In 1985 George Coyne, Francis Everitt, Fang Li-Zhi, Riccardo Giacconi (Nobel laureate 2002), Remo Ruffini, Abdus Salam (Nobel laureate 1979), promoted the establishment of the International Centre for Relativistic Astrophysics (ICRA), asking the Rector of the University of Rome "La Sapienza" Antonio Ruberti to host the Centre at the Physics Department. ICRA became legal entity in 1991. A successful story of research followed for 20 years. ICRA was further extended to other Institutions, as it is clear from the current Statute (see Enclosure 1).

    

    

Founders of ICRA. Above: George Coyne and Remo Ruffini in presence of His Holyness John Paul II; Francis Everitt; Fang Li-Zhi.  Below: Riccardo Giacconi receiving his Nobel prize in 2002; Riccardo Giacconi (right), with Hagen Kleinert (middle) and Remo Ruffini (left), in the basement of the ICRANet Centre in Pescara during his 6 years mandate as President of the ICRANet Scientific Committee from 2006 to 2012; Abdus Salam.

 

At the dawn of the new millennium it was approached the need to extend this activity, based on Italian national laws, to the International scenario. Thanks to the support and advise of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, a Statute was drafted for creating a truly international organization to develop the field of relativistic astrophysics worldwide. ICRANet has been indeed created by a law of the Italian Government, ratified unanimously by the Italian Parliament and signed by the President of the Republic of Italy on February 10^th 2005. The Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Italy, the Vatican State, ICRA, the University of Arizona and the Stanford University have been the Founding Members. All of them have ratified the Statute of ICRANet (see Enclosure 2). On August 12^th, 2011 the President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff signed the entrance of Brazil in ICRANet.

Extensive Scientific reports have been presented every year to the Scientific Committee by the Director of ICRANet (see http://www.icranet.org/AnnualReports). The aim of this 2016 report is to review the traditional fields of research, upgrade the publication list and scientific results obtained in the meantime, indicate the composition of the Faculty, of the Administrative Staff, of the Lecturers, of the Students. The Curricula of the ICRANet Staff are given in the Accompanying Document "The ICRANet Staff, Visiting Scientists and Graduate Students at the Pescara Center". Before turning to the complete review, we would like here, at the beginning, to indicate some of the ICRANet activities which has marked this exceptionally successful year of research 2016.

 

 

Crafoord Prize 2016 awarded to ICRANet Professor Roy Kerr

 

Particular important has been the award to Prof. Roy Kerr (Yevgeny Mikhajilovic Lifshitz ICRANet Professor) of the Crafoord Prize 2016 in Astronomy by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the following celebrations at ICRANet Nice and ICRANet Pescara where Prof. Kerr received his honorary citizenship (see Enclosure 3).

 

 

Prof. Roy Kerr receiving the Crafoord Award in Stockholm (above left), celebrating the award at the ICRANet Centre in Nice (above right), signing the wall in the Pescara ICRANet Centre (below left), receiving the honorary citizenship of Pescara (below right)

 

 

Three major new scientific results by ICRANet in the Pescara Seat

 

We turn now to the three major results obtained by ICRANet in the Pescara Seat:

 

1) That two neutron stars coalesce to form a Black Hole is the subject of a publication by ICRANet scientists which has been published in the most prestigious Astrophysical Journal (Ruffini et al., "GRB 090510: a genuine short-GRB from a binary neutron star coalescing into a Kerr-Newman black hole", ApJ, 831 (2016) 178).

This gives the first evidence for the precise moment of formation of a Black Hole from two coalescing neutron stars. Prof. Remo Ruffini, Director of ICRANet, has presented this epochal result at the Mexican Academy of Science and Arts of Mexico City held from September 5 to 9, giving the opening lecture at the Sixth International Meeting Leopoldo Garcia Colin. The first edition of Leopoldo Garcia Colin, held on September 2001, was promoted by the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Iztapalapa Campus, with the aim of creating a forum based on discussions in the field of Physics and related areas (gravitational waves, cosmology, statistics and biological physics) sustained by the objective of building new possibilities for Mexican researchers and promising students for their research activity. In his opening lecture Professor Ruffini has illustrated the results of the recent research of ICRANet on "Supernovae, Hypernovae e Binary Driven Hypernovae" and explained the concept of gravitational collapse of a neutron star companion induced by an exploding supernova (See Fig. 1.1 and Fig. 1.2), as well as the binary neutron star merging which is the subject of the publication in Astrophysical Journal: one of the most distant and complex system in our Universe (see the complete presentation at: http://www.icranet.org/ruffini-mexico). On the 12^th of September Professor Ruffini presented these new scientific results of ICRANet in the prestigious Cosmos Club in Washington DC (see https://www.cosmosclub.org/) at the monthly meeting of the astrophysics working group. On the 13^th of September he gave a colloquium in Rio de Janeiro at the CBPF, which host the ICRANet Seat in Brazil as a state Member.

Fig. 1.1: Scheme depicting the hypercritical accretion and the induced gravitational collapse in a binary system.

 

Fig. 1.2: Space-time diagram illustrating qualitatively the different stages of the sequence of events which occurs in a binary driven hypernova.

 

2) The above publication was followed, a few days later, by a new publication of ICRANet scientists, still on the most prestigious Astrophysical Journal [Ruffini et al., “On the classification of GRBs and their occurrence rates”, ApJ, 832 (2016) 136].

GRBs have been traditionally considered to be single component systems characterized by relativistic jet emission and classified by their phenomenological properties into “short” GRBs, those lasting less than two seconds, and “long” GRBs, the remaining ones. The discovery of their cosmological origin and associated tremendous energies comparable to the energy emitted by the billions of galaxies in our past visible universe, each composed of 100 billion stars, did not modify this general simplistic approach: the origin of their energy was shrouded in mystery, although the general presence of a black hole in the system was often considered.

In a series of papers over the past decade, scientists from ICRANet have developed a theoretical approach introducing the description of new fundamental physics processes, new astrophysical regimes and a series of new paradigms which have led to a comprehensive picture of GRBs, unique for its complexity and conceptual elegance. A different scenario has emerged: GRB progenitors, far from being single component systems, are in fact multiple component systems composed of a supernova and a neutron star companion, or of two merging binary neutron stars, or a binary composed of a neutron star and a white dwarf. These systems evolve in the merger process which may lead to the formation of a black hole and a newly born neutron star or to more massive newly born neutron stars. The understanding of the characteristic time of the gravitational collapse based on Einstein's theory of general relativity, the new physics, e.g. the hypercritical accretion pioneered in the 1970s by Ruffini, Wilson and Zel'dovich (see Fig. 2.1) and developed by ICRANet scientists, the splendid data obtained from the Agile, Swift, and Fermi satellites, and the contributions of the largest optical and radio telescopes worldwide, all have led to a novel classification of GRBs into seven different families presented in this publication.

The class of "long" GRBs has been subdivided into "X-ray flashes (XRF)" and "binary driven hypernovae (BdHNe)". The class of "short" GRBs has been subdivided into "short gamma-ray flashes (S-GRF)", "short gamma-ray bursts (S-GRB)" and "ultra-short gamma-ray bursts (U-GRB)"; GRBs traditionally classified as "hybrid" are instead much better interpreted and classified as "gamma-ray flashes (GRF)". The theoretical description and distinguishing spectral and observational properties of each family has been presented. A progenitor system which originates within one family may later evolve and become itself a progenitor of a new GRB in a different family (see Fig. 2.2). It was also traditionally believed that each and every GRB originates from accretion in an already formed black hole system. Instead, in this new classification scheme, it is clear that only some of the GRB families imply the formation of a black hole, namely the most energetic ones (BdHNe, S-GRBs and U-GRBs). What is the most beautiful and outstanding aspect of the new understanding is that in these cases one can identify the moment of the formation of the black hole within the evolution of the GRB, and its activity can be observed in the precise moment of its formation.

On the 12^th of September Professor Ruffini presented these new scientific results of ICRANet in the prestigious Cosmos Club in Washington DC (see https://www.cosmosclub.org/) at the monthly meeting of the astrophysics working group. On the 13^th of September he gave a colloquium in Rio de Janeiro at the CBPF, which host the ICRANet Seat in Brazil as a state Member.

Fig. 2.1: Scheme depicting the hypercritical accretion and the induced gravitational collapse in a binary system composed of an accreting neutron star and FeCo undergoing a Supernova explosion.

 

Fig. 2.2: The seven families of GRBs.

 

3) The largest impact in the Cosmos. A Gamma-Ray Burst impacting on an infant Supernova. a new publication of ICRANet scientists on the most prestigious Astrophysical Journal [Becerra et al., "On the induced gravitational collapse scenario of gamma-ray bursts associated with supernovae", ApJ, 833 (2016) 107].

This paper sheds new light on the process of hypercritical accretion, which is at the heart of the induced gravitational collapse (IGC) paradigm for GRBs, proposed by prof. Ruffini and ICRANet scientists. The IGC paradigm, originally proposed in 2001, has been developed further in 2012 to explain the GRB-SN connection. Within this paradigm a long GRB originates in a binary systems composed of a FeCO core and a NS, where the orbital period measures minutes. In such systems the explosion of FeCO core as a supernova leads to hypercritical accretion onto the NS companion, which reaches the critical mass, hence inducing its gravitational collapse to a BH with consequent emission of the GRB. The IGC paradigm was first successfully applied to GRB 090618. Based on this paradigm the new concept of binary-driven hypernovae (BdHN), characterized by four different episodes of emission with precise spectral and luminosity features, has been proposed by prof. Ruffini with ICRANet scientists for long GRBs.

Accretion is a familiar process in astrophysics, and it is known to power such objects as X-ray binaries. There the gravitational energy is converted into heat, so that accretion disk emits X-rays. In contrast, according to the BdHN model, the gravitational energy of hypercritically accreting matter is released primarily in the form of neutrinos, see Fig. 3.1 and 3.2. The accretion process is so violent, with mass accretion rate up to one solar mass per second, that photons remain trapped within the accreting flow. With such huge accretion rates the temperature near the surface of the NS reaches 10 billion of degrees. Actually, this phenomenon was pioneered independently by Zel'dovich and Ruffini in 1973, before the discovery of GRBs was announced.

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Fig. 3.1 (Left):  Structure of the NS hypercritical-accretion region above the NS radius R_NS. Fig. 3.2 (Right): Neutrino τ_ν and photon optical depths τ_γ in the NS hypercritical-accretion region above the neutrinosphere τ_ν=1, with selected mass accretion rates.

 

Estimates of the accretion rate and the possible fate of the accreting NS in the IGC binary were presented by ICRANet scientists already in 2012. The new paper reports results of detailed numerical simulations of the explosion of a FeCO core as a supernova and hypercritical accretion of the supernova ejecta on the binary NS companion. These new simulations, performed by Laura Becerra as a part of her PhD thesis in the IRAP PhD program coordinated by ICRANet, involving more than a million of particles, see Fig. 3.3, include the effects of the finite size of the ejecta for different FeCO core progenitors and confirm the previous estimates, as well as identify the separatrix for such systems, which separate those where BH is formed, and examine the moment of its formation, from those where there is no BH formation. In addition, the expected luminosity of such systems undergoing hypercritical accretion is computed, and the results are shown to be in agreement with observations of the X-ray flash XRF 060218. This work also evidences the asymmetry of the supernova ejecta as induced by the presence of the companion, accreting NS as well as the formation of the new NS, see Fig. 3.3. The colorful snapshot of interaction between the supernova ejecta and the hypercritically accreting NS shown in Fig. 3.3 was selected for the poster of IRAP-PhD program for 2016 call.

Fig. 3.3. Snapshots of the expanding supernova ejecta which interacts with the companion neutron star. The white dot in the origin is the newly formed neutron star.

 

The new results obtained in this paper:

·        show the moment of formation of the BH, as the result of hypercritical accretion of the supernova ejecta onto the companion NS, see Fig. 3.3;

·        give the first treatment of neutrino emission in the process of hypercritical accretion and provide the determination of the neutrinosphere, see Fig. 3.1 and 3.2;

·        give the first detailed model of a "Cosmic Matrix", see Fig. 3.4, which describes these systems as a four-body problem in analogy to the case of particle physics. The "in-state" is represented by the FeCO core and the NS companion. In the case of a BdHN the "out-state" is the a new NS, i.e. the neutron star left by the supernova explosion of the FeCO core, and a BH formed from the gravitational collapse of the NS companion of the FeCO core in the in-state. In XRFs the "out-state" is a new NS and another NS, more massive than the initial one present in the in-state.

These results are supported by numerical simulations done at Los Alamos National Laboratories by Chris Fryer and his group. Laura Becerra, who will receive the joint degree between the Universities of Bremen, Oldenburg, Savoie, Rome, Ferrara, Nice, will be spending six months at Los Alamos, starting 1 November, to foster the collaboration within ICRANet, including the ICRANet seat in Tucson, Arizona, and the Los Alamos National Laboratories.

Fig. 3.4. Cosmic-matrix of XRFs and BdHNe.

 

 

Activities of the ICRANet Armenia Centre

 

Similarly, important results have been obtained in the ICRANet Armenia Centre (see Enclosure 4).

Meeting of Prof. Ruffini with the Minister of Foreign affairs of the Republic of Armenia H.E. Edward Nalbandian

 

 

Activities of the ICRANet Brazil Centres

 

We also would like to recall the strenuous effort toward the development of ICRANet Brazil (see Enclosure 5).

ICRANet collaborations in Brazil

 

 

Activities of the ICRANet Specola Vaticana Centre

 

The collaboration with Specola Vaticana has been very fruitful in the last years, through the organization of joint meetings (see e.g. http://www.ebi2014.org/), and of Summer Schools in Castel Gandolfo (see http://www.vaticanobservatory.va/).

In particular, we recall that Gabriele Gionti S.J. from Specola Vaticana has been representing the Vatican State in the ICRANet Scientific Committee since 2010. He is currently editing the Proceedings of the outstanding 14^th Marcel Grossmann Meeting held in Rome in 2015. There, the Parallel Session AT1 jointly chaired by him and by Salvatore Capozziello was one of the most successful ones of the entire meeting: it had to be split into four sessions due to the very large number of registered participants and speakers.

In his role of Adjunct Professor of the ICRANet Faculty, Gabriele Gionti S.J. has been particularly active in the IRAP-PhD program and is currently participating in the organization of the lecture series "Einstein, Fermi and Heisenberg, and the birth of Relativistic Astrophysics" in the University "Federico II" and Capodimonte Observatory in Naples, in the University of Rome, and in the ICRANet headquarters in Pescara.

 

Specola Vaticana in Castelgandolfo (left) and in Arizona (right)

Activities of the ICRANet Centres in France, Belarus, Iran

 

Traditionally an ICRANet Centre is present in Nice at Villa Ratti (see Enclosure 6). I here report the successful establishment of a new ICRANet Centre at the Academy of Sciences in Minsk (Belarus) (See Enclosure 7) and lately one ICRANet Centre at the University of Isfahan in Iran (see Enclosure 8).

 

Above left: Prof. Murray Gell-Mann (Nobel laureate 1969) signing the wall of the ICRANet Center in Villa Ratti in Nice. Above right: Prof. Ruffini and Prof. Vladimir Gusakov (Chairman of the Presidium of National Academy of Sciences of Belarus) signing the cooperation agreement between ICRANet and NASB. Below: Meeting in Tehran of Prof. Ruffini with the Deputy Minister for Research and Technology of Iran Prof. Vahid Ahmadi.

 

 

ICRANet expansion in Latin America and China

 

Following this major effort in ICRANet Centres, I would like also to outline the successful research in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico toward a major ICRANet expansion in Latin America (see Enclosure 9), and the traditional strong relations with China (see Enclosure 10).

 

Left: Meeting of Prof. Ruffini with the Colombian scientific community in Bogotá. Right: Prof. Ruffini and C.N. Yang (Nobel Laureate 1956) at the 4^th Galileo-Xu GuangQi Meeting in Beijing

International Meetings

 

I would like now to remind some Scientific Meetings organized by ICRANet in 2016 (see Enclosure 11).

We have completed the proceedings of:

-        2^nd Cesar Lattes Meeting, Brazil, April 13 - 22, 2015 (proceedings published by American Institute of Physics, volume 1693.).

We have also organized the following meetings:

-        4^th Bego Scientific Rencontre, Nice, France, May 30 - June 3, 2016.

-        Supernovae, Hypernovae and Binary Driven Hypernovae, Pescara, Italy, June 20 - 20, 2016.

 

 

Outreach program

 

Concerning the outreach program (see Enclosure 12), I recall the public lectures given by Prof. Ruffini in João Pessoa (Brazil) and in Ferrara (Italy), the ones by Prof. Jorge Rueda in Almaty (Kazakhstan) and in Bucaramanga (Colombia), the ICRANet participation to the event "Notte dei Ricercatori" in Pescara, and the beginning of a specific outreach program dedicated to the high school students of Pescara.

Prof. Jorge Rueda (left) in Almaty (Kazakhstan) with Prof. Leonid Chechin (Head of the Advanced Astrophysical Research Laboratory of the Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute, center) and Prof. Kuantay Boshkayev (right)

 

 

On some current reasons of concern

 

Despite these positive results, I would like to recall:

·        the request for the reestablishment of the 150,000.00 Euro contribution cut in 2015 and 2016 by Italy,

·        the extreme situation of the delay of the deposit of the contribution of Brazil for 2015, 2016 and 2017,

·        the missing appointment by MCTIC of its representative in the Scientific Committee of ICRANet.

 

 

Scientific agreements

 

Particularly intense have been the confirmation and extension of the existent agreements with the Universities and research centres.

These collaborations are crucial in order to give ICRANet scientists the possibility to give courses and lectures in the Universities and, viceversa, to provide to the Faculty of such Universities the opportunity to spend research periods in ICRANet institutions.

Map of the Institutions worldwide which signed an agreement with ICRANet, with the corresponding exchanges of professors, researchers and post-docs, as well as with the joint meetings organized. For an interactive version of this map, with the details of each and every Institution, see http://www.icranet.org/ScientificAgreements.

 

 

The International Ph.D. Program in Relativistic Astrophysics (IRAP-PhD)

 

One of the strong tools of success of the activity of ICRANet has been the International Ph.D. Program in Relativistic Astrophysics (IRAP-PhD) promoted by ICRANet (see Enclosure 13). In 2016 Armenia joined the French, German and Italian Universities in granting the degree.

One of the major success of ICRANet has been to participate in the International competition of the Erasmus Mundus Ph.D. program and the starting of this program from the 2010. The participating institutions are:

-        AEI - Albert Einstein Institute - Potsdam (Germany)

-        Bremen University (Germany)

-        Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Germany)

-        CBPF - Brazilian Centre for Physics Research (Brazil)

-        Ferrara University (Italy)

-        Indian centre for space physics (India)

-        INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Brasil)

-        Institut Hautes Etudes Scientifiques - IHES (France)

-        Inst. of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Science - IHEP-CAS, China

-        Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie - MPIfR (Germany)

-        Nice University Sophia Antipolis (France)

-        National Academy of Science (Armenia)

-        Observatory of the Côte d'Azur (France)

-        Rome University - "Sapienza" (Italy)

-        Savoie University (France)

-        Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (China)

-        Stockholm University (Sweden)

-        Tartu Observatory (Estonia)

Institutions participating in the IRAP-PhD program

The IRAP PHD program intends to create conditions for high level education in Astrophysics mainly in Europe to create a new generation of leading scientists in the region. No single university in Europe today has the expertise required to attain this ambitious goal by itself. For this reason we have identified universities which offers a very large complementarity expertise. The students admitted and currently following courses and doing research in such a program are given in the following:

 

Third Cycle 2004-07
- Chiappinelli Anna - France
- Cianfrani Francesco - Italy
- Guida Roberto - Italy
- Rotondo Michael - Italy
- Vereshchagin Gregory - Belarus
- Yegoryan Gegham - Armenia

Fourth Cycle 2005-08
- Battisti Marco Valerio - Italy
- Dainotti Maria.Giovanna - Italy
- Khachatryan Harutyun - Armenia
- Lecian Orchidea Maria - Italy
- Pizzi Marco - Italy
- Pompi Francesca - Italy

Fifth Cycle 2006-09
- Caito Letizia - Italy
- De Barros Gustavo - Brasil
- Minazzoli Olivier - Switzerland
- Patricelli Barbara - Italy
- Rangel Lemos Luis Juracy - Brasil
- Rueda Hernandez Jorge Armando - Colombia

Sixth Cycle 2007-2010
- Ferroni Valerio - Italy
- Izzo Luca - Italy
- Kanaan Chadia - Lebanon
- Pugliese Daniela - Italy
- Siutsou Ivan - Belarus
- Sigismondi Costantino - Italy

Seventh Cycle 2008-2011
- Belvedere Riccardo - Italy
- Ceccobello Chiara - Italy
- Ferrara Walter - Italy
- Ferrari Francesca - Italy
- Han Wenbiao - China
- Luongo Orlando - Italy
- Pandolfi Stefania - Italy
- Taj Safia - Pakistan

Eight Cycle 2009-2012
- Boshkayev Kuantay - Kazakhstan
- Bravetti Alessandro - Italy
- Ejlli Damian - Albanian
- Fermani Paolo - Italian
- Haney Maria - German
- Menegoni Eloisa - Italy
- Sahakyan Narek - Armenia
- Saini Sahil - Indian

Ninth Cycle 2010-2013 (including Erasmus
- Arguelles Carlos - Argentina
- Benetti Micol - Italy
- Muccino Marco - Italy
- Baranov Andrey - Russia
- Benedetti Alberto - Italian
- Dutta Parikshit - India
- Fleig Philipp - Germany
- Gruber Christine - Austria
- Liccardo Vincenzo - Italy
- Machado De Oliveira Fraga Bernardo - Brazil
- Martins De Carvalho Sheyse - Brazil
- Penacchioni Ana Virginia - Argentina
- Valsan Vineeth - India

Tenth Cycle 2011-2014 (including ErasmusMundus call)
- Cáceres Uribe, Diego Leonardo - Colombia
- Raponi, Andrea - Italy
- Wang, Yu - China
- Begue, Damien - France
- Dereli, Husne - Turkey
- Gregoris, Daniele - Italy
- Iyyani, Shabnam Syamsunder - India
- Pereira, Jonas Pedro - Brazil
- Pisani, Giovanni - Italy
- Rakshit, Suvendu - India
- Sversut Arsioli, Bruno - Brazil
- Wu, Yuanbin - China

Eleventh Cycle 2012-2015 (including Erasmus Mundus call)
- Barbarino, Cristina - Italy
- Bardho, Onelda - Albania
- Cipolletta, Federico - Italy
- Dichiara, Simone - Italy
- Enderli, Maxime - France
- Filina, Anastasia - Russia
- Galstyan, Irina - Armenia
- Gomes De Oliveira, Fernanda - Brazil
- Khorrami, Zeinab - Iran
- Ludwig, Hendrik - Germany
- Sawant, Disha - India
- Strobel, Eckhard - Germany

Twelfth Cycle 2013-2016 (including Erasmus Mundus call and CAPES-ICRANet call)
- Ahlén, Olof - Sweden
- Becerra Bayona, Laura - Colombia
- Brandt, Carlos Henrique - Brazil
- Carvalho, Gabriel - Brazil
- Gómez, Gabriel - Colombia
- Harutyunyan, Vahagn - Armenia
- Kovacevic, Milos - Serbia
- Li, Liang - China
- Lisakov, Sergey - Russia
- Maiolino, Tais - Brazil
- Pereira Lobo, Iarley - Brazil
- Sridhar, Srivatsan - India
- Stahl, Clément - France
- Yang Xiaofeng - China

Thirteenth Cycle 2014-2017 (including Erasmus Mundus call and CAPES-ICRANet call)
- Aimuratov, Yerlan - Kazakhstan
- Chang, Yu-Ling - Taiwan
- Delgado, Camilo - Colombia
- Efremov, Pavel - Ukraine
- Gardai Collodel, Lucas - Brazil
- Karlica, Mile - Croatia
- Krut, Andreas - Germany
- Martinez Aviles, Gerardo - Mexico
- Moradi, Rahim - Iran
- Otoniel da Silva, Edson - Brazil
- Silva de Araújo Sadovski, Guilherme - Brazil
- Ramos Cardoso, Tatiana - Brazil
- Rodriguez Ruiz, Jose Fernando - Colombia

Fourteenth Cycle 2015-2018:Al-Saud Naiyf Saud - Saudi Arabia
- Almonacid Guerrero William Alexander - Colombia
- Gardai Collodel Lucas - Brazil/Hungary
- Gutierrez Saavedra Julian Steven - Colombia
- Isidoro dos Santos Júnior Samuel - Brazil
- Meira Lindolfo - Brazil
- Melon Fuksman Julio David - Argentina
- Primorac Daria - Croatia
- Silva de Araujo Sadovski Guilherme - Brazil
- Uribe Suárez Juan David - Colombia

Fifteenth Cycle 2015-2018
- Baghmanyan Vardan - Armenia
- Bedić Suzana - Croatia
- Campion Stefano - Italy
- Chen Yen-Chen - Taiwan
- Gasparyan Sargis - Armenia
- Vieira Lobato Ronaldo - Brazil
- Zargaryan Davit - Armenia

 

 

New adhesions

 

Attention has been given to the procedures for the adhesion of Argentina, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and South Korea to ICRANet.

 

 

Contributions in funds, in kind, and help

 

All these activities could not have been carried out without the contribution and the help of many different sources:

·        we acknowledge the contributions by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy, for its continuous support of ICRANet;

·        we acknowledges as well the contributions obtained in kind for the ICRANet Centers by the Academy of Science of Armenia in Yerevan, by the Academy of Science in Minsk (Belarus), by the CBPF in Rio de Janeiro, by the Municipalities of Pescara and Nice, and by the University of Isfahan in Iran;

·        we are thankful to the Members of the Italian Parliament elected from Abruzzi for their support to the ICRANet activities in the Pescara Centre.

 

 

Lines of Research

 

We can now turn to the review of the scientific topics covered in the volumes 2 and 3.

 

Gamma-rays and Neutrinos from Cosmic Accelerators (Page 1).

Particularly important is this report, which summarizes the activities traditionally carried on by the ICRANet Armenian Scientists in the MAGIC and HESS collaborations, which acquire a particular relevance in view of the ICRANet Seat at the National Academy of Science in Armenia. This topic was motivated by Prof. Felix Aharonian joining ICRANet as representative of Armenia in the Scientific Committee and by his appointment as Adjunct Professor of ICRANet on the Benjamin Jegischewitsch Markarjan Chair. Many of the observational work done by Prof. Aharonian are crucial for the theoretical understanding of the ultra high energy sources. Prof. Aharonian started also his collaboration with the IRAP PhD program where he is following the thesis of graduate students as thesis advisor. The evolution and future prospects on the analysis of the high-energy gamma-ray emission are presented in this report by Prof. Aharonian and Dr. Sahakyan. The main new contribution in this very successful traditional field of research has been the nomination of Prof. Narek Sahakyan as Director of Yerevan ICRANet Centre. The support of the State Science Committee of Armenia has allowed to create in that Seat a remarkable number of PhD students, and of Master and undergraduate students, with administrative and technical support and further looking to the entrance of Armenia in the IRAP-PhD.

The MAGIC telescope

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        A. Prosekin, S. R. Kelner, and F. A. Aharonian, "Polarization of radiation of electrons in highly turbulent magnetic fields", Physical Review D, vol. 94, no. 6, 2016.

·        X. Sun, R.-z. Yang, B. Mckinley, and F. Aharonian, "Giant lobes of Centaurus A as seen in radio and gamma-ray images obtained with the Fermi-LAT and Planck satellites", Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. 595, 2016.

·        L. Ambrogi, E. De Ona Wilhelmi, and F. Aharonian, "On the potential of atmospheric Cherenkov telescope arrays for resolving TeV gamma-ray sources in the Galactic plane", Astroparticle Physics, vol. 80, pp. 22-33, 2016.

·        R. Liu, A. M. Taylor, X.-Y. Wang, and F. A. Aharonian, "Indication of a local fog of subankle ultrahigh energy cosmic rays", Physical Review D, vol. 94, no. 4, 2016.

·        F. Voisin, G. Rowell, M. G. Burton, A. Walsh, Y. Fukui, and F. Aharonian, "ISM gas studies towards the TeV PWN HESS J1825-137 and northern region", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 458, no. 3, pp. 2813?2835, 2016.

·        R. Yang and F. A. Aharonian, "On the GeV excess in the diffuse gamma-ray emission towards the Galactic centre," Astrophysics \& Astronomy, vol. 589, 2016.

·        R. Yang, F. Aharonian, and C. Evoli, "Radial distribution of the diffuse gamma-ray emissivity in the Galactic disk", Physical Review D, vol. 93, no. 12, 2016.

·        N. Sahakyan, "Galactic sources of high energy neutrinos: Expectation from gamma-ray data", EPJ Web of Conferences, Volume 121, id.05005, 2016.

·        N. Sahakyan, V. Baghmanyan, and D. Zargaryan, "Gamma-ray Emission from Non-Blazar AGNs", AIP proceedings (2016)

·        N. Sahakyan and S. Gasparyan, "High Energy Gamma-Rays From PKS 1441+25", AIP proceedings (2016)

·        V. Baghmanyan, "Gamma-Ray Variability of NGC 1275", AIP proceedings (2016)

·        D. Zargaryan, "The Gamma-Ray Emission from Broad-Line Radio Galaxy 3C 120", AIP proceedings (2016)

 

The ICRANet Brazilian Science Data Center (BSDC) and Multi-frequency selection and studies of blazars (Page 43)

The BSDC has been one of the leading projects of ICRANet Brazil which has been more significantly affected by the absence of support from Brazil. No matter these economical difficulties, the BSDC Centre has been fully operative and is now producing the first ICRANet catalog of Active Galactic Nuclei and of Gamma-Ray Bursts.

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        Barres de Almeida, U.; Giommi, P.; Brandt, C.; Fraga, B., Proceedings of IWARA, in press.

·        Chang, Y.L.; Arsioli, B.; Giommi, P.; Padovani, P., 2WHSP: A multi-frequency selected catalog of VHE gamma-ray blazars and blazar candidates, 2016, A&A, in press

·        Arsioli, B.; Chang, Y.L. Searching for gamma-ray signature in WHSP blazars: Fermi-LAT detection of 150 excess signal in the 0.3-500 GeV band (1BIGB sample), 2016, A&A, in press

·        Padovani P., Resconi E., Giommi P., Arsioli B., Chang Y.L., Extreme blazars as counterparts of IceCube astrophysical neutrinos, 2016 MNRAS 457, 3582

 

Exact solutions of Einstein and Einstein-Maxwell equations (Page 65)

This field has been pioneered by Prof. Belinski, in collaboration with Prof. Thibault Damour in Paris, Prof. Mark Henneaux at the University of Bruxelles, Prof. Hermann Nicolai in Berlin. During the Meeting of the Scientific Committee Prof. Belinski has planned to offer a Lectio Magistralis on the physics of fundamental interaction and unification field theory which will be made available on the ICRANet channel on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omyR2hcgFic).

Prof. V. Belinski

The application of the Inverse Scattering Method (ISM), based on the Lax representation, to the integration of the vacuum Einstein equations was developed in 1978 by V.A.Belinski and V.E.Zakharov (BZ in the sequel). By this method they discovered the gravitational solitons, that is the solitonic excitations of the gravitational field in empty spacetime. In particular, there was shown that the Schwarzschild and Kerr black holes are solitons in the exact mathematical sense. Before 1987 only two cases of non-vacuum extension of this techniques were known. These are the case of perfect liquid with stiff matter equation of state (V.A.Belinski, 1979) and the case of electromagnetic field (G.A.Alekseev, 1980). In the framework of the last extention it was shown that the Reissner-Nordstrom and Kerr-Newman black holes also are solitons in the exact mathematical sense.

Quite new non-vacuum extension of the ISM have been found in supergravity when two-dimensional spacetime is filled by the scalar fields and their fermionic superpartners. This outstanding integrable model have been created in 1987 by H.Nicolai. However, in spite of the big principal success this model had two technical shortcomings: (i) the integrability conditions of the Nicolai Lax pair does not contains the Dirac-like equations for the fermionic fields. Instead this linear spectral problem gives only a system of equations for some bosonic quadratic combinations made from fermions, (ii) the Nicolai Lax-pair has the poles of the second order in the complex plane of the spectral parameter while the pure gravity Lax representation has the poles of the first order only.

The question aroused whether the Nicolai model can be covered by appropriately extended BZ approach because the last one is simpler and contains the fully developed technics for construction the exact solitonic solutions. This question was answered in affirmative and the foregoing two technical nuisances was removed during 2015-2016 in collaboration between ICRANet and Albert Einstein Institute at Golm.

To cover the Nicolai model by the BZ approach it is necessary to extend the last one to the multidimensional superspace (including the anticommuting coordinates). In such a framework it was found the reformulation of theNicolai linear spectral problem in the form containing only simple poles with respect the spectral parameter and leading (apart of equations for scalar fields) also to the Dirac-like equations for the fermionic superpartners of these scalars.

Alongside with application to the Nicolai supergravity the constructed generalization of the BZ approach in superspace contains a possibility to generate the equations of motion for the much bigger array of the interacting bosonic and fermionic fields. However, the physical meaning of these new integrable systems remains to be clarified.

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        V. A. Belinski "On the integrable gravity coupled to fermions", arXiv:1611.02924 (2016), will be send to PRD.

·        G.A. Alekseev "Collision of strong gravitational and electromagnetic waves in the expanding universe", Phys. Rev. D 93, 061501(R) (2016).

·        A. Gutierrez-Pineres, A. Capistrano, H. Quevedo "Test particles in a magnetized conformastatic spacetime", Phy. Rev. D,  93, 124009 (2016).

·        O. Luongo, G. B. Pisani, H. Quevedo "Cardy-Verlinde entropy in Horava-Lifshitz gravity", Phys. Rev. D, 93, 064057 (2016).

·        T. Damour, P. Jaranowski, and G. Schafer "Conservative dynamics of two-body systems at the fourth post-Newtonian approximation of general relativity", Phys. Rev. D, 93, 084014 (2016).

·        D. Bini, T. Damour and A. Geralico "New gravitational self-force analytical results for eccentric orbits around a Schwarzschild black hole", Phys. Rev. D, 93, 104017 (2016).

·        D. Bini, T. Damour and Andrea Geralico "High post-Newtonian order gravitational self-force analytical results for eccentric equatorial orbits around a Kerr black hole", Phys. Rev. D, 93, 124058 (2016).

·        H. Quevedo "Multiple structure of compact objects", arXiv:1606.05985 (June 2016).

·        K. Boshkayev, H. Quevedo and B. Zhami "I-Love-Q relations for white dwarf stars", Month. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw2614, October 2016.

·        V. Dzhunushaliev, H. Quevedo "Stochastic Einstein equations with fluctuating volume", arXiv:1603.00951 (March 2, 2016).

·        H. Quevedo, M.N. Quevedo, A. Sanchez "Geometrothermodynamics of phantom ADS black holes", Eur. Phys. Journ. C, 76, 110 (2016).

·        H. Quevedo, M.N. Quevedo, A. Sanchez "Einstein-Maxwell dilaton phantom black holes: thermodynamics and geometrothermodynamics" Phys. Rev. D, 94, 024057 (2016).

·        A. C. Gutierrez-Pineres, H. Quevedo "Newman-Janis Ansatz in conformastatic spacetimes", GRG, 48, 146 (2016).

·        T. Damour "Gravitational scattering, post-Minkowskian approximation and Effective One-Body theory", arXiv:1609.00354 [gr-qc] (September 2016).

·        H. Quevedo "Quadrupolar metrics", arXiv:1606.09361 [gr-qc] (June 2016).

·        K. Boshkayev, H. Quevedo, Z. Kalymova and B. Zhami "Hartle formalism for rotating Newtonian configurations", Eur. Journ. Phys., 37, 065602 (2016).

·        K. Boshkayev, E. Gasperin, A. C. Gutierrez-Pineres, H. Quevedo, and S. Toktarbay "Motion of test particles in the field of a naked singularity", Phys. Rev. D, 93, 024024 (2016).

·        K. A. Boshkayev, H. Quevedo, M. S. Abutalip, Zh. A. Kalymova, Sh. S. Suleymanova "Geodesics in the field of a rotating deformed gravitational source", IJMP(A), 31, Issue 02n03 (2016).

·        S. Balmelli and T. Damour "New effective-one-body Hamiltonian with next-to-leading order spin-spin coupling", Phys. Rev. D, 92, 124022 (December 2015).

·        D. Bini, T. Damour, and A. Geralico "Spin-dependent two-body interactions from gravitational self-force computations", Phys. Rev. D, 92, 124058 (December 2015); Erratum Phys. Rev. D, 93, 109902 (2016)

·        A. Nagar, T. Damour, C. Reisswig, and D. Pollney "Energetics and phasing of non-precessing spinning coalescing black hole binaries", Phys. Rev. D,  93, 044046 (2016).

 

Gamma-Ray Bursts (Page 79)

As we recalled in the introduction, this has been one the most important field of research at the ICRANet Centre in Pescara and we just update at this point the publication list.

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        R. Ruffini, M. Muccino, Y. Aimuratov, C.L. Bianco, C. Cherubini, M. Enderli, M. Kovacevic, R. Moradi, A.V. Penacchioni, G.B. Pisani, J.A. Rueda, Y. Wang; GRB 090510: A genuine short-GRB from a binary neutron star coalescing into a Kerr-Newman black hole; The Astrophysical Journal, 831, 178 (2016).

·        Ruffini, R.; Rueda, J. A.; Muccino, M.; Aimuratov, Y.; Becerra, L. M.; Bianco, C. L.; Kovacevic, M.; Moradi, R.; Oliveira, F. G.; Pisani, G. B.; Wang, Y.; On the classification of GRBs and their occurrence rates; The Astrophysical Journal, 832, 136 (2016).

·        Becerra, L.; Bianco, C. L.; Fryer, C. L.; Rueda, J. A.; Ruffini, R.; On the induced gravitational collapse scenario of gamma-ray bursts associated with supernovae; The Astrophysical Journal, 833, 107 (2016).

·        Pisani, G. B.; Ruffini, R.; Aimuratov, Y.; Bianco, C. L.; Kovacevic, M.; Moradi, R.; Muccino, M.; Penacchioni, A. V.; Rueda, J. A.; Shakeri, S.; Wang, Y.; On the universal late X-ray emission of binary-driven hypernovae and its possible collimation; The Astrophysical Journal, 833, 159 (2016).

 

Relativistic effects in Physics and Astrophysics (Page 233)

In 2016 it started a complete rewrite of the numerical codes used to simulate the evolution of the electron-positron plasma producing a GRB and its interaction with the surrounding medium. This is to upgrade from the simplified semi-analytical approach, which has been used until now, to a full numerical integration of the complete system of partial differential equations describing the system. This upgrade of the numerical codes is currently ongoing, and the first results will be presented in the next year report.

 

Big data analysis and Cosmology with Astrophysical Transients (Page 303)

Particularly interesting, and connected to the above topics, is also the project on big data analysis. The current situation in astrophysics allows to use large archival astrophysical data from infrared, optical and very high energetic radiations. This new situation allows to study a single source in a multi-wavelength context, and permits to obtain more information on the physical mechanisms behind the observed radiation. Recently we have started and developed a program involving the use of already existing software packages for space data reduction, as Swift, Fermi, XMM and HST, and on-ground facilities as optical telescopes at ESO and Canary Island. New collaborations started, about the study of optical transients, as well for the analysis in real-time of high-energy sources as GRBs.

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        Izzo, L.; Cano, Z.; Postigo, A. de Ugarte; Thoene, C.; Vanzi, L.; Zapata, A.; Espinoza, N.; Fernandez, D.; Prieto, J. L.; Bonifacio, P.; Valle, M. Della; Molaro, P.; Spectroscopic observations of Nova Lup 2016, ATEL 9587

·        Molaro, P.; Izzo. L.; Mason, E.; Bonifacio, P.; Della Valle, M.; Highly enriched 7Be in the ejecta of Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2 (V5668 Sgr) and the Galactic 7Li origin, (2016) MNRASL, 463, 117;

 

Cosmology and Large Scale Structures (Page 319)

This topic follows from the extensive work performed at the University of Arizona in Tucson by Prof. Fang LiZhi, and constitutes an important bridge of scientific collaboration with China initiated by Fang. The leading person who is planning to collaborate is Prof. Xiaohui Fan, regent professor at Tucson and representative of Tucson in the ICRANet Steering Committee. We are also capitalizing on the collaboration between Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) and Tucson University on High Performance Computing carried on by Chris Fryer, who is adjunct Professor in ICRANet (see Fig. 18b).

Trinity Supercomputer at Los Alamos National Laboratories

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        C.R. Arguelles, N. Mavromatos, J.A. Rueda, R. Ruffini, "The role of self-interacting right-handed neutrinos in galactic structure", Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics,  4 (2016) 038.

·        Becerra, L.; Bianco, C. L.; Fryer, C. L.; Rueda, J. A.; Ruffini, R.; On the induced gravitational collapse scenario of gamma-ray bursts associated with supernovae; The Astrophysical Journal, 833, 107 (2016).

 

Theoretical Astroparticle Physics (Page 323)

Astroparticle physics is a new field of research emerging at the intersection of particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology. We focused on several topics with three major directions of research: a) electron-positron plasma, b) thermal emission from relativistic plasma and GRBs, c) Relativistic kinetic theory and its applications; d) ultra high energy particles and e) Self-gravitating systems of Dark Matter particles.

Electron-positron plasma appear relevant for GRBs and also for the Early Universe, in laboratory experiments with ultraintense lasers, etc. Our numerical results indicate that the rates of three-particle interactions become comparable to those of two-particle ones for temperatures exceeding the electron rest-mass energy. Thus three particle interactions such as relativistic bremsstrahlung, double Compton scattering and radiative pair creation become essential not only for establishment of thermal equilibrium, but also for correct evaluation of interaction rates, energy losses etc. We found strong anisotropies in reaction rates in three-particle interactions.

We also obtained new results on propagation of ultra high energy particles, such as photons, neutrinos and protons, at cosmological distances and the limiting distance (cosmic horizon) is obtained as function of particle energy. In addition, new calculations are performed for the cosmic horizon for photons subject to photon-photon scattering.

In cosmology the new results include: a) Theoretical evidence of 50 keV fermionic dark matter from galactic observables, obtained within the Ruffini-Arguelles-Rueda (RAR) model; b) Strong lensing by fermionic dark matter in galaxies, including the predictions regarding the observation of black hole shadow in the RAR model; c) The role of self-interacting right-handed neutrinos in galactic structure. In this last work the possible consequences caused by a self-interacting relativistic field theoretical model of Majorana fermions were analysed.

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        G.V. Vereshchagin and A. G. Aksenov, "Relativistic Kinetic Theory With Applications in Astrophysics and Cosmology", Cambridge University Press, (2016), in press.

·        R. Ruffini, G. V. Vereshchagin and S.-S. Xue, "Cosmic absorption of ultra high energy particles", Astrophys. Space Sci. (2016) 361, 82.

·        C. R. Arguelles, J. A. Rueda, and R. Ruffini,"Theoretical evidence of 50 keV fermionic dark matter from galactic observables", MNRAS, submitted (2016), arXiv: 1606.07040.

·        L. G. Gomez, C. R. Arguelles, V. Perlick, J. A. Rueda, and R. Ruffini, "Strong lensing by fermionic dark matter in galaxie", PRD, Accepted (2016), arXiv: 1610.03442.

·        C. R. Arguelles, N. E. Mavromatos, J. A. Rueda, and R. Ruffini, "The role of self-interacting right-handed neutrinos in galactic structure", JCAP, Vol. 4, p. 038 (2016), arXiv: 1502.00136.

 

Generalization of the Kerr-Newman solution (Page 387)

The unsolved problem of a physical solution in general relativity of an astrophysical object which must be characterized necessarily by four parameters, mass, charge, angular momentum and quadrupole moment, has also been debated for years and it is yet not satisfactorily solved. The presence in ICRANet of Prof. Quevedo as an Adjunct Professor has shown an important result published by Bini, Geralico, Longo, Quevedo [Class. Quant. Grav., 26 (2009), 225006]. This result has been obtained for the special case of a Mashhoon-Quevedo solution characterized only by mass, angular momentum and quadrupole moment. It has been shown that indeed such a Mashhoon-Quevedo solution can be matched to an internal solution solved in the post-Newtonian approximation by Hartle and Thorne for a rotating star.

The most important metrics in general relativity is the Kerr-Newman solution which describes the gravitational and electromagnetic fields of a rotating charged mass, characterized by its mass M, charge Q and angular momentum L in geometrical units. This solution characterizes the field of a black hole. For astrophysical purposes, however, it is necessary to take into account the effects due to the moment of inertia of the object. To attack this problem, an exact solution of the Einstein-Maxwell equations have been proposed by Mashhoon and Quevedo which posses an infinite set of gravitational and electromagnetic multipole moments. It is not clear, however, how this external solution to an astrophysical object can be matched to a physical internal solution corresponding to a physically acceptable rotating mass. Are here reported current progresses in using an explicit solution of the Hartle-Thorne equation to an eternal solution with N independent quadrupole moments. Equally important has been the result recently obtained by Belvedere showing that a fast rotating model of neutron star with global charge neutrality within the Hartle-Thorne approximation leads to an internal solution of the Kerr metric.

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        K. Boshkayev, E. Gasperin, A.C. Gutierrez-Pineres, H. Quevedo, and S. Toktarbay, Motion of test particles in the field of a naked singularity, Phys. Rev. D 93, 024024 (2016).

·        K. Boshkayev, J.A. Rueda, M. Muccino (2016). eprint arXiv:1606.07804

·        K. Boshkayev, H. Quevedo, B. Zhami, "I-Love-Q relations for white dwarf stars" MNRAS (2016).

·        K. Boshkayev, H. Quevedo, Zh. Kalymova and B. Zhami, Hartle formalism for rotating Newtonian configurations, Eur. J. Phys. 36, 0656002 (2016); arXiv:1409.2472

·        S. O. Kepler, I. Pelisoli, D. Koester, G. Ourique, A. D. Romero, N. Reindl, S. J. Kleinman, D. J. Eisenstein, A. D. M. Valois, L. A. Amaral, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 455, 3413 (2016).

 

Black Holes and Quasars (Page 507)

This report refers to the activity of Prof. Brian Punsly, who is actively participating within ICRANet with the publication of his internationally recognized book on "Black hole gravitohydromagnetics", the first and second edition (2010) being published with Springer. In addition, Prof. Punsly have been interested in observational properties of quasars such as broad line emission excess in radio loud quasars accentuated for polar line of sight and excess narrow line widths of broad emission lines in broad absorption line quasars, showing that this is best explained by polar lines of sight.

Among the most interesting contributions published in 2016 has been "A Temporal Analysis Indicates a Mildly Relativistic Compact Jet in GRS 1915+105" and especially a first attempt to model the fast radio bursts.

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        Punsly, Brian; Rodriguez, Jérôme A Temporal Analysis Indicates a Mildly Relativistic Compact Jet in GRS 1915+105 2016 ApJ 823 54

·        Punsly, Brian; Bini, Donato, General relativistic considerations of the field shedding model of fast radio bursts 2016 MNRAS Lett. 41

·        Punsly, Brian; Rodriguez, Jérôme; Trushkin, Sergei A.., The Accretion Flow-Discrete Ejection Connection in GRS 1915+105 2016 ApJ 826 5

·        Punsly, Brian; Reynolds, Cormac; Marziani, Paola; O'Dea, Christopher P., The extreme ultraviolet spectra of low-redshift radio-loud quasars 2016 MNRAS 459 4233

·        Punsly, Brian; Marziani, Paola; Zhang, Shaohua; Muzahid, Sowgat; O'Dea, Christopher P., The Extreme Ultraviolet Variability of Quasars 2016 ApJ http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/830/2/104

·        Punsly, Brian; Balsara, Dinshaw; Kim, Jinho; Garain, Sudip, Riemann solvers and Alfven waves in black hole magnetospheres. 2016 Computational Astrophysics and Cosmology, 3, 5

·        Punsly, Brian; Kharb, Preeti.. The Detection of Diffuse Extended Structure in 3C~273: Implications for Jet Power, 2016, ApJ in press

 

Cosmology group of Tartu Observatory (Page 513)

Prof. Einasto has been collaborating in the previous years intensively within ICRANet about the large scale structure of the Universe and its possible fractal structure. With Prof. Einasto there is also the collaboration of Prof. G. Hutsi. Prof. Einasto is an Adjunct Professor of ICRANet and an active member of the Faculty of the IRAP PhD. Prof. Einasto has completed a book reviewing the status of the dark matter and the large scale structure of the universe published by World Scientific as Volume 14^th in the Advanced Series in Astrophysics and Cosmology Series edited by L.Z. Fang and R. Ruffini. This book covers the material of the lectures delivered in the IRAP PhD program as well as an historical perspective between the different approaches to the study of the dark matter content of the universe in the west and in the former Soviet union.

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        D’Onofrio, M., Rampazzo, R., Zaggia, S., Lake, G., Chiosi, C., De Lucia, G., Einasto, J., Kroupa, P., de Carvalho, R. R., Renzini, A., Ciotti, L., Matteucci, F., Moss, D. L., & Longair, M. S. 2016a, The Physics of Galaxy Formation and Evolution, From the Realm of the Nebulae to Populations of Galaxies, 435, 585

·        D’Onofrio, M., Rampazzo, R., Zaggia, S., Struck, C., Bianchi, L., Poggianti, B. M., Sulentic, J. W., Tully, B. R., Marziani, P., Longair, M. S., Matteucci, F., Ciotti, L., Einasto, J., & Kroupa, P. 2016b, The New Boundaries of the Galaxy Concept, From the Realm of the Nebulae to Populations of Galaxies, 435, 509

·        Einasto, J. 2016a, Yakov Zeldovich and the Cosmic Web Paradigm, in IAU Symposium, Vol. 308, The Zeldovich Universe: Genesis and Growth of the Cosmic Web, ed. R. van de Weygaert, S. Shandarin, E. Saar, & J. Einasto, 13

·        Einasto, M. 2016b, Tracing high redshift cosmic web with quasar systems, in IAU Symposium, Vol. 308, The Zeldovich Universe: Genesis and Growth of the Cosmic Web, ed. R. van de Weygaert, S. Shandarin, E. Saar, & J. Einasto, 161 11

·        Einasto, M., Hein¨am¨aki, P., Liivam¨agi, L. J., Mart´ınez, V. J., Hurtado-Gil, L., Arnalte-Mur, P., Nurmi, P., Einasto, J., & Saar, E. 2016b, Shell-like structures in our cosmic neighbourhood, A&A, 587, A116

·        Lietzen, H. & Einasto, M. 2016, It takes a supercluster to raise a galaxy, in IAU Symposium, Vol. 308, The Zeldovich Universe: Genesis and Growth of the Cosmic Web, ed. R. van de Weygaert, S. Shandarin, E. Saar, & J. Einasto, 412

·        Lietzen, H., Tempel, E., Liivam¨agi, L. J., Montero-Dorta, A., Einasto, M., Streblyanska, A., Maraston, C., Rubino-Martın, J. A., & Saar, E. 2016, Discovery of a massive supercluster system at z ~ 0.47, A&A, 588, L4

·        Poudel, A., Heinamaki, P., Nurmi, P., Teerikorpi, P., Tempel, E., Lietzen, H., & Einasto, M. 2016a, Multifrequency studies of galaxies and groups. I. Environmental effect on galaxy stellar mass and morphology, A&A, 590, A29

·        Song, H., Park, C., Lietzen, H., & Einasto, M. 2016, Quasars as a Tracer of Large-scale Structures in the Distant Universe, ApJ, 827, 104

·        Tempel, E., Kipper, R., Tamm, A., Gramann, M., Einasto, M., Sepp, T., & Tuvikene, T. 2016a, Friends-of-friends galaxy group finder with membership refinement. Application to the local Universe, A&A, 588, A14

·        van de Weygaert, R., Shandarin, S., Saar, E., & Einasto, J., eds. 2016, IAU Symposium, Vol. 308, The Zeldovich Universe: Genesis and Growth of the Cosmic Web

 

The electron-positron pairs in physics, astrophysics and cosmology (Page 527)

This problem "The electron-positron pairs in physics and astrophysics: from heavy nuclei to black holes" has been the subject of a physics reports of more than 500 references, which is inserted on page 741, by Ruffini, Vereshchagin and Xue. There, all the different aspects of the field has been reviewed: The fundamental contributions to the electron-positron pair creation and annihilation and the concept of critical electric field; Nonlinear electrodynamics and rate of pair creation; Pair production and annihilation in QED; Semi-classical description of pair production in a general electric field; Phenomenology of electron-positron pair creation and annihilation; The extraction of blackholic energy from a black hole by vacuum polarization processes. Due to the interaction of physics and astrophysics we are witnessing in these years a splendid synthesis of theoretical, experimental and observational results originating from three fundamental physical processes. They were originally proposed by Dirac, by Breit and Wheeler and by Sauter, Heisenberg, Euler and Schwinger. For almost seventy years they have all three been followed by a continued effort of experimental verification on Earth-based experiments. The Dirac process, e⁺e^- →2 g, has been by far the most successful. The Breit-Wheeler process, 2g → e⁺e^-, although conceptually simple, being the inverse process of the Dirac one, has been by far one of the most difficult to be verified experimentally.

The e⁺e⁻ pairs generated by the vacuum polarization process around a gravitationally collapsing charged core are entangled in the electromagnetic field (R. Ruffini, L. Vitagliano, S.-S. Xue, Phys. Lett. B 573, (2003) 33), and thermalize in an electron-positron-photon plasma on a time scale ~ 10⁴ t_C (R. Ruffini, L. Vitagliano, S.-S. Xue, Phys. Lett. B 559, (2003) 12). As soon as the thermalization has occurred, the hydrodynamic expansion of this electrically neutral plasma starts (R. Ruffini, J. Salmonson, J. Wilson, S.-S. Xue, A&A Vol. 335 (1999) 334; Vol. 359 (2000) 855). While the temporal evolution of the e⁺e⁻ gravitationally collapsing core moves inwards, giving rise to a further amplified supercritical field, which in turn generates a larger amount of e⁺e⁻ pairs leading to a yet higher temperature in the newly formed e⁺e⁻g plasma.  As a consequence, an enormous amount of pairs is left behind the collapsing core and a Dyadosphere (G. Preparata, R. Ruffini, S.-S. Xue, A&A Vol. 338 (1998) L87) is formed. see also B. Han, R. Ruffini, S.-S. Xue, Physics Review D86, 084004 (2012), R. Ruffini, and S-S. Xue, Physics Letters A377 (2013) 2450.

The Schwinger pair-production and nonlinear QED effects in a curved space time are also studied. Taking into account the Euler-Heisenberg effective Lagrangian of one-loop nonperturbative QED contributions, we formulate the Einstein-Euler-Heisenberg theory and study the solutions of nonrotating black holes with electric and magnetic charges in spherical geometry (R. Ruffini, Y.-B. Wu and S.-S. Xue, Physics Review D88, 085004 (2013)). In addition, the Schwinger pair-production and back reaction are recently studied in de Sitter space time in order to understand their roles in early Universe, some results are published (C. Stahl, E. Strobel, and S.-S. Xue, Phys. Rev. D 93, 025004 (2016); C. Stahl and S.-S. Xue, Phys. Lett B 760, 288-292 (2016); E.  Bavarsad, C. Stahl and S.-S. Xue,  Phys. Rev. D 94, 104011 (2016)).

An interesting aspect of effective field theories in the strong-field or strong coupling  limit has recently been emphasized.  We study that pair-production in super-position of static and plane wave fields, and in the strong fields expansion, the leading order behavior of the Euler-Heisenberg effective Lagrangian is logarithmic, and can be formulated as a power law (H. Kleinert, E. Strobel and S-S. Xue, Phys. Rev. D88, 025049 (2013), Annals of Physics Vol. 333 (2013) 104). We have also investigated the fundamental processes relevant to the issues of intense laser physics, pair-production (E. Strobel and S-S. Xue , Nucl. Phys B 886, (2014) 1153); two laser beams colliding with a high-energy photon (Y.-B. Wu and S-S. Xue, Phys. Rev. D 90, 013009 (2014))，as well as pair-oscillation leading to electromagnetic and gravitational radiation (W.-B. Han and S.-S. Xue, Phys. Rev. D89 (2014) 024008). We study the photon circular-polarization produced by two-laser beams collision (R. Mohammadi, I. Motie, and S.-S. Xue, Phys. Rev. A 89, 062111 (2014)), and by laser and neutrino beams collisions (Phys. Lett. B 731 (2014) 272; Phys. Rev. D 90, 091301(R) (2014)).

In order to account for future observations of GRBs photon polarizations, the possible microscopic origins and preliminary values of GRBs photon polarizations are theoretically calculated (S. Batebi, R. Mohammadi, R. Ruffini, S. Tizchang, and S.-S. Xue, Phys. Rev. D 94, 065033 (2016)).  Similarly, by considering possible microscopic interactions and processes, we study the polarization of CMB in cosmology, compared with recent observations (R. Mohammadi, J. Khodagholizadeh, M. Sadegh, and S.-S. Xue, Phys. Rev. D93, 125029 (2016)). All these fundamental processes of microscopic and macroscopic physics are relevant to high-energy phenomena in relativistic astrophysics, black hole physics and laser physics, as early Universe and modern Cosmology.

The Diadotorus

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        R. Mohammadi, J. Khodagholizadeh, M. Sadegh, and S.-S. Xue, "Bmode polarization of the CMB and the cosmic neutrino background", Physical Review D93, 125029 (2016).

·        S.-S. Xue, Physical Review D 93, 073001 (2016)

·        R. Ruffini, G. Vereshchagin and S.-S. Xue, "Cosmic absorption of ultra high energy particles", Astrophysics and Space Science, Volume 361, article id.82, 2016.

·        C. Stahl, E. Strobel, and S.-S. Xue, "Fermionic current and Schwinger effect in de Sitter spacetime", Phys. Rev. D 93, 025004, 2016.

·        C. Stahl and S.-S. Xue, "Schwinger effect and backreaction in de Sitter spacetime", Physics Letters B, Volume 760, p. 288-292. 2016.

·        S. Batebi, R. Mohammadi, R. Ruffini, S. Tizchang, and S.-S. Xue, "Generation of circular polarization of gamma ray bursts", Phys. Rev. D 94, 065033, 2016.

·        E. Bavarsad, C. Stahl and S.-S. Xue, "Scalar current of created pairs by Schwinger mechanism in de Sitter space time", Phys. Rev. D 94, 104011 (2016).

 

From nuclei to compact stars (Page 1051)

The study of compact objects such as white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes requires the interplay between nuclear and atomic physics together with relativistic field theories, e.g., general relativity, quantum electrodynamics, quantum chromodynamics, as well as particle physics. In addition to the theoretical physics aspects, the study of astrophysical scenarios characterized by the presence of a compact object has also started to be focus of extensive research within our group. The research which has been done and is currently being developed within our group can be divided into the following topics: nuclear and atomic astrophysics, compact stars (white dwarfs and neutron stars) physics and astrophysics including radiation mechanisms, exact solutions of the Einstein and Einstein-Maxwell equations applied to astrophysical systems and critical fields and non-linear electrodynamics effects in astrophysics.

Also this year we have made progress in all the above fields of research. It is worth to mention that in the recent years it has been established a strong collaboration between the research on the observational and theoretical aspects of GRBs and the one on the physics and astrophysics aspects of white dwarfs and neutron stars. In particular, this collaboration has focused on the problem of establishing the possible progenitors of both short and long GRBs, together with the further development of the model for the explanation of the experimental data of GRBs from the radio all the way to the gamma-rays.

In this line I would like to recall the work by Becerra et al. "On the induced gravitational collapse scenario of gamma-ray bursts associated with supernovae", ApJ 833, 107 (2016), in which we have, following our induced gravitational collapse (IGC) paradigm of long GRBs, presented numerical simulations of the explosion of a carbon-oxygen core in a binary system with a neutron-star companion. In this work we have presented simulations that follow the hypercritical accretion process triggered onto the neutron star by the supernova explosion, the associated copious neutrino emission near the NS accreting surface, as well as all relevant hydrodynamic aspects within the accretion flow including the trapping of photons. We have shown that indeed the NS can reach the critical mass and collapse to a black hole producing a GRB. Interesting new lines of research has been opened thanks to this work: we have shown that the presence of the neutron star companion near the carbon-oxygen core causes strong asymmetries in the supernova ejecta and that the GRB emission can also interact with the supernova ejecta. Both phenomena cause specific observable signatures which we are currently examining and probing in GRB data.

We have also gone further in probing neutron star binaries as progenitors of short GRBs. Especial mention has to be given in this line to the work of R. Ruffini et al., "GRB 090510: a genuine short-GRB from a binary neutron star coalescing into a Kerr-Newman black hole", ApJ 831, 178 (2016). We are starting a new era in which, from GRB data, we can extract information on the neutron star parameters leading to black hole formation after the binary coalescence. This kind of research is also of paramount importance to put constraints on the matter content and equation of state at supranuclear densities in neutron stars.

It is also important to mention that we are performing new research on the gravitational wave emission from compact object binaries leading to GRBs, which not only is important by itself but it is relevant to establish the capabilities of current second generation gravitational wave detectors such as Advanded LIGO to detect the gravitational waves associated with GRB events.  We have to mention here the work by R. Ruffini et al., "On the classification of GRBs and their occurrence rates", ApJ 832, 136 (2016), in which we have established a novel classification of short and long GRBs, their binary progenitors, as well as their occurence rate, being the latter necessary to predict a detection rate of the gravitational wave emission from GRBs.

We have also made progress in the understanding of soft gamma ray repeaters (SGRs) and anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs). The most used model for the explanation of SGRs/AXPs is based on "magnetars", ultramagnetized neutron stars. Since there is so far no experimental evidence of such extreme, B > 100 TG, surface magnetic fields in neutron stars, we have focus our effort in analyzing the data of SGRs and AXPs and check whether these objects could be explained by canonical, well tested and experimentally confirmed stars. This was the main idea of a pioneering work of Malheiro, Rueda and Ruffini, "Soft-Gamma-Ray Repeaters (SGRs) and Anomalous X-Ray Pulsars (AXPs) as rotation powered white dwarfs", PASJ 64, 56 (2012). It was there shown that, indeed, massive (masses of 1 solar mass), fast rotating (rotation periods 1-10 second), highly magnetized (magnetic fields of 1 giga gauss) white dwarfs could explain the observational properties of SGRs/AXPs. In addition, it was there shown that some sources (at the time four) could actually be ordinary, rotation-powered neutron stars. That work opened a new field of research which led in the recent years to several ICRANet publications on the properties of  such magnetized white dwarfs, including their  radiation emission which has been compared and contrasted with observations. It is particularly important to recall that this area of research has been very active and prolific thanks to an intense collaboration with Brazilian colleagues, including professors and postdoc former students at ICRANet. In the 2016 we have made two important contributions within this collaboration. First, in the work by D. L. Cáceres, et al., "Thermal X-ray emission from massive, fast rotating, highly magnetized white dwarfs", MNRAS 465, 4434 (2016), it has been shown that such white dwarfs can behave in a similar way as the well-known pulsars, with a specific emission in the X-rays which can explain the soft X-ray emission observed in SGRs and AXPs. Second, in the work by J. G. Coelho et al., "On the nature of some SGRs and AXPs as rotation-powered neutron stars", to appear in A&A; arXiv:1612.01875, it has been shown that up to 11 out of the total 23 SGRs/AXPs known to date, could be described as rotation-powered neutron stars.

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        R. Ruffini, M. Muccino, Y. Aimuratov, C. L. Bianco, C. Cherubini, M. Enderli, M. Kovacevic, R. Moradi, A. V. Penacchioni, G. B. Pisani, J. A. Rueda, and Y. Wang, "GRB 090510: a genuine short-GRB from a binary neutron star coalescing into a Kerr-Newman black hole", ApJ 831, 178 2016.

·        Ruffini, R.; Rueda, J. A.; Muccino, M.; Aimuratov, Y.; Becerra, L. M.; Bianco, C. L.; Kovacevic, M.; Moradi, R.; Oliveira, F. G.; Pisani, G. B.; Wang, Y.; On the classification of GRBs and their occurrence rates; The Astrophysical Journal, 832, 136 (2016).

·        Becerra, L.; Bianco, C. L.; Fryer, C. L.; Rueda, J. A.; Ruffini, R.; On the induced gravitational collapse scenario of gamma-ray bursts associated with supernovae; The Astrophysical Journal, 833, 107 (2016).J. G. Coelho, D. L. Caceres, R. C. R. de Lima, M. Malheiro, J. A. Rueda, and R. Ruffini, On the nature of some SGRs and AXPs as rotation-powered neutron stars, to appear in A&A.

·        D. L. Caceres, S.~M.~de Carvalho, J. G. Coelho, R. C. R. de Lima, and J. A. Rueda, Thermal X-ray emission from massive, fast rotating, highly magnetized white dwarfs, to appear in MNRAS.

·        K. A. Boshkayev, J. A. Rueda, B. A. Zhami, Z. A. Kalymova, and G. S. Balgymbekov, Equilibrium structure of white dwarfs at finite temperatures, IJMPCS, vol. 41, p. 1660129, Mar. 2016.

·        K. A. Boshkayev, J. A. Rueda, and B. A. Zhami, Rotating hot white dwarfs in Gravitation, Astrophysics, and Cosmology (J.-P. Hsu and et al., eds.), pp. 189--190, 2016.

 

Supernovae (Page 1189)

GRBs have broaden the existing problematic of the study of Supernovae. In some models, e.g. the "collapsar" one, all GRBs are assumed to originate from supernovae. Within our approach, we assume that core-collapse supernovae can only lead to neutron stars, and we also assume that GRBs are exclusively generated in the collapse to a black hole. Within this framework, supernovae and GRBs do necessarily originate in a binary system composed by an evolved main sequence star and a neutron star. The concept of induced gravitational collapse leads to the temporal coincidence between the transition from the neutron star to the black hole and the concurrent transition of the late evolved star into a supernova. This very wide topic has been promoted by the collaboration with Prof. Massimo Della Valle, who is an Adjunct Professor at ICRANet and who is currently Co-PI of a VLT proposal "A spectroscopic study of the supernova/GRB connection". This kind of research is particularly important for trying to find a coincidence between electromagnetic radiation, high-energy particles, ultra high-energy cosmic rays, neutrinos and gravitational radiation, possible observable for existing or future detectors. A short summary of the internationally well-known activities of Prof. Della Valle, who is an Adjunct Professor at ICRANet, is given in the report, which contains the many publications in international journals. Prof. Della Valle is also very actively following one graduate student of the IRAP PhD program. A new stimulus has come from the recent understanding of the IGC paradigm, which allows a completely new understanding of the relation between the supernovae and the GRBs.

X-Ray Light curves of different families of GRBs

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        Highly enriched 7Be in the ejecta of Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2 (V5668 Sgr) and the Galactic 7Li origin, Molaro, P, Izzo, L, Mason, E. et al. 2016, MNRAS, 463, L117

·        Pan-STARRS and PESSTO search for an optical counterpart to the LIGO gravitational-wave source GW150914, Smartt, S., Chambres, K., Smith, K. et al. 2016, MNRAS, 462, 4094

·        Supernova rates from the SUDARE VST-Omegacam search II. Rates in a galaxy sample, Botticella, M.T., Cappellaro, E., Greggio, L. et al. 2016,  A&A, in press, arXiv161001176B

·        On extreme transient events from rotating black holes and their gravitational wave emission, van Putten, M. & Della Valle, M. 2016, MNRAS, in press, arXiv161000535V

·        A Search for an Optical Counterpart to the Gravitational-wave Event GW151226, Smartt, S., Chambres, K., Smith, K. et al. 2016, ApJ, 827, L40

·        The new SOXS instrument for the ESO NTT, Schipani, P. Claudi, R. Campana, S. et al. 2016, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes & Instrumentation 2016, paper 9908-152, 2016arXiv160703729S

·        Supplement: "Localization and Broadband Follow-up of the Gravitational-wave Transient GW150914" , Abbott, B., Abbott, R., Abbott, T. et al. 2016, ApJS, 225, 8

·        Localization and Broadband Follow-up of the Gravitational-wave Transient GW150914, Abbott, B., Abbott, R., Abbott, T. et al. 2016, ApJ,  826, L13

·        On the nature of Hydrogen-rich Superluminous Supernovae, Inserra, C., Smartt, S., Gall, E. et al. 2016,  ApJ, submitted, 2016arXiv160401226I

·        A time domain experiment with Swift: monitoring of seven nearby galaxies, Andreoni, I, D'Avanzo, P., Campana, S. et al. 2016, A&A, 587, 147

·        Proposed searches for candidate sources of gravitational waves in a nearby core-collapse supernova survey, Heo, J., Yoon, S., Lee, D. et al. 2016, NewA, 42, 24

·        First Results from Supernova Diversity and Rate Evolution (SUDARE) Survey at VST, Botticella, M.T., Cappellaro, E., Pignata, G. et al. 2016, The Universe of Digital Sky Surveys, Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, Volume 42., Springer International Publishing Switzerland, 2016, p. 197

 

Symmetries in General Relativity (Page 1201)

We have studied (Bini, Esposito, Geralico) cosmological models, involving non-ideal fluids as sources of the gravitational field, with equation of state typical for fluids undergoing phase transitions as a possible mechanism to generate the content of dark matter in the present Universe.

We have continued our works on perturbations of black hole spacetimes (Bini, Damour, Geralico), with transcription of the associated results into the effective-one-body model, i.e. the model which encompasses all other approximation techniques for the description of a two-body system. In particular, we have studied the backreaction due to particles moving on eccentric orbits in Schwarzschild and Kerr spacetimes. Moreover, we have started the inclusion of second order perturbation effects into the effective-one-body model and considered gravitational self-force effects (Bini, Carvalho, Geralico) on a scalar charge orbiting a Reissner-Nordstrom spacetime.

We have continued our studies (Bini, Geralico) on drag and friction forces around black hole spacetimes, motivated by the necessity of a deeper understanding of effects like the well known Poynting-Robertson effect.

We have considered (Bini, Jantzen, Geralico) gyroscope precession effects along  eccentric orbits (either bound or elliptic-like and unbound or hyperbolic-like) around a Kerr spacetime.

Finally (Bini, Mashhoon) we have studied tidal forces around a Kerr black hole, with applications in gravitational gradiometry as well as some novel applications of nonlocal gravity to conformally flat spacetimes.

Papers published in 2016 include:

·         Bini D., Geralico A. and Jantzen R.T., Gyroscope precession along bound equatorial plane orbits around a Kerr black hole, Phys. Rev. D  94,  064066 (2016)

·        Bini D. and Damour T., Conservative second-order gravitational self-force on circular orbits and the effective one-body formalism, Phys. Rev. D, 93, 104040 (2016).

·        Bini D. and Geralico A. Schwarzschild black hole embedded in a dust field: scattering of particles and drag force effects, Class. Quantum. Grav., 33, 125024 (2016)

·        Bini D., Damour T. and Geralico A. High post-Newtonian order gravitational self-force analytical results for eccentric orbits around a Kerr black hole, Phys. Rev. D, 93, no. 12, 124058 (2016)

·        Bini D. and Mashhoon B. Nonlocal Gravity: Conformally Flat Spacetimes, J. Geom. Methods Mod. Phys. 13, 1650081 (2016)

·        Bini D. and Geralico A. Scattering by a Schwarzschild black hole of particles undergoing drag force effects, General Relativity and Gravitation, 48, 101 (2016)

·        Punsly B. and Bini D. General Relativistic Considerations of the Field Shedding Model of Fast Radio Bursts, Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc. 459, L41 (2016)

·        Bini D., Damour T. and Geralico A., New gravitational self-force analytical results for eccentric orbits around a Schwarzschild black hole, Phys. Rev. D, 93, no. 10, 104017 (2016)

·        Bini D., Damour T. and Geralico A., Confirming and improving post-Newtonian and effective-one-body results from self-force computations along eccentric orbits around a Schwarzschild black hole, Phys. Rev. D, 93, no. 6, 064023 (2016)

·        Bini D., Esposito G. and Geralico A., Late time evolution of cosmological models with non-ideal fluids, Phys. Rev. D, vol. 93, 023511 (2016)

 

Self Gravitating Systems, Galactic Structures and Galactic Dynamics (Page 1311)

In 2016 Prof. Filippi and Prof. Cherubini have published an article concerning the Von Mises quasi-linear second order wave equation, which completely describes an irrotational, compressible and barotropic classical perfect fluid. This equation has been shown by the authors in the past to be the nonlinear generalization for the linearized analogue gravity formalism. Moreover they have shown that this equation can be derived from a nontrivial least action principle for the velocity scalar potential only, in contrast to existing analog formulations which are expressed in terms of coupled density and velocity fields. In this article, the classical Hamiltonian field theory associated to such an equation has been developed in the polytropic case. Specifically starting from the action integral, the authors used Euler-Lagrange equations and defining the Hamiltonian density, derived Hamilton's equations. A numerical analysis of this formulation has been presented in the simpler one dimensional case. Such a study can suggest new theoretical schemes possibly useful for numerical fluid dynamics. Another work on classical rotating self-gravitating configurations characterized by a multi-parametric rotation law, written by Prof. Filippi and Prof. Cherubini in collaboration with Dr Cipolletta, Dr J. Rueda and Prof. R. Ruffini, has been completed and will be submitted for publication in January 2017.

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        Cherubini C. and Filippi S., Commun. Comput. Phys. 19, (2016), 758-769.

 

Interdisciplinary Complex Systems (Page 1345)

These researches have been focused in fluid-structure problems in hemodynamics in arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation, a mathematically involved theory which describes systems of partial differential equations with free boundary conditions. Specifically in a paper on IJMPC the nonlinear equations' set which describes the fluid and the elastic wall within which the fluid flows have been numerically integrated and the previously introduced TDB risk indicator has been applied to this more involved case in order to perform a risk assessment. In an article in press on Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, on the other hand, a numerical analysis of the same mathematical problem, but here focused on the case of different biomedical prostheses applied to real patients' geometries has been carried out in order to perform a quantitative comparison of the mechanical behavior of the different scenarios, having in mind as ultimate target the best outcomes for patients' health. This article will appear at the beginning of 2017. Other articles regarding elastic wave propagation in realistic head models aiming to model bone conduction phenomena, electromechanical feedback in cardiac tissue, temperature effects and advanced analyses of turbulence occurrence in cardiac dynamics are expected to be submitted for publication before the end of the present year.

 

Left: Electrical activity map of an electro-elastic deformed patch of cardiac-type tissue. Right: Turbulent flow structure (specifically the velocity amplitude) in a deformed vessel, obtained by numerical integration through finite elements of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations.

Papers published in 2016 include:

·        Nestola, M.G.C., Gizzi, A., Cherubini, C., Filippi, S., "Three-band decom-position analysis in multiscale FSI models of abdominal aortic aneurysms", (2016) International Journal of Modern Physics C 27 (2), 1650017.

·        Nestola, M.G.C., Faggiano, E., Vergara, C., Lancellotti, R.M., Ippolito, S., Antona, C., Filippi, S., Quarteroni, A., Scrofani, R., "Computational comparison of aortic root stresses in presence of stentless and stented aortic valve bio-prostheses", (2016) Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, in press.

 

Books

An important fundamental research topic is the investigation of "analogue models of gravity". Such models have been used to understand many aspect of gravitational phenomena, in particular the mechanism of Hawking- and Unruh-Radiation, by studying in supersonic flow nozzles. These were of great help in dispersing criticism of these radiations based on our ignorance of the divergences of local quantum field theory at ultrashort distances. Another important analogy is bases on the relation between Einstein-Cartan Physics and the theory of defects in solids, worked out in detail in the textbook by our adjunct faculty members H. Kleinert: <http://users.physik.fu-berlin.de/~kleinert/kleinert/?p=booklist&details=1>. This analogy has recently allowed to understand the equivalence of Einstein's theory of gravitation with his Teleparallel Theory of Gravitation as a result of a novel gauge symmetry. The first uses only the curvature of spacetime to explain gravitational forces, while the second uses only torsion. The equivalence relies on the fact that crystalline defects of rotation and translation (disclinations and dislocations, respectively) are not independent of each other, but the ones can be understood as superpositions of the other. Moreover, the analogy has allowed to set up an infinite family of intermediate theories in which curvature and torsion appear both <http://klnrt.de/385/385.pdf>. Finally, all geometries relevant in gravitational physics has been derived from a completely new theory of multivalued fields <http://www.physik.fu-berlin.de/~kleinert/kleinert/?p=booklist&details=9>.

The volume: Einstein, Fermi and Heisenberg, and the birth of relativistic astrophysics is on the way of being completed by R. Ruffini with contributions by Emanuele Alesci, Donato Bini, Dino Boccaletti, Andrea Geralico, and Robert T. Jantzen. This book has some different goals: 1) to translate into English a set of papers by Fermi which were available only in Italian; 2) to try to understand the reason why, having been one of the greatest experts on Einstein theory in the earliest years of his life, after his transfer to Rome and later on to the United States Fermi never published anything on Einstein theory: the only paper by Fermi treating general relativity and cosmology was written to prove George Gamow wrong and Einstein theory not proper to the analysis of cosmology - on the contrary, the work of Fermi turned out to be the real starting point of modern relativistic cosmology and proved the validity of Gamow theory and of course of the Einstein theory of general relativity; 3) the book also endures on the difficult dialogue between Einstein and Heisenberg, with some personal reminiscence, and illustrates how all the developments of the last 50 years have been essentially based on their work as well as on the one of Fermi. In 2017 this book will be the topic of an exhibition in Armenia, Brazil, Italy.

 

 

ICRANet and the Academic World University Ranking (ARWU)

Dr. Costantino Zazza made a report (see Enclosure 14) on "ICRANet and the Academic World University Ranking (ARWU)" showing the level of ICRANet in the ARWU method of evaluation (also called "Shanghai ranking") which is the most commonly accepted ranking at international level and is based mainly on four criteria:

- quality of education;

- quality of faculty;

- research output;

- per capita performance.

The report shows the list of the top 10 universities of the ARWU and proceed to make a comparison between ICRANet and the institution at the first place in the ranking from the point of view of per capita performance, Caltech. The per capita performance is normalized by the number of the research staff units of the institution and thus it is an indicator that allows to perform an unbiased comparison between institutions with very different numbers of research units. By using the SCOPUS database to look for the total number of publications in high level international refereed scientific journals and dividing it by the number of research units, it is evident that in 2015 (the data about 2016 are not yet available in the database) the scores of Caltech and ICRANet are similar: 10,73 Caltech (3486 publications divided by 325 research units) vs. 9,00 ICRANet (54 publications divided by 6 research units). Analogous result is obtained by comparing ICRANet with the other institutions worldwide at the first places of the ARWU ranking, like e.g. 10,08 for Harvard (22781 publications divided by 2260 research units). This comparison shows the very high level of ICRANet among the universities classified in the ARWU on the basis of their per capita publications. This means that ICRANet must be considered as an excellence center, making research at the maximum level, among the international institutions of research.

 

 

Acknowledgements

I like to express, also on behalf of all Members of ICRANet, our gratitude to the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, and to the Ministers of Economy and Finances, of Italy, Armenia, including the State Committee of Science of Armenia, and Brazil for their  support, and I sincerely wish that the current difficulties in Brazil will be soon over, leading to the actual supply of the approved funds so allowing the 17 Centers actively working there with ICRANet to reach additional important results.

I also express the gratitude to the Vatican Secretary of State, to the Presidents of the Universities of Tucson and Stanford as well as to the President of ICRA for their support to the ICRANet activities.

Particular recognition goes to Italian Foreign Minister for having supported ongoing ICRANet activities in Belarus, Iran, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan which, coordinated with Armenia, are opening new opportunities of Research in Central Asia. Equally important the support by local organizations to the traditional activities in China (Mainland) and China (Taiwan) and in Korea. I like as well to recall the further extensions of activities within Columbia and Argentina whose Universities and Research organizations have generously contributed trough the financial support of students and postdocs to the further expansion of ICRANet activities. For all this a particular gratitude goes to Min. Fabrizio Nicoletti, to Cons. Enrico Padula and to Prof. Immacolata Pannone, of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation for their attention and constant support and advice.

A special recognition goes to the activities of the many Ambassadors and Consuls who have greatly helped in the intense series of activities carried out by ICRANet in Brazil, China, Colombia, Italy, Mexico.

I also express the plaudit for the support of ongoing activities at Villa Ratti to the President of Nice University Prof. Frédérique Vidal, and to the Vice President Prof. Stéphane Ngô Maï, as well as to the Director of the Observatoire de la Côte D'Azur Prof. Thierry Lanz. We are grateful to the Mayor of Pescara, Marco Alessandrini, to the Mayor of Nice Philippe Pradal, to the President of PACA, Christian Estrosi, to the Cons. Agnès Rampal of PACA, to the President of the National Academy of Science of Armenia, Prof. Radik Martirosyan, and to the Director of CBPF in Rio de Janeiro, Prof. Ronald Shellard, for their generous support in granting to ICRANet the logistics of the Centers in their respective townships.

Clearly, a special mention of satisfaction goes to all the Scientific Institutions and Research Centers which have signed with us a collaboration agreement which include Al- Farabi Kazakh National University (Kazakhstan); ASI (Italian Space Agency, Italy), BSU (Belarusian State University, Belarus), CAPES (Brazilian Fed. Agency for Support and Evaluation of Grad. Education), CBPF (Brazil), State Government of Ceará (Brazil), CNR (National Research Council, Italy), FAPERJ (Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), GARR (Italy), IASBS (Institute For Advanced Studies In Basic Sciences, Iran), ICTP (The Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics, Italy), IFCE (Instituto Federal de Educação Ciência e Tecnologia do Ceará, Brasil), IHEP (Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China), IHES (Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, France), INFN (National Institute for Nuclear Physics, Italy), INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Brasil), IPM (Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, Iran), ITA (Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Brazil), Isfahan University of Technology (Iran), LeCosPa (Leung Center for Cosmology and Particle Astrophysics, Taiwan), NASB (National Academy of Sciences, Belarus), NAS RA (National Academy of Science, Armenia), Nice University Sophia Antipolis (France), Pescara University "D'Annunzio" (Italy), SCSA (State Committee of Science of Armenia), Sharif University of Technology (Iran), Shiraz University (Iran), UAM (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México), UDEA (Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia), UDESC (Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina, Brazil), UERJ (Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil), UFF (Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil), UFPB (Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Brazil), UFPE (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil), UFRGS (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), UFSC (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil), UIS (Universidad Industrial de Santander, Colombia), UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma De Mexico), UnB (Universidade de Brasília, Brazil), UNICAMP (Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil), UNIFE (University of Ferrara, Italy), UNIFEI (Universidade Federal de Itajubà, Brazil), University of Rome "Sapienza" (Italy), UNS (Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina).

ICRANet, as sponsor of the IRAP-PhD program, expresses its gratitude to AEI - Albert Einstein Institute - Potsdam (Germany); Bremen University (Germany); Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Germany); CBPF - Brazilian Centre for Physics Research (Brazil); Ferrara University (Italy); Indian centre for space physics (India); INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Brasil); Institut Hautes Etudes Scientifiques - IHES (France); Inst. of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Science - IHEP- CAS, China; Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie - MPIfR (Germany); National Academy of Science (Armenia); Nice University Sophia Antipolis (France); Observatory of the Côte d'Azur (France); Rome University - "Sapienza" (Italy); Savoie University (France); Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (China); Stockholm University (Sweden); Tartu Observatory (Estonia) for their joint effort in creating and activating this first European Ph.D. program in Relativistic Astrophysics which has obtained the official recognition of the Erasmus Mundus program of the European Community. All these activities were achieved thanks to the dedicated work of Prof. Pascal Chardonnet.

Finally, thanks goes to the Physics Department of the University of Rome "Sapienza" for all the collaboration with ICRA in the teaching, in the electronic links and in the common research.

A special mention of gratitude, of course, goes to the Administrative, Secretarial and Technical staff of ICRANet and ICRA for their essential and efficient daily support and to all Faculty for their dedication to fostering, opening and teaching new scientific horizons in our knowledge of the Universe.