Astrophysicist at Florence University
Our past PhD student, Dr. Viola Gelli – now postdoctoral fellow at the DAWN center of Copenhagen – has been awarded the Gratton Prize for the best italian PhD Thesis in Astrophysics during the years 2023-2025. Congrats Viola!!!! Continue reading Viola Gelli awarded the Gratton Prize!
Observing PopIII galaxies, the hosts of first-generation stars, remains challenging even with the JWST. In our recent paper we show that PopIII galaxies can emit metal lines in their “self-polluted” phase, while galaxies host only metal-free stars. Continue reading Uncovering metal-polluted PopIII galaxies
Our project LASTP3 led by the 2nd-year PhD student Lapo Querci was awarded 2 Million CPU/hours for the supercomputer Galileo of CINECA! We will develop novel simulations to study the chemical enrichment by PopIII stars down to the cosmic noon, z ~ 3. Continue reading 2 MillionCPU/hrs awarded for simulations
The recent paper led by our PhD student Elka (Rusta et al. 2025, ApJL) which shows that JWST has observed our Milky Way in its infancy has been highlighted by Nature Astronomy
By forward-modeling the predictions of the NEFERTITI model for the Milky Way’s evolution, we show that the Firefly Sparkle system detected by JWST at z = 8.3 is consistent with a MW-like galaxy in its infancy. Continue reading The Milky Way assembly seen by JWST!
The Pop III IMF remains a mystery. The predicted massive nature of PopIII stars implies the existence of stars exploding as pair-instability supernovae (PISN) and now the LAMOST survey claims to have discovered a pure PISN descendant. We investigate the implications of this new discovery for the Pop III IMF, by statistical comparison with the predictions of our cosmological galaxy formation model, NEFERTITI. Continue reading True PISN descendant and Pop III IMF
Our paper “The energy distribution of the first supernovae” presenting a state-of-the-art model to limit the first stars’ properties with stellar archaeology has been accepted for publication by MNRAS. Congratulations Ioanna! Continue reading NEFERTITI model: first stars & supernovae
Our paper on Quiescent Low-Mass Galaxies Observed by JWST was highlighted as one of the most interesting recent results published in AAS journals. Congrats Vio!!!! Continue reading Our Gelli et al. paper highlighted by AAS!
Our senior NEFERTITI’s member, Ása Skúladóttir, has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant by the European Research Council for the project TREASURE: Digging into Dwarf Galaxies. Congratulations Ása, you deserved it!! Continue reading ERC starting for our Ása Skúladóttir!
For the first time, we were able to identify the chemical traces of the explosions of the first stars in very distant gas clouds. This is the key result of our ApJ paper which has been featured for an ESO press release. Continue reading Distant gas clouds with leftovers of the first stars!