Astrophysics
The emission line luminosity function of active galactic nuclei (AGN) is measured from about 3000 AGN included in the main galaxy sample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey within a redshift range of $0<z<0.15$. The $\Ha$ and [OIII]$\lambda…
For the first time we have directly detected magnetic fields in central stars of planetary nebulae by means of spectro-polarimetry with FORS1 at the VLT. In all four objects of our sample we found kilogauss magnetic fields, in NGC1360 and…
In this note, we report the results of a simulation of the galactic component of high energy gamma rays, as seen by the future AMS-02 experiment on-board the International Space Station. The purpose of AMS is to measure the Cosmic Ray…
Measurement of cosmic microwave background polarization is today a major goal of observational cosmology. The level of the signal to measure, however, makes it very sensitive to various systematic effects. In the case of Planck, which…
Based on observations of the most abundant sulfur-bearing molecules (H2S, CS, NS, SO, H2CS, OCS, and SO2) carried out with the IRAM 30m telescope and SEST, we present the first analysis of the sulfur chemistry of an extragalactic source,…
Short period sdB binaries with cool companions are crucial to understand pre-CV evolution, because they will evolve into cataclysmic variables, when the sdB will have left the extended horizontal branch. Recently we discovered the sixth…
Recent results from Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have resolved starbursts as collections of compact young stellar clusters. Here we present a photometric catalogue of the young stellar clusters in the nuclear starburst of M82, observed with…
We present new sensitive wide-band measurements of the fine structure line 3^P_1 -> 3^P_0 (J=1-0, 492GHz) of neutral atomic carbon (CI) in the two typical Ultra Luminous Infrared Galaxies NGC6240 and Arp220. We then use them along with…
In this work a neutrino gas in equilibrium is studied both at T=0 and at finite temperature. Neutrinos are treated as massive Dirac quasi-particles with two generations. We include self-interactions among the neutrinos via neutral currents,…
We report on a dedicated effort to identify and study metal-poor stars strongly enhanced in r-process elements ([r/Fe] > 1 dex; hereafter r-II stars), the Hamburg/ESO R-process Enhanced Star survey (HERES). Moderate-resolution (~2A)…
We report limits on the Galactic foreground emission contribution to the Background Emission Anisotropy Scanning Telescope (BEAST) Ka- and Q-band CMB anisotropy maps. We estimate the contribution from the cross-correlations between these…
We present the Capodimonte Deep Field (OACDF), a deep field covering an area of 0.5 square degrees in the B, V, R optical bands plus six medium-band filters in the wavelength range 773--913 nm. The field reaches the following limiting AB…
The rapid dissemination of an arcmin-sized HETE-2 localization of the long-duration X-ray flash GRB 030528 led to a ground-based multi-observatory follow-up campaign. We report the discovery of the near-IR afterglow, and also describe the…
We report results from a comprehensive follow-up observing campaign of the afterglow of GRB 030226, including VLT spectroscopy, VLT polarimetry, and Chandra X-ray observations. In addition, we present BOOTES-1 wide-field observations at the…
L'-band (lambda=3.8 microns) and M'-band (lambda=4.8 microns) observations of the Galactic Center region, performed in 2003 at VLT (ESO) with the adaptive optics imager NACO, have lead to the detection of an infrared counterpart of the…
ISO/LWS grating observations of the ultraluminous infrared galaxy Arp 220 shows absorption in molecular lines of OH, H$_2$O, CH, NH, and NH$_3$, as well as in the [O I] 63 $\mu$m line and emission in the [C II] 158 $\mu$m line. We have…
We present optical and NIR (near infrared) follow up observations of the GRB 001109 from 1 to 300 days after the burst. No transient emission was found at these wavelengths within this GRB's (Gamma Ray Burst) 50" radius BeppoSAX error box.…
We have analyzed HST and ground-based data to characterize the different gas phases and their interaction with the MYC in NGC 604, a GHR in M33. The warm ionized gas is made out of two components: a high-excitation, high-surface brightness…
In the first part of this article we show how observations of the chemical evolution of the Galaxy: G- and K-dwarf numbers as functions of metallicity, and abundances of the light elements, D, Li, Be and B, in both stars and the…
The accepted explanation of the observed dichotomy of two orders of magnitude between in situ measurements of electron density in HII regions, derived from emission line ratios, and average measurements based on integrated emission measure,…