Search the repository

A+ | A- | | SLO | ENG

Abstract: Light pollution is a serious problem in majority of European countries, with negative effects on the environment, animal life and human health. Not only light pollution is causing unnecessary electricity consumption, it also prevents the citizens to enjoy the dark night sky. Following the experience in Slovenia and Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy with approaching this problem, we proposed a joined effort to perform field measurements of the light pollution, increase the awareness of this issue to the public and the policy makers in Macedonia. Light pollution is a very interdisciplinary field that necessitates the collaboration of policy makers, environmentalist, amateur and professional astronomers. The proposal was submitted to proESOF initiative in Trieste, Italy. This initiative consists of the organisation of collaborative events in North East Italy and the Balkan countries where the objective is to spread science for the benefit to the citizens. ProESOF events will happen before 2020, after which the main event “Trieste – European City of Science” will follow. Our proposal has been positively judged by the proESOF evaluators, and currently we are waiting for their decision regarding the financial support they will provide. The first step will to train a group of people to perform field measurements of light pollution. The second step is to share these results, so the target is the general public in Macedonia. To successfully fight light pollution, anti-light pollution laws have to be made and enforced, so relevant politicians and law makers in Macedonia will be included. We will use the local team who has experience and contacts with the media, so that this event gets covered well. This will be a first meeting of this kind in Skopje, Macedonia which will join experts of the region and offer new ideas to fight light pollution in Macedonia and the Balkans. Macedonia is one of the few countries that is lacking any initiative when it comes to light pollution. It is very important to act timely, also because in Macedonia there are still some regions with dark sky that can be saved. Italy and Slovenia have collaborated previously on several occasion regarding light pollution: the purpose of the project Public Lighting of the Future that was running from 2011 to 2014 was to create a common methodology and database. After our proposed workshop and measurement, the aim will be to include Macedonia in this common effort to fight light light pollution.
Keywords: light pollution
Published in RUNG: 11.09.2018; Views: 3137; Downloads: 0
This document has many files! More...

Abstract: Aims. Strong lensing by massive galaxy clusters can provide magnification of the flux and even multiple images of the galaxies that lie behind them. This phenomenon facilitates observations of high-redshift supernovae (SNe) that would otherwise remain undetected. Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) detections are of particular interest because of their standard brightness, since they can be used to improve either cluster lensing models or cosmological parameter measurements. Methods. We present a ground-based, near-infrared search for lensed SNe behind the galaxy cluster Abell 370. Our survey was based on 15 epochs of J-band observations with the HAWK-I instrument on the Very Large Telescope (VLT). We use Hubble Space Telescope (HST) photometry to infer the global properties of the multiply-imaged galaxies. Using a recently published lensing model of Abell 370, we also present the predicted magnifications and time delays between the images. Results. In our survey, we did not discover any live SNe from the 13 lensed galaxies with 47 multiple images behind Abell 370. This is consistent with the expectation of 0.09 ± 0.02 SNe calculated based on the measured star formation rate. We compare the expectations of discovering strongly lensed SNe in our survey and that performed with HST during the Hubble Frontier Fields (HFF) programme. We also show the expectations of search campaigns that can be conducted with future facilities, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) or the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). We show that the NIRCam instrument aboard the JWST will be sensitive to most SN multiple images in the strongly lensed galaxies and thus will be able to measure their time delays if observations are scheduled accordingly.
Keywords: gravitational lensing: strong / supernovae: general / galaxies: clusters: individual: A 370
Published in RUNG: 28.06.2018; Views: 3758; Downloads: 177
Full text (4,14 MB)

Keywords: women in science, international day of women in science, interview, newspaper
Published in RUNG: 12.02.2018; Views: 3670; Downloads: 0  (1 vote)
This document has many files! More...

Abstract: Galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, can act as gravitational lenses and magnify the light of objects behind them. The effect enables observations of very distant supernovae, that otherwise would be too faint to be detected by existing telescopes, and allows studies of the frequency and properties of these rare phenomena when the universe was young. Under the right circumstances, multiple images of the lensed supernovae can be observed, and due to the variable nature of the objects, the difference between the arrival times of the images can be measured. Since the images have taken different paths through space before reaching us, the time-differences are sensitive to the expansion rate of the universe. One class of supernovae, Type Ia, are of particular interest to detect. Their well known brightness can be used to determine the magnification, which can be used to understand the lensing systems. I will also report our discovery of the first resolved multiply-imaged gravitationally lensed supernova Type Ia.
Keywords: lensed supernovae
Published in RUNG: 06.02.2018; Views: 3087; Downloads: 0
This document has many files! More...

Abstract: This summer, for two weeks, 120 high school students (out of 750 applicants) had the opportunity to taste how research is done at Stockholm University. The students worked in small groups under the supervision of doctoral students in chemistry, physics, biology and geology. At the Physics department, the two PhD students Tanja Petrushevska and Seméli Papadogiannakis offered a project that involved supernovae and their host galaxies.
Keywords: summer school for high school students in astrophysics
Published in RUNG: 06.02.2018; Views: 3255; Downloads: 0
This document has many files! More...