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.

The 2019 Lodewijk Woltjer Lecture is awarded to Prof. Licia Verde (ICREA atUniversity of Barcelona, Spain) for outstanding work in cosmology, especially inthe study of the cosmic microwave background and the large-scale structure of theUniverse.Licia Verde was born in Venice, Italy in1971; she graduated in physics from theUniversity of Padova (1996) anddefended her PhD thesis at theUniversity of Edinburgh in 2000. Shethen moved for postdoctoralappointments at Rutgers University andPrinceton University where she wasChandra Fellow and Spitzer fellow.There she seized the opportunity to jointhe WMAP science team. She becamefaculty at University of Pennsylvania(2004) and then, in the fall of 2007, aprofessor at ICREA (Institució Catalanade Recerca i Estudis Avançats) in Barcelona. Since 2010 she leads theCosmology and Large Scale StructureGroup at the Instituto de Ciencias del Cosmos of University of Barcelona. Sheis the recipient of two ERC IDEAS grants: Starting (2009) and Consolidator (2016). She has shared with the WMAP team the Gruber Cosmology prize (2012) and the 2018 Breakthrough prize for Fundamental Physics. She was among the Thompson Reuters ISI Highly cited researchers in 2015. She was awarded the 2017 Narcis Monturiol medal and the 2018 Premi Nacional deRecerca, that recognises a researcher who has recently contributed significantly and internationally to the advancement of a scientific discipline in any of its fields: human andsocial sciences, life sciences and health, engineering and technology and experimental sciences. She is a member of the Young Academy of Europe.

Prof. Licia Verde is a cosmologist who addresses questions such as origin, composition and evolution of the Universe, with special attention to statistical methodology.

Shortly after graduating from her PhD, Verde made her mark by analysing a powerful but incredibly challenging statistical property of galaxy surveys related to higher-order correlations. She showed that galaxies of the Anglo Australian Two-degrees galaxy redshiftsurvey (the largest three-dimensional galaxy survey available then) trace the distribution ofthe elusive yet ubiquitous dark matter (which makes up to about 80% of the mass of theUniverse). This result indicated that the galaxy distribution can be used to study the dark matter one.

Prof. Verde then joined the science team of the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (later renamed Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy probe WMAP). Verde participated in analysis and interpretation of the Cosmic Microwave Background data from the WMAP satellite. This analysis was pivotal in establishing what is today the standard cosmological model. In this model, the Universe is composed of dark matter and dark energy and the standard matter, as we know it, makes up to only about 5% of the Universe. The galaxies and large scale structure we see today arose from tiny initial quantum fluctuations that got amplified by gravity over 13.7 billion years of evolution.

Prof. Licia Verde then turned her attention to developing rigorous statistical tools to analyse surveys of the Universe and thus connect theoretical models to the observations. Thanks to two ERC grants she has established a vibrant and highly international research group in physical cosmology at the University of Barcelona. Under her lead, the group has contributed to some of the most important results from the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations Survey, part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: measurements of the expansion history of the Universe and the formation of cosmological structures as well as constraint on cosmological parameters describing structure and detailed composition of the Cosmos. Her group is now involved with two forthcoming surveys: the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument survey and the Euclid mission. These surveys will provide detailed three dimensional maps of galaxies and large-scale cosmological structures covering unprecedented volume: the survey volume being a sizeable fraction of the entire observable Universe. If WMAP marked the inception of precision cosmology, the advent of such large surveys is propelling cosmology in the “big data” era.

Prof. Licia Verde has supervised 7 master students, has or is supervising 7 PhD students and mentoring 20 externally recruited postdocs. She is a promoter of Girls in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics disciplines, she is passionate about outreach and science communication especially to young ages, diversity and inclusion in the workplace and the future of scholarly communication.

JORDI TORRA ROCA

Barcelona, February 26th, 2019

A doctor in physics from the University of Barcelona (1984) and a professor of the Department of Quantum Physics and Astrophysics of our university, Jordi Torra Roca has focused his research career on the study of the structure, formation and evolution of our galaxy, the Milky Way. He was one of the European leaders in the development of astrometry from space. He headed Spanish participation in the Hipparcos astrometric mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) in the 1980s, and in the Gaia mission since 1997, through a satellite launched in 2013 which is still in operation. Without a doubt, Jordi had a more prominent role in the Gaia mission. Gaia is one of the great missions of ESA that maintains world leadership in the field of astrometry from space and which, due to its already demonstrated capabilities, is revolutionary in all areas of astrophysics now and will continue to be so in the next decades. Jordi Torra led with excellence the Spanish group involved in the mission. More than fifty professionals have been trained in the last 20 years in the Gaia team of the UB. This team is currently formed by about 30 astrophysicists and engineers working side by side, as he argued, to address the scientific and technological challenges posed by these major international projects at the forefront of research and technology. Jordi Torra also participated in other space missions such as the optical camera of the OMC @ INTEGRAL satellite, the SMART-2 mission and, more recently, the definition of new ESA astrometric missions such as NEAT, THEIA and GaiaNIR.

Passionate about astronomical observation and with extensive experience in the use of telescopes on the ground, he participated in the development of new instrumentation for the Gran Telescopio de Canarias and was one of the promoters for the creation of the Montsec Astronomical Observatory and the Centre for Observing the Universe (Àger), the two largest infrastructures in Catalonia for astronomical observation and dissemination, respectively.

His excellent and dedicated teaching abilities in astrophysics and mathematics is exemplified by the many generations of physics students he brought up. He has trained many young researchers in the field and has directed nine doctoral theses, practically all of them in the field of research. In the transfer of technology, he was the founder of the first joint spin-off company between the University of Barcelona and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.

His high capacity for work and the high degree of responsibility he never forsook led him to carry out various tasks of scientific management: Manager of the National Plan for Astronomy and Astrophysics (2007-2011), Member of the commission that brought Spain into to the European Sourthern Observartory (2006), Coordinator of the Spanish Network of Infrastructures in Astronomy (2012-2017), and Director of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (2015-2017). Also, he was the driving force behind the first Light pollution Law of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

He worked with passion in all fields: teaching, research, management and scientific dissemination. His work has been recognized with the City of Barcelona’s Prize in the field of Science and Technology (2013) and, recently, with the Narcís Monturiol Medal (2018).

These awards, instituted by the Generalitat in 1982, want to distinguish the people and entities that have contributed significantly to the development of science and technology in Catalonia.

This award is named after an inventor and politician. Narcis Monturiol, born in Figueres in 1819 developed a submarine and a tram, among others. He also created several magazines and newspapers.

About Prof. Jordi Torra

Since the start of the Gaia project, the University of Barcelona has taken a great interest in various aspects of the project, including the photometric aspects, data simulation, and the studies of the prototype data analysis system. In 1999, ESA awarded a contract to the Madrid software company GMV for a study of the data analysis environment for Gaia, a major study supported by the University of Barcelona. Jordi Torra leads the Barcelona work on the data analysis system, liasing with the data base efforts of GMV, the supercomputing centre of Catalunya which supplies the hardware required for the study, and the scientific algorithms provided by the Gaia scientific teams. Jordi is co-leader of the scientific working group on the data processing prototype.

About Prof. Licia Verde

Licia Verde is an astrophysicist with interest in cosmology, which is the study of the origin, evolution and composition of the universe.

Her research topics include theoretical cosmology, cosmic microwave background, large-scale structure, statistical applications and data analysis.

She is interested in the study of the "large-scale distribution of galaxies" and the statistical properties of the heat left over from the big bang to shed light on the universe composition, including the dark energy component, and its history.

She is involved with several projects: Sloan Digital Sky survey III, DESI, Euclid.

She obtained her PhD at the ICCUB in 2017 under the direction of Prof. Jordi Miralda and the research highlighted by Forbes was carried out in the Institute, the article "Quasar – CIV forest cross-correlation with SDSS DR12".

Forbes highlights that "she is studying the distribution of matter in the universe in the era following the formation of the first stars and galaxies. One of ther more recent discoveries has used quasars to examine the presence of carbon in intergalactic clouds 10.8 billion years ago."