Recent Talks

Microvariations probe the physics and internal structure of quasars. Unpredictability and small flux variations make this phenomenon elusive and difficult to detect. Variance based probes such as the C and F tests, or a combination of both, are popular methods to compare the light-curves of the quasar and a comparison star. Recently, detection claims in some studies depend on the agreement of the results of the C and F tests, or of two instances of the F-test, in rejecting the non-variation null hypothesis. However, the C-test is a non-reliable statistical procedure, the F-test is not robust, and the combination of tests with concurrent results is anything but a straightforward methodology. A priori Power Analysis calculations and post hoc analysis of Monte-Carlo simulations show excellent agreement for the Analysis of Variance test to detect microvariations, as well as the limitations of the F-test. Additionally, combined tests yield correlated probabilities that make the assessment of statistical significance unworkable. However, it is possible to include data from several field stars to enhance the power in a single F - test or ANOVA nested designs, increasing the reliability of the statistical analysis. These would be the preferred methodology when several comparison stars are available. These results show the importance of using adequate methodologies, and avoid inappropriate procedures that can jeopardize microvariability detections. Power analysis and Monte-Carlo simulations are useful tools for research planning, as they can reveal the robustness and reliability of different research approaches.

The ultra-deep multiwavelength HST Frontier Fields coverage of the Abell Cluster 2744 is used to derive the stellar population properties of its intra-cluster light (ICL). The restframe colors of the ICL of this intermediate redshift (z=0.3064) massive cluster are bluer (g-r=0.68 ±0.04; i-J=0.56±0.01) than those found in the stellar populations of its main galaxy members (g-r=0.83±0.01; i-J=0.75±0.01). Based on these colors, we derive the following mean metallicity Z=0.018±0.007 for the ICL. The ICL age is 6±3 Gyr younger than the average age of the most massive galaxies of the cluster. The fraction of stellar mass in the ICL component comprises at least 6% of the total stellar mass of the galaxy cluster. Our data is consistent with a scenario where the bulk of the ICL of Abell 2744 has been formed relatively recently (z<1). The stellar population properties of the ICL suggest that this diffuse component is mainly the result of the disruption of infalling galaxies with similar characteristics in mass (M*~ 3x10^10 Msolar) and metallicity than our own Milky Way. The amount of ICL mass in the central part of the cluster (<400 kpc) is equivalent to the disruption of 4-6 Milky Way-type galaxies.

We have learned a great deal about the universe from measurements ofthe cosmic microwave background (CMB). Most of what we have learned so far has been based on the temperature anisotropy combined with measurements of the polarization at angular scales of roughly 10 degrees. We are entering a new era in which the polarization of the CMB will be measured to high accuracy especially at degree angular scales and smaller. With the polarization we can, for example,  measure or limit the presence of gravitational radiation from the early universe and determine the sum of the neutrino masses. The polarization will also give us a new way to determine the cosmological parameters. We review recent results on the CMB polarization with anemphasis on those from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) project.

In the early Universe, massive stars played a key role in the early chemical evolution of galaxies and in injecting important amount of ionising radiation in their environments. The first question that will be addressed in this seminar is the following one: can we infer some properties of the first stellar generations in the Universe by studying the surface composition of very metal poor stars in the halo of our Galaxy? The talk will focus on both the regular halo stars and the so-called Carbon Enhanced Metal Poor (CEMP) stars. The second topic that will be addressed in this talk deals with a much more recent event, the birth of the Solar System. Here the question will be: what do the presence of short lived radioactive elements in the proto-solar nebula tell us about the stellar environment of the Sun 4.56 billion years ago? The talk will focus on the discussion of the origin of 26Al and 60Fe in the proto-solar nebula.

The active galactic nuclei is conformed by a number of classes. Optically they are defined using diagnostics based on optical emission lines. At X-rays they are classified by the power of the AGN continuum and the shape of the X-ray spectra. Therefore, optical and X-ray classes are independent classifications. However, optical and X-ray classes show many discrepancies not fully understood yet. Some AGN at X-rays do not show any AGN signature at optical wavelengths (called optical elusive). Classical obscured AGN are ’sometimes’ not obscured at X-rays.

We have studied the ‘synapses’ between them using artificial neural networks (Gonzalez-Martin+14). To do so, we used flux-calibrated X-ray spectra of a sample of 90 emission line nuclei (ELN) observed with XMM-Newton. It includes starbursts (SB), transition objects (T2), LINERs (L1.8 and L2), and Seyferts (S1, S1.8, and S2).

The ELN can be classified into six classes, based on the shape of their X-ray spectra. These classes are associated with most of the optical classes. The key parameters to explain them at X-rays are three. The first parameter is an AGN-like component, which is present in all of them (even non-AGN at optical wavelengths!). The second one is obscuration, which almost certainly drives the Type-1/Type-2 dichotomy, but may also explain why L1.8 are more similar to S1s while L2/T2 are more similar to S1.8s. The third component is star-forming activity happening at the host galaxy and contributing at X-rays. The AGN strength, relative to the host-galaxy component, determines the average X-ray spectrum for these classes as follows: S1 -> S1.8 -> L1.8/S2 -> L2/T2/ -> SB.

There is an increasing multiplicity of proposed methodologies to derive chemical abundances in HII regions from the measurement of the relative fluxes of their optical emission lines. Particularly there is a known discrepancy between the prediction of some widely used grids of photoionization models and the results of the direct analysis of the spectra from their integrated physical properties (i.e. density, temperature). In this seminar, I will introduce HII-CHI-mistry, a Chi square approximation to compare observations with results of a large grid of models calculated using CLOUDY and varying the oxygen abundance, the nitrogen-to-oxygen ratio and the ionization parameter, covereing all possible conditions observed so far in massive complexes of star-formation. Including N/O as an additional variable allows the correct interpretation of the [NII] 6584 emission lines, widely used to derive abundances both in the Local and the Early Universe in the infra-red part of the spectrum.

The use of this method leads to a derivation of both Z and N/O totally consistent with the results from the direct method when emission line ratios sensitive to the temperature are available (e.g. [OIII] 50007/4363). On the contrary, when these ratios are not available, what is the most common situation in metal-rich/distant objects, it is necessary to assume empirical constraints to the space of parameters covered by the model-grid to arrive to solutions in the whole range of metallicity. Among the applications of this methods it is a consistent study of the metallicity in a wide range of potential variations (e.g. gradients of Z in disc galaxies, mass-metallicity relation, etc ...)

There is increasing speculation that quasars are intimately linked to the evolution of their host galaxies. Not only are they triggered as galaxies build up mass through gas accretion, but they also have the potential to drive massive outflows that can directly affect galaxy evolution by heating the gas and expelling it from galaxy bulges. However, there remain considerable uncertainties about how, when and where quasars are triggered as galaxies evolve, and the true energetic significance for the quasar-induced outflows and their acceleration mechanism have yet to be established. In this talk I will present new Gemini, VLT, Spitzer and Herschel results on samples of luminous AGN in the local Universe which provide key information on the triggering mechanisms for quasars and physics of their outflows.

I will present an evolutionary model for the origin of Andromeda II, a dSph satellite of M31, involving a merger between two disky dwarf galaxies than explains the origin of prolate rotation recently detected in the kinematic data for And II. The simulation traces the evolution of two dwarfs, whose structural parameters differ only in their disk scale lengths, placed on a radial orbit towards each other with their angular momenta inclined by 90 deg. After 5 Gyr the merger remnant forms a stable triaxial galaxy with rotation only around the longest axis. This prolate rotation is naturally explained as due to the symmetry of the initial configuration which leads to the conservation of angular momentum components along the direction of the merger. The stars originating from the two dwarfs show significantly different surface density profiles while having very similar kinematics in agreement with the properties of separate stellar populations in And II. I will also discuss an alternative scenario for the formation of And II, via tidal stirring of a disky dwarf galaxy. While intrinsic rotation occurs naturally in this model as a remnant of the initial rotation of the disk, it is mostly around the shortest axis of the stellar component. The rotation around the longest axis is induced only occasionally and remains much smaller that the system's velocity dispersion. I conclude that although tidal origin of the velocity distribution in And II cannot be excluded, it is much more naturally explained within the scenario involving a past merger event. Thus, in principle, the presence of prolate rotation in dSph galaxies of the Local Group and beyond may be used as an indicator of major mergers in their history or even as a way to distinguish between the two scenarios of their formation.

The Extreme Universe Space Observatory (EUSO) Space Program on the International Space Station (ISS) is the first space-based mission worldwide in the field of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) and Extremely High Energy Cosmic Rays (EHECR) and will contribute to consolidate a new window in the astronomical observation at the highest energies never observed neither with ground-based nor space-based experiments. Currently the international groups working on ground-based UHECR experiments are organized in the Pierre Auger Collaboration (Argentina, South Hemisphere) and the
Telescope Array Collaboration (Utah, North Hemisphere). JEM-EUSO will pioneer from Space the observation from ISS (North & South Hemispheres) of the non thermal Universe and will provide a real breakthrough toward the understanding of the Extreme Universe at the highest energies never detected from Space. In this Severo Ochoa Seminar an overview of the JEM-EUSO Space Mission and the pathfinders currently being developed, EUSO-BALLOON of the French Space Agency (CNES) and MINI-EUSO (ISS) of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) will be presented. Moreover the Spanish Contribution to this EUSO Program under a Coordinated Proposal of MINECO, that involves Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aerospacial (INTA), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Univesidad de Leon (ULE) and Universidad de Alcalá (UAH) will be reviewed as well.

I will discuss recent development in low noise amplifiers for astrophysical applications.
I will describe the fundamental quantum limits of linear amplifiers and then I will show how a
promising new class of amplifiers - superconducting parametric amplifiers - might be able to  (apparently) violate the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.