ICRANet Newsletter

ICRANet Newsletter
June - July 2017

English - Italian - Portuguese - Russian

SUMMARY
1. An ICRANet publication lead by the Director of ICRANet-Yerevan, prof. Narek Sahakyan just published in MNRAS (Impact factor: 4.961)
2. Kerr and Ruffini discussing with Hawking in Cambridge
3. The 2017 Annual meeting of the Division of Gravitation and Relativistic Astrophysics of the Chinese Physical Society / The Fifth Galileo-Xu Guangqi Meeting, June 25 -30, 2017, Chengdu – China
4. XIII International Conference on Gravitation, Astrophysics and Cosmology - 15th Italian-Korean Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics - A joint meeting, July 3 to 7, 2017, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea
5. Prof. Ruffini, in Zurich, for the Conference in Honor of Demetrios Christodoulou's 65th Birthday
6. IRAP PhD 2017 call
7. Recent publications
8. Upcoming meetings
9. Renewal of the agreement with the Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentine

1. An ICRANet publication lead by the Director of ICRANet-Yerevan, prof. Narek Sahakyan just published in MNRAS (Impact factor: 4.961)

This publication also signs the beginning of collaboration with MAGIC recently joined by ICRANet-Yerevan as a Member, see: https://magic.mpp.mpg.de/newcomers/magic-team/addresses/
a) N. Sahakyan and S. Gasparyan, "High Energy Gamma-Ray Emission From PKS 1441+25", MNRAS (2017) 470 (3): 2861-2869 (08 June 2017), available here: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx1402
The γ-ray observations of the flat-spectrum radio quasar PKS 1441+25 (z = 0.939), using the Fermi large Area Telescope data have been accumulated during 2015 January – December. A γ-ray flare was observed in January 24, when the flux increased up to (2.22 ± 0.38) × 10⁻⁶ photon cm⁻² s⁻¹ with the flux-doubling time-scale being as short as ∼1.44 d. The spectral analysis shows that from 2015 April 13 to April 28, the MeV-to-GeV photon index has hardened and changes in the range of Γ = (1.73 − 1.79) for most of the time. The hardest photon index of Γ = 1.54 ± 0.16 has been observed on MJD 57 131.46 with 11.8σ which is not common for flat-spectrum radio quasars. For the same period the γ-ray spectrum shows a possible deviation from a simple power-law shape, indicating a spectral cutoff at E_cut = 17.7 ± 8.9 GeV.

2. Kerr and Ruffini discussing with Hawking in Cambridge

Figure 2. Prof. Ruffini and Prof. Stephen Hawking in Cambridge, June 19th, 2017.

Professor Remo Ruffini, Director of ICRANet, and Professor Roy Patrick Kerr, the discoverer of the world famous "Black Hole Kerr metric" and appointed professor "Yevgeny Mikhajlovic Lifshitz - ICRANet Chair", have had a 4 days intensive meeting at the University of Cambridge, both at DAMTP and at the Institute of Astronomy, with Professor Stephen Hawking and the resident scientists: they illustrated recent progress made by scientists of ICRANet. The presentation, which can be seen on www.icranet.org/documents/Ruffini-Cambridge2017.pdf, includes: - GRB 081024B and GRB 140402A: two additional short GRBs from binary neutron star mergers, by Y. Aimuratov, R. Ruffini, M. Muccino, et al.; Ap.J in press.

This ICRANet activity presents the evidence of two new short gamma-ray bursts (S-GRBs) from the mergers of neutron stars binaries forming a Kerr black hole. The existence of a common GeV emission precisely following the black hole formation has been presented. Yerlan Aimuratov is a young scientist from the ICRANet associated University in Alamaty Kazakistan. A free-available version of the article can be found on: https://arXiv.org/abs/1704.08179

- X-ray Flares in Early Gamma-ray Burst Afterglow, by R. Ruffini, Y. Wang, Y. Aimuratov, et al.; Ap.J submitted.

This work analyses the early X-ray flares, followed by a "plateau" and then by the late decay of the X-ray afterglow, ("flare-plateau-afterglow phase") observed by Swift-XRT. It is shown that only binary-driven hypernovae (BdHNe), long-GRBs generated by the explosion of a Supernova with a close binary neutron star companion generates such flares. The nature of the flares is identified by the collision of the GRB emitted by the formation of a Black hole with the supernova ejecta. Particular important has been the contribution of a young Chinese ICRANet scientist: Wang Yu. A free-available version of the article can be found on: https://arXiv.org/abs/1704.03821

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

Figure 3. An image of computer of Stephen Hawking, Cambridge, June 19th, 2017.	Figure 4. Prof. Ruffini and Prof. Kerr with his wife at the dinner at Prof. Hawking’s place, June 20th, 2017.

This work presents the most advanced numerical simulations of the induced gravitational collapse (IGC) model of long-GRBs associated with type Ib/c supernovae, named BdHNe. Particularly important has been the contribution of a young ICRANet scientist from the ICRANet associated University in Santander Colombia, also collaborating with the Los Alamos National Laboratory: Laura Becerra. A free-available version of the article can be found on: https://arXiv.org/abs/1606.02523

- Strong-field gravitational-wave emission in Schwarzschild and Kerr geometries: some general consideration, J. F. Rodriguez, J. A. Rueda, R. Ruffini.

In this work the latest results possibly necessary to the interpretations of LIGO-VIRGO observations are presented. A free-available version of the article can be found on: http://arxiv.org/abs/1706.06440 The activities have continued on Tuesday at Prof. S. Hawking's home, where both Prof. Ruffini and Prof. Kerr have been invited for dinner. On Wednesday and Thursday additional meetings and a joint seminar for the Mathematics and Astronomy departments has been held at DAMTP of the University of Cambridge respectively on "Black Holes", by Prof. Roy P. Kerr, and on "The Moment of formation of a Black Hole in Gamma-Ray Bursts" by Prof. Remo Ruffini (see http://www.icranet.org/documents/Ruffini-Cambridge2017.pdf). The video of the seminars: http://www.icranet.org/kerr-ruffini-cambridge.

Figure 5. Prof. Ruffini and Prof. Kerr in Cambridge, UK, June 21th, 2017.

3. The 2017 Annual meeting of the Division of Gravitation and Relativistic Astrophysics of the Chinese Physical Society / The Fifth Galileo-Xu Guangqai Meeting, June 25 -30, 2017, Chengdu – China

Figure 6. Group photo of the participants to the 2017 Annual meeting of the Division of Gravitation and Relativistic Astrophysics of the Chinese Physical Society / The Fifth Galileo-Xu Guangqai Meeting, June 25 -30, 2017, Chengdu – China.

This year the fifth Galileo-Xu Guangqi was jointed with the annual meeting of the Division of Gravitation and Relativistic Astrophysics of the Chinese Physical Society, and was held in the School of Physical Science and Technology, Southwest Jiaotong University, at Chengdu – China on June 25 -30. It represents a CAS-TWAS-ICRA-ICRANet's collaboration with University of Roma “Sapienza”, University of Nice “Sophia Antipolis”, Stockholm University, Free University of Berlin, University of Bremen, ICRA, ENEA, INFN, ICTP, TWAS , Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CBPF, the Tartu Observatory, the Vatican Observatory, together with Chinese Academy Science institutions including: the Shanghai Astrophysical Observatory, the Institutes of High Energy Physics, the Institute of Theoretical Physics, the University of Science and Technology of China, as well as other Chinese leading universities among them: Shanghai Jiao-Tong University, Southwest Jiaotong University, the Beijing Normal University.
The joint meeting is particularly dedicated to recall the roots of the modern scientific research in the East and the West and review the recent progress in one of the most advanced fields of scientific research: the one of relativistic astrophysics. Current progress in Relativistic Astrophysics made possible by astronomical observations of the Sun, of the Stars and of the Universe, and the current developments of theoretical studies of gravitation and cosmology as well as other fundamental physics was reviewed. These results have been achieved thanks to the theories of Albert Einstein and to the unprecedented numbers of observational techniques: in X-ray, Gamma-ray, optical wave-lengths from space based observatories, in radio telescopes wavelengths from telescopes on the ground as well as in particle physics from underground observatories. In this joint meeting, there were more than 450 participants coming worldwide, in particular Asia area, including many young Chinese researchers and Ph.D. students from all over China. The researchers and Ph.D. students of ICRANet institutions have actively participated the meeting.
The joint organizing committee organized four day intensive scientific program of plenary and parallel sessions for about 120 speakers, and one day free discussion among participants while they were together or visiting the Chengdu area which has most rich cultural heritage and long history in China. The joint meeting program covered a broad topics, including but not limited to the theory of gravitation, gravitational wave physics, black hole physics, quantum gravity, gravitational experiments, curved space quantum field theory, relativistic astrophysics, dark matter and dark energy, and cosmology. The meeting was scientifically very successful and discussions and idea exchange were fruitful. Young students and researchers have made their important presentations to the meeting and particular awards were delivered to excellent presentations.

Figure 7. Prof. Ruffini during his talk at the 2017 Annual meeting of the Division of Gravitation and Relativistic Astrophysics of the Chinese Physical Society / The Fifth Galileo-Xu Guangqai Meeting, June 25 -30, 2017, Chengdu – China.	Figure 8. Prof. Ruffini and prof. Cai at the closing ceremony of the 2017 Annual meeting of the Division of Gravitation and Relativistic Astrophysics of the Chinese Physical Society / The Fifth Galileo-Xu Guangqai Meeting with the staff.

In addition, Prof. Ruffini presented a public lecture in Southwest Jiaotong University, undergraduate students were interested very much and raised many stimulating question and discussions. The fifth Galileo-Xu Guangqi meeting follows the first, second, the third and fourth meetings of this series held on October 2009 in Shanghai – China (http://www.icranet.org/galileo-xuguangqi), on July 2010 in Ventimiglia - Italy and Nice – France (http://www.icranet.org/2nd_galileo-xuguangqi), on October 2011 in Beijing (http://www.icranet.org/3gx) and on May 2015 always in Beijing (http://www.icranet.org/4gx) – China.

The meeting's program is available here: http://gra2017.csp.escience.cn/dct/page/70010

At this link the photos of the meeting: http://www.icranet.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1130

At this link the video of the public lecture of Professor Ruffini: http://www.icranet.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1120

4. XIII International Conference on Gravitation, Astrophysics and Cosmology - 15th Italian-Korean Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics - A joint meeting, July 3 to 7, 2017, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea

Figure 9. Group picture of the participants of the joint ICGAC-13-IK15 meeting at Ewha Womans University underground campus in Seoul, on July 3 to 7, 2017. In the first rows with prof. Ruffini co-chairs of the International Organizing Committee of the meeting: Gungwon Kang, Sang Pyo Kim, Sung-Won Kim and Jonghyuk Yoon.

This year the symposium was held at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, on July 3 to 7, 2017, in conjunction with the XIII International Conference on Gravitation, Astrophysics and Cosmology (ICGAC-13), a series of biennial conferences on Gravitation, Astrophysics and Cosmology which takes place in the Asia-Pacific region with the goal to promote cooperation among the member countries and within an international context, to promote high level studies on hot topics and to encourage young physicists on these fields. The first ICGAC meeting was initiated by Prof. Yong Min Cho, Korea, one of the founders of the APCTP, in 1993.
The Italian-Korean meeting started in 1987, then continued for every two years alternatively in Korea and Italy with the support from Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Network (ICRANet) and hosting institutes.
At this meeting many important contributions have been given, in particular in connection to the recent claim about the discovery of gravitational waves. Other topics included: inflationary theory, electroweak monopoles production and search, dark matter and dark energy, black holes, neutron stars and gamma-ray bursts.
In this meeting there were 164 participants including researchers from Austria, Canada, China, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Pakistan and Russia.
Two PhD students from ICRANet, Daria Primorac (talk: Analysis of the GRB110731A within the fireshell model) and Rahim Moradi (talk: Charged Cosmological Black holes), have received awards for best presentations.
All presentations are declared eligible for publication in a proceedings through EPJ (European Physical Journal) Web of Conferences after proper reviewing process in accordance with the journals' Policy on Publishing Integrity.

The website of the meeting: http://www.icranet.org/ik15
The program is available here: https://www.apctp.org/plan.php/ICGAC-IK/1874
The photos of the meeting: http://www.icranet.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1132

5. Prof. Ruffini, in Zurich, for the Conference in Honor of Demetrios Christodoulou's 65th Birthday

Figure 10. Participants of the Conference in Honor of Demetrios Christodoulou's 65th Birthday. On his right is prof. Remo Ruffini.

On July 10-14, 2017, Prof. Remo Ruffini, Director of ICRANet has participated to the Conference in Honor of Demetrios Christodoulou's 65th Birthday at the Department of Mathematics of ETH in Zurich (Switzerland). At this conference, organized by Lydia Bieri (University of Michigan), Jürg Fröhlich (ETH Zürich), Tristan Rivière (ETH Zürich), Michael Struwe (ETH Zürich), about 146 scientists, professors and researches have participated along with prof. Yau (Fields medal).
Professor Ruffini, in this occasion, recalled how the introduction of an effective potential technique to integrate the geodesic equations in the Kerr-Newman geometry has been extremely fruitful leading, among others: to the concept of last circular orbits of a particle around Kerr solution, to the mass energy formula of a Kerr and a Kerr-Newman Black Hole, and to the explanation of a vast number of observational properties of astrophysical objects ranging from active galactic nuclei to Gamma Ray Bursts. This, in turn, leads to the almost daily observation of the formation of a Kerr-Newman Black hole in our entire Universe. This technique has been equally successfully applied to inquire the consistency of claimed discoveries of gravitational waves.
The meeting website: https://www.math.ethz.ch/fim/conferences/christodoulou.html

6. IRAP PhD 2017 call

The International Relativistic Astrophysics Ph.D. (IRAP PhD) – Joint Doctorate Program sponsored by ICRANet.
A deadline of 30th September 2017 has been established for eight positions open internationally and directly sponsored by the participating institutions.
The coordinated effort of many international organizations such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), has led to an unprecedented amount of scientific information from the microphysical world all the way to the entire Universe. To harvest the results of these scientific missions, a specific Ph. D. program has been envisaged in order to involve the students in the analysis and modeling of the above observational data within the theory of general relativity and relativistic quantum and classical field theories.
The students will also be involved in innovative experimental programs in relativistic astrophysics. The program provides expertise in the most advanced topics of experimental, mathematical and theoretical physics relevant to the context of astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology. These activities, being necessarily international, the scientific and academic institutions, indicated below, participate with their own specific scientific specialties and a joint degree is delivered, at the end of the program. The Institutions participating in the IRAP PhD are: the international organization ICRANet (Pescara, Rio de Janeiro and Rome) as coordinating institution and the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis as the host Institution; the Albert Einstein Institute, Potsdam (Germany); Indian Centre for Space Physics, Kolkata (India); Observatoire de la Cote D’Azur, Nice (France); University of Ferrara (Italy); University of Rome, la Sapienza (Italy); University of Savoie, Annecy (France).
The Final Ph.D. degree will be jointly delivered by the Academic Institutions participating in the program.
The website of the IRAP PhD program: http://www.icranet.org/irap-phd/
Hyperspace link: http://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/2017/07/31/irap-phd-2017-call/

7. Recent publications

C. R. Argüelles, A. Krut, J. A. Rueda, R. Ruffini , "Novel constraints on fermionic dark matter from galactic observables", Submitted to MNRAS, 27 Jun 2017, available here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.07040
We have recently introduced a new model for the distribution of dark matter (DM) in galaxies, the Ruffini-Arguelles-Rueda (RAR) model, based on a self-gravitating system of massive fermions at finite temperatures. The RAR model, for fermion masses above keV, successfully describes the DM halos in galaxies, and predicts the existence of a denser quantum core towards the center of each configuration. We demonstrate here, for the first time, that the introduction of a cutoff in the fermion phase-space distribution, necessary to account for the finite Galaxy size, defines a new solution with a compact quantum core which represents an alternative to the central black hole (BH) scenario for SgrA*. For a fermion mass in the range 48 keV/c²≲m≲345 keV/c², the DM halo distribution fulfills the most recent data of the Milky Way rotation curves, while harbors a dense quantum core of 4×10⁶M_⊙ within the S2 star pericenter. In particular, for a fermion mass of m∼50 keV/c² the model is able to explain the DM halos from typical dwarf spheroidal to normal elliptical galaxies, while harboring dark and massive compact objects from ∼10³M_⊙ up to ∼10⁸M_⊙ at their respective centers. The model is shown to be in good agreement with different observationally inferred universal relations, such as the ones connecting DM halos with supermassive dark central objects. Finally, the model provides a natural mechanism for the formation of supermassive BHs as heavy as MBH∼ few 10⁸M_⊙. We argue that larger BH masses (MBH∼10⁹−10¹⁰M_⊙) may be achieved by assuming subsequent accretion processes onto the above heavy seeds, depending on accretion efficiency and environment.

8. Upcoming meetings

1) Fifteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting on General Relativity (MG15), Rome 2018
The dates of the Fifteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting on General Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysics to be held on the campus of the University of Rome "La Sapienza" in Rome, Italy in the year 2018 are announced:
Onsite registration Sunday July 1,
Opening Monday July 2,
Closing Saturday July 7, 2018.
Further information will be updated here and available at the website.
Hyperspace announcement: http://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/2017/05/31/fifteenth-marcel-grossmann-meeting-on-general-relativity-mg15-rome/
MG meeting website: http://www.icra.it/mg/

2) The third Landau-Dirac Ph.D training School dedicated to Supernovae Explosions and Gamma-Ray Bursts, Cargese, France
The Cargese school to be held on 11-15 september 2017, Institut d'Études Scientifiques de Cargèse, is organized with the following preliminary scientific program:

Lectio magistralis: General relativistic transformations in GRBs
Carlo Luciano Bianco (ICRANet & Sapienza University)
Lectio magistralis: On the theory of supernovae explosions
Valery Chechetkin (KIAM, RAS Moscow)
Lectio magistralis: On supernovae classification
Massimo Della Valle (Capodimonte Astronomical Observatory)
Lectio magistralis: On the discovery of gamma-ray bursts
Filippo Frontera (University of Ferrara)
Lectio magistralis: On the theory of stellar evolution
Georges Meynet (University of Geneva and Geneva Observatory)
Lectio magistralis: The transition from a supernova to a hypernova
Marco Muccino (ICRANet & Sapienza University)
Lectio magistralis: On the Induced Gravitational Collapse
Jorge Rueda (ICRANet & Sapienza University)
Lectio magistralis: On the theory of black holes
Remo Ruffini (ICRANet & Sapienza University)
Lectio magistralis: On the theory of inflation
Aleksei A. Starobinsky (Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics)
Advanced seminar: Dawn of the universe and the quest of the first stars
Pascal Chardonnet (USMB & LAPTh Annecy-le-Vieux)
Advanced seminar: Opacity for high energy photons and gamma-gamma scattering
Gregory Vereshchagin (ICRANet & Sapienza University)

Website of the meeting: https://indico.in2p3.fr/event/14604/
Hyperspace Link: http://hyperspace.uni-frankfurt.de/2017/07/31/the-third-landau-dirac-ph-d-training-school-dedicated-to-supernovae-explosions-and-gamma-ray-bursts/

9. Renewal of the agreement with the Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentine

On the 10th of July, the agreement between ICRANet and the UNS (Universidad Nacional del Sur) has been renewed. This new agreement was signed by Dr. Mario Ricardo Sabbatini, Rector of the UNS, and Prof. Ruffini, Director of ICRANet. This agreement will be valid for 5 years and the joint activities will consist in:
- promotion of theoretical and observational research activities within the field of Relativistic Astrophysics;
- the institutional exchange of faculty members, researchers, post- doctoral fellows and students;
- development of teaching and/or research activities;
- the support of technical-scientific and cultural events and activities open to the public;
- the organization of seminars, conferences, workshops or short courses;
- joint publications

The text of the agreement can be found here: http://www.icranet.org/docs/ICRANetUNS.pdf