Recent Talks
List of all the talks in the archive, sorted by date.
Abstract
Warps of disk galaxies are ubiquitous. In almost every disk galaxy a bending of the disk occurs where the stars fade away and hence where the dark matter halo becomes dominant. A clear understanding of this phenomenon has not been reached yet. Analysing H I observations of a small sample of symmetric, warped disk galaxies we found that they exhibit a two-disk structure, the warp being the transition from the inner flat disk to an outer, inclined one. At the transition radius, the rotation curve changes. This points towards symmetric warps being a long-lived phenomenon reflecting an internal change in the structure of the Dark Matter halo.While warps usually occur where the stellar disks fade, examples of extreme warps are known that commence already at the centre of galaxies. One is present in the neutral gas disk of the "Spindle Galaxy "NGC 2685, formerly thought of as being a two-ringed polar ring galaxy. Utilising deep HI observations, we found that the two-ringed appearance is due to projection effects and that it rather possesses one coherent,extremely warped HI disk. Our success in fitting a tilted-ring model to the HI component, and, with that, assuming circular orbits of the tracer material, and the shape of the fitted rotation curve hint towards a rather spherical shape of the overall potential.
Abstract
El jovencísimo cúmulo GM 24, a una distancia de 2 kpc, se encuentra embebido en una caliente nube de CO aislada, en donde se formó hace menos de 105 años. El núcleo del cúmulo se compone de estrellas O tardías y de tipo B principalmente y pareciera carecer actualmente de una población estelar de baja masa. Se presentan nuevas observaciones en el infrarrojo cercano y medio que dan mayor definición a las características de sus principales objetos estelares jóvenes.
Abstract
Abstract
The composition of the outer solar system is of particular interest because it holds the key to understanding the chemical evolution of the Solar System. Observations at the edge of the Solar System are difficult because of distance and size limitations. The Spitzer Space Telescope has provided a wealth of data for Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), the small inhabitants of this remote part of the Solar System past the orbit of Neptune, as well as for Centaurs, similar objects to the KBOs but with orbits that come closer to the Sun. Are these observations sufficient to tell us what the composition of these objects is? We briefly introduce spectral modeling, its strengths and limitations. Making use of synthetic surface reflectance spectra we assess the feasibility of determining the composition of Kuiper Belt Objects and Centaurs making use of Spitzer-IRAC data alone.
Abstract
Bars are important engines for the evolution of structure in galaxies. Bars can cause secular evolution of both the gas and stellar distributions in galaxies, and recently it has been suggested that bars may be recurrent features, forming, dissolving, and reforming over a Hubble time. Models also have suggested that the strength of bars depends on how effectively the bar can transfer angular momentum to outer halo material. Evaluating current models requires an effective way of quantifying the strengths of bars. In my presentation, I will describe recent attempts to use gravitational torques implied by near-infrared images as a means of quantifying both bars and spirals in disk galaxies. I will also describe some of the recent findings based on Fourier analysis of early-type galaxy bars.
Abstract
I will present results from a survey of the star formation properties of nearby galaxies, using H alpha narrow-band imaging. The first half of the talk will cover the `expected' results of such a survey: how total star formation rates depend on galaxy morphology, the contribution of different types to the global star formation activity per unit volume of the nearby Universe, constraints on star formation histories, and indications of how stellar mass has been assembled in disks from the spatial distributions of young and old stars. The second half will look at some less expected spin-offs, including some surprising facts about the Magellanic Clouds, and new findings on progenitors of core-collapse supernovae.
Abstract
A continuous magnetic field evolving under the hydromagnetic frozen-in condition preserves its field topology. Depending on that field topology, the evolving field may inevitably develop electric current-sheets, i.e., magnetic tangential discontinuities, in the course of nonlinear fluid-field interaction. This inevitability obtains for all field topologies one could prescribe for the field, except those of a special subset of measure zero. This theory of Eugene Parker is based on demonstrating that a field endowed with a fixed topology cannot generally find an equilibrium state in which the field is everywhere spatially continuous. I will discuss a recent development of this magnetostatic problem from an intuitive point of view, giving a basic understanding of why current sheets not only form easily but do so throughout a magnetic field. Parker’s theory explains the heating of the solar corona, to million-degree temperatures, in terms of spontaneous current sheets that must form because of high electrical conductivity, and, yet, must dissipate in spite of that high (but finite) conductivity. This process may be the fundamental reason for the high-temperature plasmas found almost everywhere in the astrophysical universe
Abstract
The plan of the Iranian National Observatory (INO) is to build within the next 5 years an active 3 meter telescope with a possible adaptive secondary on a mountain with more than 3000m height. We plan to have a remote-access and encourage the international community of astronomers to cooperate and to use up to 70% of the observing time. For the optical design and the first instruments we focus on few topics of astronomy. In the first part of my talk I will give a status report of this project and review the current proposals for the science case. In the second part of my talk I will introduce my own research interest and talk about the voids in the large scale structure of the universe. We have done studies on the systematics of void search algorithms in 2D galaxy samples, a 3D void analysis of the SDSS data release 6, and some approaches for theoretical modeling of the void properties and statistics. The Iranian National Observatory project and its science case
Abstract
I present the first results of a long term project devoted to the study of the evolution of the binary population in globular clusters. Using deep ACS@HST images of a sample of 13 globular clusters I estimated the fraction of binaries in the cores of these clusters. From a theoretical side, I developed a simplified analytical code which simulates the evolution of the properties of the binary population in a dynamically evolving globular cluster. The comparison between theory and observations allows to evaluate the efficiency of the various processes of binary formation and destruction in these stellar systems and their dependence on the main cluster structural and dynamical parameters.
University of Sheffield, UK
Abstract
1) In this brief seminar (<~25 minutes+questions) I will present recent results on the study of "deep", high resolution, surface brightness profiles of a sample of ~500 late-type galaxies in the redshift range 0.1—1.1, making use of publicly available HST/ACS imaging of the GOODS-South field. We have classified and parameterized, according to usual prescriptions in this kind of analysis, these profiles, with special emphasis put on the so called ``truncated'' disks. This is the case in which, beyond a certain radius, termed as ``Break Radius'', the exponentially decaying surface brightness profile along the stellar disk gives way to an even more abrupt exponential decay. This radius can be taken as an spatial "scale" for the disk, as observed in a given band (in our case, the rest-frame B-band). Comparing with analogous analysis for galaxies in the Local Universe, as we have done, it is possible to extract valuable information on the evolution of several photometric properties of the stellar disks of galaxies, related to the stellar populations distributions. I will also present results on the analysis of the color profiles of this sample of galaxies, which have yield an interesting result which is, perhaps, the main reason that justifies calling this talk a "breaking news" seminar, as I will show. Summarizing, an overview of the results we have obtained will be given, and our conclusions on them, explaining how they can be understood in the frame of Galaxy Evolution (2) Based on high quality near-infrared spectroscopy (obtained with WHT/LIRIS) we reveal that the nucleus of Mrk 573 is an obscured Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 and not an archetypal Seyfert 2 as it has been classified until now. Currently only four AGNs have been classified into this category. We have detected permitted OI and FeII transitions, which indicates the existence of a high density region similar to the BLRs detected in type 1 AGN.
Upcoming talks
- Ciencia desde el espacio en España: hoja de ruta de la AEEDr. Isabel Pérez GrandeTuesday November 26, 2024 - 10:30 GMT (Aula)
- Revisiting mass transfer and accretion in symbiotic binaries in the Gaia eraDr. Jaroslav MercThursday November 28, 2024 - 10:30 GMT (Aula)
Recent Colloquia
Recent Talks
