Astrophysicist at Florence University
Our own Asa Skuladottir is now Assistant Professor (RTD-A) at the Physics and Astronomy Department of the University of Florence. Congratulations Asa!!! Continue reading Assistant Professorship for Asa Skuldottir
Our second year PhD student Viola Gelli has been selected as speaker for the Hypatia Colloquia organized by ESO. Congrats Viola! On July 27, 2021 (3pm) she will talk about High-z Lyman Break Galaxies with JWST: parallel observations of dwarf satellites. Save the date! Continue reading ESO Hypatia Colloquium for Viola Gelli!
We offer two post-doctoral research fellowships in Near-Field cosmology funded by the ERC-starting grant NEFERTITI (deadline December 31, 2020) and one post-doctoral research fellowship co-funded by NEFERTITI and by the Italian MIUR through a PRIN grant (deadline January 4, 2021). All appointments are offered for 3 years. Continue reading Job opportunities: work with us!
Our study of the dwarf satellites of z~ 6 Lyman Break galaxies shows that, even in such extremely dense environments, internal supernovae feedback is the key mechanism regulating the dwarf galaxy evolution and leading to their quenching. In all these small satellites, furthermore, the star formation rates are surprisingly high, ensuring that JWST will be able to detect them. Continue reading High-z dwarf galaxy satellites
For the first time, we combine all the available observational evidence for rapid (r-) neutron-capture process elements in the Milky Way and its dwarf galaxy satellites to show that the data can only be explained if there are (at least) two distinct r-process sites: a quick source with timescales comparable to core-collapse supernovae and a delayed source with characteristic timescales ≳ 4 Gyr. The delayed r-process source most probably originates in neutron star mergers, as the timescale fits well with that estimated for GW170817. Continue reading The timescale of neutron star mergers
Using ESO VLT/FLAMES spectra for 98 red giant branch stars in the Sculptor dSph galaxy we probe, for the first time, the use of [Y/Mg] and [Ba/Mg] as chemical clocks in a galaxy different from the Milky Way. These abundance ratios have a strong correlation with age in Sculptor, but the trend is significantly offset from those observed in the Milky Way and the Fornax dSph galaxy. Thus we conclude that chemical clocks based on the delayed timescale of the s-process are not Universal but depend on both metallicity and environment. Continue reading Chemical clocks & r-process timescales
Yes, we can! We present a novel approach aimed at identifying the key chemical elements to search for the missing descendants of very massive first stars exploding as Pair Instability Supernovae (PISN). Our simple and general parametric study accounts for Continue reading Can we probe very massive first stars?