Recent Talks

The next decade will see a deluge of new cosmological data that will enable us to accurately map out the distribution of matter in the local Universe, image billions of stars and galaxies to unprecedented precision, and create high-resolution maps of the Milky Way. Signatures of new physics as well as astrophysical processes of interest may be hiding in these observations, offering significant discovery potential. At the same time, the complexity of astrophysical data provides significant challenges to carrying out these searches using conventional methods. I will describe how overcoming these issues will require a qualitative shift in how we approach modeling and inference in cosmology, bringing together several recent advances in machine learning and simulation-based (or likelihood-free) inference. I will ground the talk through examples of proposed analyses that use machine learning-enabled simulation-based inference with an aim to uncover the identity of dark matter, while at the same time emphasizing the generality of these techniques to a broad range of problems in astrophysics, cosmology, and beyond.

https://rediris.zoom.us/j/83193959785?pwd=TExXSDJ6UDg5a24yWDM1TnlOWkNTZz09

Meeting ID: 831 9395 9785
Passcode: 343950O

YouTube: https://youtu.be/1Nkzn-cGaIo

In cosmology, it is customary to convert observed redshifts into distances in order to study the large scale distribution of matter probes like galaxies and quasars, and to obtain cosmological constraints thereof. In this talk, I describe a new approach which bypasses such conversion and studies the "field of redshifts" as a new cosmological observable, dubbed thereafter as angular redshift fluctuations (ARF). By comparing linear theory predictions to the output of N-body cosmological simulations, I will show how the ARF are actually sensitive to both the underlying density and radial peculiar velocity fields in the universe, and how one can obtain cosmological and astrophysical constraints from them. And since "the prove of the pudding is in the eating", I will demonstrate how ARF provide, under a very simple setup, competitive constraints on the nature of peculiar velocities and gravity from BOSS DR13 data. Furthermore, I will also show that by combining ARF with maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), we can unveil the signature of the missing (and moving) baryons, doubling the amount of detected baryons in disparate cosmic epochs ranging from z=0 up to z=5, and providing today's most precise description of the spatial distribution of baryons in the universe.

Galaxy morphologies are one of the key diagnostics of galaxy evolutionary tracks, but visual classifications are extremely time-consuming. The sheer size of Big Data surveys, containing millions of galaxies, make this approach completely impractical. Deep Learning (DL) algorithms, where no image pre-processing is required, have already come to the rescue for image analysis of large data surveys. In this seminar, I will present the largest multi-band catalog of automated galaxy morphologies to date containing morphological classifications of ∼27 million galaxies from the Dark Energy Survey. The classification separates: (a) early-type galaxies (ETGs) from late-types (LTGs); and (b) face-on galaxies from edge-on. These classifications have been obtained using a supervised DL algorithm. Our Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are trained on a small subset of DES objects with previously known classifications, but hese typically have mr < 17.7 mag. We overcome the lack ofa training sample by modeling fainter objects up to mr < 21.5 mag, i.e., by simulating what thebrighter objects with well-determined classifications would look like if they were at higher redshifts.The CNNs reach a 97% accuracy to mr < 21.5 on their training sets, suggesting that they are ableto recover features more accurately than the human eye. We obtain secure classifications for 87%and 73% of the catalog for the ETG vs. LTG and edge-on vs. face-on models, respectively.

En esta charla se dará a conocer la comisión de Medioambiente y Sostenibilidad del IAC y el trabajo que se está llevando a cabo. El IAC quiere ser parte activa de las soluciones para alcanzar los objetivos que marca Europa para los futuros años. Se expondrán algunos números relacionados con nuestro gasto y consumo en el IAC que nos pueden hacer reflexionar.

En este seminario se hablará de las características del sistema de control de GTC y cuáles son los componentes que hay que desarrollar para que un instrumento esté integrado dentro de la arquitectura del GCS.

The ExoMol project (www.exomol.com) provides comprehensive spectroscopic data (line lists) for the study of atmospheres of exoplanets and other hot bodies.  These line lists serve as input for models of radiative transport through hot atmospheres and are useful for a variety of terrestrial applications. The basic form of the database is extensive line lists; these are supplemented with partition functions, state lifetimes, cooling functions, Landé g-factors, temperature-dependent cross sections, opacities, k-coefficients and pressure broadening parameters. Currently containing 80 molecules and 190 isotopologues totaling over 700 billion transitions, the database covers infrared, visible and UV wavelengths. The field of the HR spectroscopy of exoplanets is growing extremely fast and urgently demands molecular data of high precision. Failure to detect molecules in atmospheres of exoplanets is often attributed to the lack of the underlying quality of
the line positions.  These developments have led us to begin a systematic attempt to improve the accuracy of the line positions for the line lists contained in the database. Our new ExoMolHD project aims to provide comprehensive line lists to facilitate their use in characterization of exoplanets using high resolution Doppler shift spectroscopy. Progress on this objective will be presented.

The Thirty Meter Telescope is a new class of extremely large telescopes that will allow us to see deeper into space and observe cosmic objects with unprecedented sensitivity. With its 30 m prime mirror diameter, TMT will be three times as wide, with nine times more area, than the largest currently existing visible-light telescope in the world. This will provide unparalleled resolution with TMT images more than 12 times sharper than those from the Hubble Space Telescope. When operational, TMT will provide new observational opportunities in essentially every field of astronomy and astrophysics.  Observing in wavelengths ranging from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared, this unique instrument will allow astronomers to address fundamental questions in astronomy ranging from understanding star and planet formation to unraveling the history of galaxies and the development of large-scale structure in the universe. This talk will present the current stage of TMT development.

The MAGIC telescopes are a stereoscopic system
of two 17m mirror diameter Cherenkov telescopes for gamma-ray observations, in operation since many years on the island of
La Palma at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos.
A new installation allows us to use those telescopes as optical
intensity interferometer which enables us to measure the size of bright
objects in the range of 0.6-1.5 milli-arcsec and other physical
parameters. In this presentation the setup is explained, our physics
targets, first results and also a future outlook of this project
with respect to the Cherenkov telescope array (CTA) currently
in construction.

Dentro de la Astrofísica las curvas de luz conforman una herramienta fundamental en el estudio de cuerpos celestes de brillo variable, resultando útiles para detectar tránsitos de exoplanetas, evaluar el carácter variable de determinadas estrellas, etc. Con el fin de analizar en tiempo real las curvas de luz que se pretendan obtener con el telescopio IAC80, se ha desarrollado una pipeline en Python basada en fotometría diferencial, haciendo uso del módulo Photutils.  Así, en esta charla se pretende explicar en primer lugar el funcionamiento del programa, mostrar algunos resultados obtenidos, y por último ilustrar cómo hacer uso de la pipeline.

Tema: Seminario de Instrumentación: lc80, la nueva pipeline en tiempo real para análisis de curvas de luz del telescopio IAC80

Hora: 9 jul. 2021 12:00 p. m. Atlantic/Canary

Unirse a la reunión Zoom

https://rediris.zoom.us/j/88394669340

https://youtu.be/VrppDSMYq2g

We summarize here some of the results reviewed recently by Sanchez (2020) and Sanchez  et al. (2021), comprising the advances in the comprehension of galaxies in the nearby universe based on integral field spectroscopic galaxy surveys. We review our current knowledge of the spatially resolved spectroscopic properties of low-redshift star-forming galaxies (and their retired counterparts) using results from the most recent optical integral field spectroscopy galaxy surveys. We briefly summarize the global spectroscopic properties of these galaxies, discussing the main ionization processes, and the global relations described by the star-formation rates, gas-phase oxygen abundances, and average properties of their stellar populations (age and metallicity) in comparison with the stellar mass. Then, we present the local distribution of the ionizing pro-cesses down to kiloparsec scales, and how the global scaling relations found using integrated parameters (like the star-formation main sequence, mass–metallicity relation, and Schmidt–Kennicutt law) have local/resolved counterparts, with the global ones being, for the most part, just integrated/average versions of the local ones.  The main conclusions of the most recent explorations are that the evolution of galaxies is mostly governed by local processes but clearly affected by global ones.