OAT and DAUT - SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT- Wedn. May 31st, at 12:00 noon

[Gabriella Schiulaz]

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INAF-OSS. ASTRON. DI TRIESTE and DAUT SEMINAR
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Speaker: Vincenzo Antonuccio (INAF/Osservatorio Astronomico di Catania) 

Title: A Weak Lensing analysis of Abell 209 

Date: Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 
Time: 12:00 noon 
Venue: Villa Bazzoni (via Bazzoni, 2) -Seminar room, ground floor

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Abstract: 
The cluster Abell 209 has been extensively studied in the recent past. It appears to have a single peak in redshift distribution, and also the optical galaxy distribution does not show any strong sign of substructure (Mercurio, Girardi et al., 1997, 2001). We have applied a Kaiser-Squires-Broadhurst Weak Lensing pipeline recently developed by one of us (S. P.-H.) to extract the shear signal out of a deep stacked R-band archival image of this cluster. More than 14,000 background galaxies have been used to measure the WL signal, using both Mass Aperture (Schneider, 1996) and Mass Reconstruction (Seitz and Schneider, 2001) methods. The WL reconstructions show also a single peak, almost coincident in distribution with the galaxy and X-ray maps. From a NFW fit we estimate a mass 9.26*1014 M_sol within 500 Kpc, larger than the one found in previous work (Smith et al., 2005), but consistent with X-ray estimates. 
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Future Seminars 
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JOINT DAUT-ICTP-OATS-SISSA COLLOQUIUM (venue: SISSA room D)
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Speaker: Richard Bower (ICC - Durham) 
Title: Winds, Super-winds and AGN: the broken hierarchy of galaxy formation 

Date: Thursday, June 1st, 2006 
Time: 12:00 noon 
Venue: SISSA, Room D 

Abstract: 
In my talk I'll discuss the difficulties for theoretical models of galaxy formation. I'll suggest that one possibility is that winds in young galaxies are highly energetic, almost explosive. These super-winds might drive the ISM of young galaxies out into the intergalactic medium, polluting it with metals but reducing the gas supply available for galaxy formation in the present-day universe. The observational challenge is then to try to observe such superwinds, and I will discuss observational work hinting at their existence. I will turn to Integral Field Spectroscopy as a technique for investigating young galaxies in more detail, and in particular a means of probing the nature and energetics of such winds. I will present results on the LAB2 galaxy, and recent observations of a strongly lensed z=5 galaxy behind the RCS0224 cluster.


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OATS-DAUT SEMINAR 
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Speaker: Jason X. Prochaska (University of California Observatories) 
Title: Quasars Probing Quasars and the Surrounding IGM 

Date: Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 
Time: 12:00 noon 
Venue: Villa Bazzoni (via Bazzoni, 2) -Seminar room, ground floor

Abstract: 
I will discuss results based on studies of absorption line systems in projected quasar pairs. This will include the QSO-MgII cross-correlation function, the incidence of optically thick at near separations to QSOs (<200 kpc) and ongoing studies of flourescence from these systems. I'll describe the implications for studying the mass and sizes of absorption systems and also the lifetime and physical environment of z~2 quasars. 


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OATS-DAUT SEMINAR 
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Speaker: Alexis Finoguenov (Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik & University of Maryland - Baltimore County) 
Title: Groups and clusters of galaxies in deep XMM-Newton surveys 

Date: Wednesday, June 14th, 2006 
Time: 12:00 noon 
Venue: Villa Bazzoni (via Bazzoni, 2) -Seminar room, ground floor

Abstract: 
I my talk I will review the recent progress on cluster search in several projects that made use of XMM-Newton data: COSMOS, SXDS-UDS, CDFS, Lockman Hole and present the results on cluster identification using the photometric redshift estimates. A statistical description of surveys in terms of the cumulative log(N>S)-log(S) distribution compares well with the previous results, although yielding a somewhat higher number of clusters at similar fluxes. The luminosity function of clusters in deep surveys matches well the results of nearby surveys, providing a comparably tight constraint on the faint end slope of alpha=1.93+/-0.04. For the probed luminosity range of 8x10^42-2x10^44 ergs/s, the surveys are in agreement with and add significantly to the existing data on the cluster luminosity function at high redshifts and imply no substantial evolution at these luminosities to z=1.3. 

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OATS-DAUT SEMINAR 
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Speaker: Valeria Manna (INAF / OATS) 
Title: Astronomical data analysis workflow on a service-oriented Grid architecture using Business Process Execution Language 

Date: Wednesday, June 21st, 2006 
Time: 12:00 noon 
Venue: Villa Bazzoni (via Bazzoni, 2) -Seminar room, ground floor

Abstract: 
Many international Grid projects have been launched recently in order to face the enormous amount of astronomical data which is pro- duced and/or will be produced in the next years by the new genera- tion of large telescopes and CCD mosaic detectors. Grid is the effective and natural solution for the CCD mosaic data processing but due to complex composition of astronomical applications a Grid workow management system is required in order to simplify the description of nested tasks execution, monitoring and data handling. The recently released Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) speci cation is positioned to become the standard for Web services composition. It allows you to create com- plex processes by creating and wiring together different activities that can, for example, perform Web services invocations, manipulate data, throw faults, or terminate a process. The evolution towards a service-oriented architecture, supported by emerging standard, is an activity that has many attention. This issue is being tackled within the EU-funded EGEE project (Enabling Grids for E-science in Europe) whose primary goals are the provision of robust middleware components and the creation of reliable and dependable Grid infrastructure to support e-Science applications, using an archi- tecture that offers a Web Service interface. We present a proposal for the execution of astronomical data analysis workflow on a service-oriented Grid architecture using the new standard language BPEL4WS.
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Gabriella Schiulaz
segreteria OAT
Phone: 040-3199241
schiulaz at oats.inaf.it 
segreteria at oats.inaf.it