imagen y cálculo científico.

Matter ejection, in the form of either winds or jets, is ubiquitous in accreting X-ray binaries. Although it is clear that accretion and ejection are profoundly intertwined in these types of systems, the origin and the details of such an interconnection are yet to be unraveled. This is particularly true for systems where a low-magnetized neutron star (NS) accretes matter from a low-mass companion star (NS low-mass X-ray binaries, LMXBs). Indeed, unlike the case of accreting black holes, in NS LMXBs the already delicate interplay between accretion and ejection may be further complicated by the presence of, e.g., the NS magnetic field, the boundary layer and the emission from the NS surface. For instance, jets in NS LMXBs have been claimed to be more collimated than in BH LMXBs, their occurrence sometimes seems to be unrelated to the spectral state and their observed radio luminosity show a rather scattered distribution. X-ray winds on the other hand have been often detected in states where they were not expected, in particular in a class of NS LMXBs, the Accreting Millisecond X-ray Pulsars (AMXPs), where the channeling of the accretion flow along the magnetic field lines makes these systems visible as rapidly spinning X-ray pulsars. Finally, AMXPs typically drive more powerful jets than other (non-pulsating) NS LMXBs and their rapid orbital expansion can be explained by strong mass outflows. In this talk, I will review the emerging pattern of peculiar outflows in NS LMXBs, the possible implications for jet and wind-launching mechanisms in these systems and the key role that future multi-band observing campaigns will play in clarifying its physical origin.

Zoom link: https://rediris.zoom.us/j/97431924964?pwd=rpPDNaL2VrEKfs8TSZNyck8GbTnjnZ.1
Meeting ID: 974 3192 4964

Passcode: 078804

Youtube: https://youtube.com/live/ZO-hf7iNPRw?feature=share