The Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) has chosen Prof. Josep Maria Paredes as a member of the “Cherenkov Astronomy Science Advisory Group”. Prof. Felix Aharonian from the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, Prof. Paolo Coppi from Yale University and Prof. Reshmi Mukherjee from the Barnard College, under the coordination of Prof. Marco Tavani from the INAF. They will advise the INAF President Nichi d’Amico on the Cherenkov Astronomy matters.

The INAF is very active inthe development of the ground-based Cherenkov Telescopes. They provided the mirrors for the MAGIC experiment, funded the first ATRI prototype – which then evolved into a Mini-Array on Tenerife - among many other actions. It is currently one of the major contributors of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA).

Licia Verde, ICREA researcher at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB), was given the National Research Prize 2018 in a ceremony yesterday, December 3, at the National Theatre of Catalonia. The ceremony was presided over by the President of the Catalan Government, Quim Torra, and counted on the attendance of the vice-rector for Research of the UB, Domènec Espriu. The National Research Prize, given by the Catalan Government and the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRi), distinguishes the researcher who has recently contributed –in a significant manner internationally- to the advance of a science discipline in any of its fields: human and social sciences, life and health sciences, engineering and technology, and experimental sciences.

Also, Jordi Díaz, expert from the Scientific and Technological Centers (CCiTUB), was given the National Scientific Communication Prize 2018 for the program NanoEduca, together with representatives from the other participating entities of the project.

The jury valued Verde’s task for her pioneering findings on the Universe and having contributed to the understanding of how matter and dark energy are distributed around the Universe. Licia Verde is an ICREA researcher at ICCUB since 2010 and leads the Research Group on Cosmology and Large Scale Structures. Among other awards, she received a European Research Council Starting Grant in 2009 and the Gruber Prize in Cosmology in 2012.

Our PhD student is one of the eight worldwide students that will be joining the program in the winter/spring term of 2020.

Marija Tomaševic is a PhD student of Gravitation and Cosmology at our Institute, and has been recently granted a place at the prestigious Graduate Fellowship program. The program is offered by the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics and funded by the University of California Santa Barbara. It is aimed at excellent graduate students from all over the world, with a highly competitive selection process, as students interested in attending the program cannot directly apply but have to be nominated by their mentor. Tomaševic is one of the eight students that will be joining the program on January 2020, after being nominated by her PhD director Roberto Emparan. The fellowship funding covers the accommodation and expenses for a period from five to six months.

The Graduate Program was born with the aim of expanding the knowledge among the young physicists, in order to train them in the rapidly changing scientific world. It was designed considering that physicists often suffer from over specialization, which narrows even more across the different stages of the researching career. The main purpose of the program is to help broaden the education of young physicists, offering several courses, workshops and talks in different fields of physics.

Students are expected to join and participate in the different courses, and a mentor guides them during their stay. Although is not the main goal, they might join the research team led by their mentors, and in some cases that might result in research collaborations.

Although normally the selected students are in the final year of their PhD, Tomaševic is just now starting her third year, after finishing her Master in theoretical physics at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. Her work focuses on the physics of black holes, with special attention given to the quantum effects in black holes. She has been recently working on other interesting aspects of space-time, like the (im) possibility of time machines and the physics therein. She will be mentored by University of Santa Barbara Professor Gary Horowitz, who is interested in researching both classical and quantum aspects of gravitational physics.

ProfessorJordi Miralda carries on the work done by Josep Maria Paredes,our latest scientific director.

Prof. Miralda earned his PhD in Astrophysics at Princeton University in 1991, after graduating in Physics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, presenting a thesis on gravitational lensing by clusters of galaxies and large-scale structure. After working as a postdoc at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, he joined the University of Pennsylvania as a professor of astrophysics and then moved to The Ohio State University. Prof. Miralda returned to Catalonia in 2005, and he has been an ICREA professor ever since, and a member of our Institute since 2009.

“I thank the trust of the Institute in choosing me as the scientific director”, Miralda says. “We have a lot of people capable of performing such task, and I am thrilled to step up and serve the Institute in this position during a time. My priority as the Scientific Director will be to optimize the conditions and opportunities at our Institute, so our members can achieve the scientific excellence in research, and so everyone feels valued and welcomed”.

The Institute of Cosmos Sciences bids farewell to its scientific director, thanking him for all the work done during these years, in which his leadership has been indispensable for the growth and consolidation of our Institute.He has been the scientific director during the last four years, when our Institute was recognized as a Center of Excellence Maria de Maeztu by the Science Ministry. Under his administration, the project boosted and developed, allowing numerous scientists to visit and collaborate with our Institute and young researchers to join us. This period also led to the creation and consolidation of our Technology Unit, the development of several scientific activities and the improvement of science outreach and communication.

The award is just the tip of Dr. Paredes’s activity to promote and strengthen our Institute’s excellence. He also actively worked so ICCUB could become a full member of the Virgo Collaboration, which was recently achieved.

Last June, Jordi Miralda, an ICREA researcher at the University of Barcelona, relieved Dr. Paredes. We wish the stars to enlighten your administration.

Dr. Paredes with Xavier Luri, Marc Ribó and Domènec Espriu at the LST - 1 inauguration.

Dr. Paredes at the Junior Leader La Caixa Postdoctoral Fellowship award ceremony, with the awarded Héctor Gil-Marín, Anna Ferré-Mateu and Matteo Cerruti, and Domènec Espriu, Licia Verde and Xavier Luri.

Dr. Paredes and Lluís Garrido at the Maria de Maeztu recognition event.

Dr. Paredes poses with Lluís Garrido, Francesca Figueras, Roberto Emparan and Jaume Garriga at the Kip Thorne Honoris Causa ceremony.

The third winner of the Call to Orbit competition is the space debris mapping project 4DCube, led by a multidisciplinary team from the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya, IEEC), with members from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences ICCUB, the Research Group in Space Sciences and Technologies (CTE -UPC) and the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE - CSIC).

4DCube was selected as the third of ten winners of the Call to Orbit programme, providing it with valuable space mission expertise by Open Cosmos, including mission software and access to satellite payload integration and test hardware, plus knowledge, advice, and introduction to a valuable network to further develop their idea via the European Space Agency. The team of 4DCube are proposing an unprecedented approach to detect and track small-sized and composite debris, which pose a serious risk for orbiting spacecraft. These small pieces of space junk are not being detected by other debris-associated projects, while at the same time small debris is considered a major concern, due to their large number and their often significant orbital velocities.

The impact of such accurate mapping of small space debris is significant, helping both institutional and commercial satellite operators to assess and mitigate the associated risks. It also provides important clues to help clean existing debris and prevent more debris being added in the future.

José Maria Gómez Cama, member of ICCUB, IEEC and associate professor of the Department of Electronic and Biomedical Engineering of the University of Barcelona said: “The possibility to perform a realistic and qualifying testing thanks to tested tools from Open Cosmos shall serve as an inflexion point to make the application of composite debris mapping feasible, as well as to make IEEC’s technological platform reliable and ready for In-Orbit Demonstration.”

Rafel Jordá Siquier, founder and CEO of Open Cosmos said: “Open Cosmos is dedicated to the sustainable use of space and is acutely aware of the risks imposed by space debris. We are excited to support this project that aims at mapping space debris in unprecedented detail, providing a much-improved insight in the size of the problem.”

Niels Eldering of ESA Business Applications and Space Solutions added: “it is great to see young entrepreneurial firms engage in the challenge of clean space. In particular on this topic both established industry and entrepreneurial thinking is needed.”

About Call to Orbit

Run by Open Cosmos in collaboration with ESA, the Call to Orbit competition allows a diverse range of organisations to put their technologies and service-oriented applications into orbit. It reduces the amount of time and money needed to get a satellite-based business off the ground, especially for companies developing new technologies or validating the commercial potential of a new application.

In total 10 winners are awarded access to Open Cosmos’ orbit readiness program for free, with the partnership of ESA Pioneer SAPION program.

ICCUB joined the Virgo Collaboration as its newest full member last Thursday, July 4. This collaboration entails a big step forward on our priority line “Fundamental Physics from Gravitational Waves”, where the ICCUB aspires to be at the cutting edge in this area.

Despite the team’s main focus on computing, software and instrumentation, this past year the ICCUB team also supported data analysis activities related to the detector characterisation within the frame of the 3rd Observational Run, which has led to several achievements.

ICCUB Virgo team

Jordi Portell is the ICCUB Virgo group leader “With this decision, the Virgo Steering Committee acknowledges the good progress made by our Institute in the Virgo Collaboration. We have tripled the manpower devoted to this groundbreaking project thanks to PhD students and to the ICCUB core financing program (María de Maeztu). Furthermore, our scientists now have very interesting plans for the Virgo data analysis and science exploitation. Our electronics and instrumentation experts will significantly contribute to the next upgrade of this gravitational waves observatory”, he explains.

Figure 1. Dr. Mark Gieles, ICREA professor at ICCUB.

The Virgo team will also incorporate Dr. Mark Gieles, ICREA professor at the ICCUB, who will perform predictions for gravitational wave detection of dynamically formed binary black hole mergers.

The group experts are reviewing the overall computing model, the software management and the data handling approach, aiming at an efficient use of the computing facilities. It is also intended to improve some of the data analysis pipelines such as those that try to fit a waveform template -generated with astrophysical models and simulations- to the signal, or by better de-noising the signal to allow discovering fainter waves. Moreover, there will be a contribution to the electronics and instrumentation upgrades that will improve Virgo's sensitivity, such as low-noise and high-speed analog-to-digital converters. All this will lead Virgo to routinely detect and analyse more gravitational waves.

The Virgo Collaboration:

Based at the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) in Cascina, Italy, the Virgo detector is formed by almost 400 experts from all over the world contributing to detect gravitational waves. The detection process is difficult and requires large, complex and expensive observatories, and as such, EGO runs a laser interferometer with two perpendicular arms and a very complex instrumentation. Virgo can detect gravitational waves in the range of roughly 10 Hz to 10 KHz – similar to the audition range, so it is often said that it allows us to «listen» to the Universe. Currently, Virgo can detect phenomena from billions of light years away, reaching over 100.000 galaxies. The higher its sensitivity is the farther it can reach, detecting and observing more events. Nevertheless, now the current sensitivity only allows the detection of phenomena that generates the biggest gravitational waves in the universe, such as collisions between black holes or neutron stars.

The astrophysicist, who received in the morning the honorary doctorate, gave a Conference at the Aula Magna about the supernova measurements.

Dr.Saul Perlmutter received the honorary doctorate in a solemn ceremony in theParanimph of the Historical Building of the University of Barcelona. The ceremony was presided by the university’s rector Joan Elias together with his patrons, professors Ramon Canal from the Department of Quantum Physics and Astrophysics and ICCUB researcher Pilar Ruiz Lapuente, and the dean of the Faculty of Physics, Atilà Herms.

Perlmutter explained how his group saw the study of far away supernovas could be the key to study the expansion of the universe. “The idea that the Universe is expanding should trouble you, because the Universe is everything”, he said, while addressing to the audience, mainly lecturers and students.

In the afternoon, he gave the Conference “Stalking dark energy and the accelerating Universe: Moving beyond the first generations of supernova measurements”, where he reviewed the advances made since the Universe’s expansion discovery and talked about the upcoming generation of techniques in the supernova measurement. He ended the conference by encouraging the assistants to continue on developing and constructing new tools.

You can see the whole Conference in our Youtube Channel

For further information read University of Barcelona - News

His essay “Do we come from a Quantum Anomaly?” was written with collaborators Spyros Basilakos (Academy of Athens) and Nick Mavromatos (King’s College of London). The awarded essays will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Modern Physics D (IJMPD).

This essay contest is the most important of the gravity and cosmology field, which counts with the participation of relevant researchers from several worldwide institutions and universities, including awarded Nobel prizes.

The Gravity Research Foundation was founded by Roger W. Babson (1875- 1967) and the first awards for the best essays submitted on Gravity were made on December 1st, 1949.

Adrià Gomez Valent and Ignasi Pérez Ràfols received the extraordinary doctorate award to their PhD thesis. The prizes were announced lastSeptember, but the ceremony was celebrated the past Tuesday in the Paranimph of the Historical Building, and was presided by the rector Joan Elias.

The XXII Doctors' Senate Awards and the Extraordinary Doctorate Awards corresponded to the 2016/2017 academic year. The awards are decided, assessed and selected by a rigorous tribunal composed of Postdoctoral researchers and professors from UB. Only theses with the “excellent cum laude”qualification are able to compete in this exceptional prize.