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ICRANet Scientific Report 2019 Print E-mail

ICRANet

The 2019 Scientific Report

Presented to

The Scientific Committee

by

Remo Ruffini

Director of ICRANet



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.

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 10th 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. On August 12th, 2011 the President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff signed the entrance of Brazil in ICRANet. All of them have ratified the Statute of ICRANet (see Enclosures 1-2-3-4).

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 2019 report is to review the traditional fields of research, upgrade the publication list and scientific results obtained in the meantime in the ICRANet Centers in Italy, Armenia, Brazil, France, report on the status of the requests of adhesion to ICRANet by Belarus and China (see Enclosures 5-6), 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".



1. International Meetings

I would like now to remind some Scientific Meetings organized by ICRANet in 2019 (see Enclosure 7).

We have completed the proceedings of:

    The Third Zeldovich meeting, Minsk, Belarus, April 23-27, 2018 (proceedings published by Springer in Astronomy Reports).

We are completing the proceedings of:

    15th Marcel Grossmann Meeting (MGXV), Rome, Italy, July 1-7, 2018 (proceedings published by World Scientific).

We have also organized the following meetings:

    The Open Universe International Doctoral School "The discovery of Black Holes", Nice, France, June 10-14, 2019.

    16th Italian-Korean Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics, Pescara, Italy, July 1-5 , 2019.



2. 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.



3. 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 8). 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)

    - ASI - Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (Italy)

    - Bremen University (Germany)

    - Bucaramanga University (Colombia)

    - Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Germany)

    - CBPF - Brazilian Centre for Physics Research (Brazil)

    - CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Italy)

    - Ferrara University (Italy)

    - ICRA (Italy)

    - INAF - Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (Italy)

    - Indian centre for space physics (India)

    - Institut Hautes Etudes Scientifiques - IHES (France)

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

    - INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Brasil)

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

    - National Academy of Science (Armenia)

    - Observatory of the Côte d'Azur (France)

    - Rome University - "Sapienza" (Italy)

    - Savoie-Mont-Blanc University (France)

    - Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (China)

    - Stockholm University (Sweden)

    - Tartu Observatory (Estonia)

    - UAM - Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Mexico)

    - Université Côte d'Azur (France)


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:

Map of the Institutions participating in the IRAP-PhD program

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 - Germany
- Menegoni Eloisa - Italy
- Sahakyan Narek - Armenia
- Saini Sahil - Indian


Ninth Cycle 2010-2013 (including Erasmus Mundus call)
- Arguelles Carlos - Argentina
- Benetti Micol - Italy
- Muccino Marco - Italy
- Baranov Andrey - Russia
- Benedetti Alberto - Italy
- 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 Erasmus Mundus 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 2016-2019
- Baghmanyan Vardan - Armenia
- Bedić Suzana - Croatia
- Campion Stefano - Italy
- Chen Yen-Chen - Taiwan
- Gasparyan Sargis - Armenia
- Vieira Lobato Ronaldo - Brazil
- Zargaryan Davit - Armenia


Sixteenth Cycle 2017-2020
- Becerra Vergara Eduar Antonio - Colombia
- Carinci Massimo Luca Emiliano - Italy
- Prakapenia Mikalai - Belarus
- Yunis Rafael Ignacio - Argentina



4. Summary of the Main Lines of Research from Volume 2 and Volume 3 of the Report.

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


High Energy Gamma-rays from Active Galactic Nuclei (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 IRAP-PhD students, and of Master and undergraduate students, with administrative and technical support.

The MAGIC telescope

Papers published in 2019 include:

    V. Acciari,.....S. Gasparyan...N. Sahakyan, .... D. Zaric, "Testing emission models on the extreme blazar 2WHSP J073326.7+515354 detected at very high energies with the MAGIC telescopes", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 490, Issue 2, p.2284-2299, 2019.

    R. Ruffini, R. Moradi, J. Rueda, L. Becerra, C. Bianco, C. Cherubini, S. Filippi, Y. Chen, M. Karlica, N. Sahakyan, Y. Wang, S. Xue, "On the GeV Emission of the Type I BdHN GRB 130427A", The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 886, Issue 2, article id. 82, 13 pp., 2019.

    V. Acciari,.....S. Gasparyan...N. Sahakyan, .... D. Zaric, "Observation of inverse Compton emission from a long g-ray burst", Nature, Volume 575, Issue 7783, p.459-463, 2019.

    V. Acciari,.....S. Gasparyan...N. Sahakyan, .... D. Zaric, "Teraelectronvolt emission from the g-ray burst GRB 190114C", Nature, Volume 575, Issue 7783, p.455-458, 2019.

    N. Sahakyan, "Origin of the multiwavelength emission of PKS 0502+049", accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics, doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201936715, arXiv:1911.12087, 2019.

    V. Acciari,.....S. Gasparyan...N. Sahakyan, .... D. Zaric, "New hard-TeV extreme blazars detected with the MAGIC telescopes", accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Supplement, arXiv:1911.06680, 2019.

    P. Giommi, C. Brandt, U. Barres de Almeida, A. Pollock, F. Arneodo, Y. Chang, O. Civitarese, M. Angelis, V. DElia, J. Del Rio Vera, S. Di Pippo, R. Middei, A. Penacchioni, M. Perri, R. Ruffini, N. Sahakyan, S. Turriziani, "Open Universe for Blazars: a new generation of astronomical products based on 14 years of Swift-XRT data", Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 631, id.A116, 11 pp., 2019.

    T. Glauch, P. Padovani, P. Giommi, E. Resconi, B. Arsioli, N. Sahakyan, M. Huber, "Dissecting the region around IceCube-170922A: the blazar TXS 0506+056 as the first cosmic neutrino source", EPJ Web of Conferences, Volume 207, id.02003, 2019.

    V. Acciari,.....S. Gasparyan...N. Sahakyan, .... D. Zaric, "Constraints on Gamma-Ray and Neutrino Emission from NGC 1068 with the MAGIC Telescopes", The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 883, Issue 2, article id. 135, 9 pp., 2019.

    V. Acciari,.....S. Gasparyan...N. Sahakyan, .... D. Zaric, "Measurement of the extragalactic background light using MAGIC and Fermi-LAT gammaray observations of blazars up to z = 1", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 486, Issue 3, p.4233-4251, 2019.

    V. Acciari,.....S. Gasparyan...N. Sahakyan, .... D. Zaric, "Deep observations of the globular cluster M15 with the MAGIC telescopes", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 484, Issue 2, p.2876-2885, 2019.

    J. Rueda, R. Ruffini, Y.Wang, C. Bianco, J. Blanco-Iglesias, M. Karlica, P. Loren-Aguilar, R. Moradi, N. Sahakyan, "Electromagnetic emission of white dwarf binary mergers", Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Issue 03, article id. 044, 2019.

    N. Sahakyan, "Origin of the multiwavelength emission of PKS 0502+049",Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 622, id.A144, 10 pp. 2019.


The ICRANet-Minsk Report (Page 89)

ICRANet-Minsk center was established in 2017 following the agreement between ICRANet and the National Academy of Sciences of Republic of Belarus. It operates in areas of Relativistic Astrophysics and Cosmology, in the theoretical and observational fields, in line with ICRANet activities. Specifically its research focuses on radiation transfer in relativistic plasma, kinetics of relativistic plasma, and effects of gravity in light nteraction with quantum systems. Due to requirement of heavy parallel computing, special hardware is developed, in particular the workstation of ICRANet-Minsk which is based on GPU modules allowing peak power of 14 TFLOPS.

Papers published in 2019 include:

    M. A. Prakapenia, I. A. Siutsou and G. V. Vereshchagin, "Thermalization of electron-positron plasma with quantum degeneracy", Physics Letters A 383 (2019) pp. 306-310.

    M. A. Prakapenia and G.V. Vereshchagin, "Bose-Einstein condensation in relativistic plasma", European Physics Letters, accepted for publication.

    V. Stefanov, I. Siutsou, D. Mogilevtsev, "Gravitational decoherence effects on spontaneous emission of atomic ensembles in timed Dicke state", submitted for publication, arXiv:1905.12301.

     

The ICRANet Brazilian Science Data Center (BSDC), Multi-frequency selection and studies of blazars and Open Universe Activities within ICRANet (Page 115)

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 2019 include:

    Chang Y.-L, Arsioli B., Giommi P., Padovani, & Brandt C.H., The 3HSP catalog of extreme and HIgh-Synchrotron Peaked Blazars, A&A, 2019, 632, 77

    Chang Y.-L., Brandt C.H., & Giommi P., The VOU-Blazars tool, Astronomy and Computing, 2020, 30, 100350

    Giommi, P.; Brandt, C. H.; Barres de Almeida, U.; Pollock, A. M. T.; Arneodo, F.; Chang, Y. L.; Civitarese, O.; De Angelis, M.; D’Elia, V.; Del Rio Vera, J.; Di Pippo, S.; Middei, R.; Penacchioni, A. V.; Perri, M.; Ruffini, R.; Sahakyan, N.; Turriziani, S.Giommi P., Brandt C.H., Barres de Almeida U., Pollock A.M.T., Perri M., D’Elisa V., De Angeli M., Open Universe for Blazars: a new generation of astronomical products based on 14 years of Swift-XRT data, A&A, 2019, 631A, 116

    P. Giommi, T. Glauch, P. Padovani, E. Resconi, A. Turcati, Y.L. Chang, Dissecting the regions around IceCube high-energy neutrinos: growing evidence for the blazar connection, 2020, MNRAS, in press


Exact solutions of Einstein and Einstein-Maxwell equations (Page 143)

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. A Lectio Magistralis by Prof. Belinski on the physics of fundamental interaction and unification field theory which is available on the ICRANet channel on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omyR2hcgFic).

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 the Nicolai 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 2019 include:

    G.A. Alekseev and V.A. Belinski "Superposition of fields of two rotating charged masses in general relativity and existence of equilibrium configurations", GRG, 51, 68 (2019); [arXiv:1905.05317].

    V.A. Belinski "On the black holes in external electromagnetic fields.", arXiv:1912.03964.

    O. Luongo, M. Muccino, H. Quevedo "Kinematic and statistical inconsistensies of Horava-Lifshitz cosmology", PHYSICS OF THE DARK UNIVERSE, 25, UNSP 100313 (2019).

    H Benaoum, O. Luongo, H. Quevedo "Extensions of modified Chaplygin gas from geometrothermodynamics", Eur. Phys. Journ., C79, 577 (2019).

    V. Pineda-Reyes, L.F. Escamilla-Herrera, C.Gruber, F. Nettel and H. Quevedo "Statistical origin of Legendre Invariaant metrics", Phys. Stat. Mech. Appl., 526, 120767 (2019).

    D Flores-Alfonso, H. Quevedo "Topological characterization of higherdimensional charged Taub-NUT instanton", Inter. Journ. Geom. Meth. Mod. Phys., 16, 1950154 (2019).

    V. Dzhunushaliev, V. Folomeev, H. Quevedo "Nonperturbative quantization a la Heisenberg: modified gravity, Wheeler-DeWitt equation and monopoles in QCD", Gravitation and Cosmology, 25, 1 (2019).

    L.F. Escamilla-Herrera, C. Gruber, V. Pineda-Reyes and H. Quevedo "Statistical mechanics of the self-gravitating gas in the Tsallis framework", Phys. Rev. E99, 022108 (2019).

    A.C. Gutierrez-Pineres, H. Quevedo "C3 matching for asimptotically flat space-times", Class. Quant. Grav., 36, 135003 (2019).

    K. Boshkayev, H. Quevedo, G. Nurbakyt, A. Malybayev, A. Urazalina "The Erez-Rosen solution versus the Hartle-Thorne solution", SYMMETRY, 11, 1324 (2019).


Gamma-Ray Bursts (Page 151)

This has been one the most important field of research at the ICRANet Centre in Pescara. Many breaking new results have been obtained in 2019.

Following the new GRB classification into seven different families introduced by ICRANet in 2016, we published the first catalog of all the observed Binary Driven Hypernovae (BdHNe), the GRB family which corresponds to the most energetic "long GRBs", with more than 300 analyzed sources.

Moreover, in 2016 we 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 was meant to upgrade from the simplified semi-analytical approach, which had been used until then, to a full numerical integration of the complete system of partial differential equations describing the system. This upgrade of the numerical codes is still ongoing. The first results of these new codes have been applied successfully to the study of early X-Ray Flares observed in BdHNe. This led to the first comprehensive theory of the phenomenon and to the definition of the space-time diagram of BdHNe, which clearly show the markedly different regimes between the GRB prompt emission, with Lorentz gamma factors on the order of 102-103, and the X-Ray flares, with Lorentz gamma factors smaller than 4.


Different regimes in GRB prompt emission (left) and X-Ray flares (right).
Details in Ruffini, et al., ApJ, 852, 53 (2018).
Space-time diagram of BdHNe. Details in Ruffini, et al., ApJ, 852, 53 (2018).


Papers published in 2019 include:

    Y. Wang, J.A. Rueda, R. Ruffini, C.L. Bianco, L.M. Becerra, L. Li, M. Karlica; Two Predictions of Supernova: GRB 130427A/SN 2013cq and GRB 180728A/SN 2018fip; The Astrophysical Journal, 874, 39 (2019).

    J.A. Rueda, R. Ruffini, Y. Wang, C.L. Bianco, J.M. Blanco-Iglesias, M. Karlica, P. Lor´en-Aguilar, R. Moradi, N. Sahakyan; Electromagnetic emission of white dwarf binary mergers; Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 03, 044 (2019).

    J.A. Rueda, R. Ruffini, Y.Wang; Induced Gravitational Collapse, Binary-Driven Hypernovae, Long Gramma-ray Bursts and Their Connection with Short Gamma-ray Bursts; Universe, 5, 110 (2019).

    R. Ruffini, J.D. Melon Fuksman, G.V. Vereshchagin; On the role of a cavity in the hypernova ejecta of GRB 190114C; The Astrophysical Journal, 883, 191 (2019).

    R. Ruffini, R. Moradi, J.A. Rueda, L.M. Becerra, C.L. Bianco, C. Cherubini, S. Filippi, Y.C. Chen, M. Karlica, N. Sahakyan, Y. Wang, S.-S. Xue; On the GeV Emission of the Type I BdHN GRB 130427A; The Astrophysical Journal, 886, 82 (2019).


Theoretical Astroparticle Physics (Page 329)

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 were obtained on novel constraints on fermionic dark matter from galactic observables.

Papers published in 2019 include:

    M. A. Prakapenia, I. A. Siutsou and G. V. Vereshchagin, "Thermalization of electron-positron plasma with quantum degeneracy", Physics Letters A 383 (2019) pp. 306-310.

    R. Ruffini, J. D. Melon Fuksman and G. V. Vereshchagin, "On the Role of a Cavity in the Hypernova Ejecta of GRB 190114C", The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 884, Issue 1 (2019) article id. 191.

    G.V. Vereshchagin and S. Bedic, "Inflationary measure in loop quantum cosmology", Phys. Rev. D 99 (2019) 043512.

    C. R. Arguelles, A. Krut, J. A. Rueda, R. Ruffini, "Novel constraints on fermionic dark matter from galactic observables II: Galaxy scaling relations", Physics of the Dark Universe, Volume 24 (2019), article id. 100278.

    C. R. Arguelles, A. Krut, J. A. Rueda, R. Ruffini, "Can fermionic dark matter mimic supermassive black holes?", International Journal of Modern Physics D Vol. 28, No. 14, 1943003 (2019).


Generalization of the Kerr-Newman solution (Page 357)

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.

Papers published in 2019 include:

    Pineda, Viridiana; Quevedo, Hernando; Quevedo, María N.; Sánchez, Alberto; Valdés, Edgar, The physical significance of geometrothermodynamic metrics, International Journal of Geometric Methods in Modern Physics, Volume 16, Issue 11, id. 1950168 (2019).

    Flores-Alfonso, Daniel; Quevedo, Hernando, Topological characterization of higher-dimensional charged Taub-NUT instantons, International Journal of Geometric Methods in Modern Physics, Volume 16, Issue 10, id. 1950154-199 (2019)

    Dzhunushaliev, V.; Folomeev, V.; Quevedo, H, Nonperturbative Quantization à La Heisenberg: Modified Gravities, Wheeler-DeWitt Equations, and Monopoles in QCD, Gravitation and Cosmology, Volume 25, Issue 1, pp.1-17 (2019).

    Escamilla-Herrera, L. F.; Gruber, C.; Pineda-Reyes, V.; Quevedo, H., Statistical mechanics of the self-gravitating gas in the Tsallis framework, Physical Review E, Volume 99, Issue 2, id.022108 (2019).

    Pugliese, Daniela; Quevedo, Hernando, Disclosing connections between black holes and naked singularities: horizon remnants, Killing throats and bottlenecks, The European Physical Journal C, Volume 79, Issue 3, article id. 209 (2019).

    Quevedo, Hernando; Quevedo, María N.; Sánchez, Alberto, Quasi-homogeneous black hole thermodynamics, The European Physical Journal C, Volume 79, Issue 3, article id. 229 (2019).

    Gutiérrez-Piñeres, Antonio C.; Quevedo, Hernando, C 3 matching for asymptotically flat spacetimes, Classical and Quantum Gravity, Volume 36, Issue 13, article id. 135003 (2019).

    Benaoum, Hachemi B.; Luongo, Orlando; Quevedo, Hernando, Extensions of modified Chaplygin gas from Geometrothermodynamics, The European Physical Journal C, Volume 79, Issue 7, article id. 577 (2019).

    Pineda-Reyes, V.; Escamilla-Herrera, L. F.; Gruber, C.; Nettel, F.; Quevedo, H., Statistical origin of Legendre invariant metric, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Volume 526, article id. 120767 (2019).

    Flores-Alfonso, Daniel; Quevedo, Hernando, Extended thermodynamics of self-gravitating skyrmions, Classical and Quantum Gravity, Volume 36, Issue 15, article id. 154001 (2019).

    Luongo, Orlando; Muccino, Marco; Quevedo, Hernando, Kinematic and statistical inconsistencies of Hořava-Lifshitz cosmology, Physics of the Dark Universe, Volume 25, article id. 100313 (2019).

    Corral, Cristóbal; Flores-Alfonso, Daniel; Quevedo, Hernando, Charged Taub-NUT solution in Lovelock gravity with generalized Wheeler polynomials, Physical Review D, Volume 100, Issue 6, id.064051 (2019).


Cosmology Group of Tartu Observatory (Page 445)

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 14th 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 2019 include:

    Aguado-Barahona, A., Barrena, R., Streblyanska, A., Ferragamo, A., Rubi ˜no-Mart´ın, J. A., Tramonte, D., & Lietzen, H. 2019, Optical validation and characterization of Planck PSZ2 sources at the Canary Islands observatories. II. Second year of LP15 observations, A&A, 631, A148

    Cenarro, A. J., Moles, M., Crist ´obal-Hornillos, D., Mar´ın-Franch, A., Ederoclite, A., Varela, J., L´opez-Sanjuan, C., Hern´andez-Monteagudo, C., Angulo, R. E., V´azquez Rami ´o, H., Viironen, K., Bonoli, S., Orsi, A. A., et al. 2019, J-PLUS: The Javalambre Photometric Local Universe Survey, A&A, 622, A176

    de Jong, R. S., Agertz, O., Berbel, A. A., Aird, J., Alexander, D. A., Amarsi, A., Anders, F., Andrae, R., Ansarinejad, B., Ansorge, W., Antilogus, P., Anwand -Heerwart, H., Arentsen, A., et al. 2019, 4MOST: Project overview and information for the First Call for Proposals, The Messenger, 175, 3

    Einasto, J., Liivam¨agi, L. J., Suhhonenko, I., & Einasto, M. 2019a, The biasing phenomenon, A&A, 630, A62

    Einasto, J., Suhhonenko, I., Liivam¨agi, L. J., & Einasto, M. 2019b, Evolution of superclusters in the cosmic web, A&A, 623, A97

    Finoguenov, A., Merloni, A., Comparat, J., Nandra, K., Salvato, M., Tempel, E., Raichoor, A., Richard, J., Kneib, J. P., Pillepich, A., Sahl´en, M., Popesso, P., Norberg, P., McMahon, R., & 4MOST Collaboration. 2019, 4MOST Consortium Survey 5: eROSITA Galaxy Cluster Redshift Survey, The Messenger, 175, 39

    Ganeshaiah Veena, P., Cautun, M., Tempel, E., van de Weygaert, R., & Frenk, C. S. 2019, The Cosmic Ballet II: spin alignment of galaxies and haloes with large-scale filaments in the EAGLE simulation, MNRAS, 487, 1607

    Gong, C. C., Libeskind, N. I., Tempel, E., Guo, Q., Gottl ¨ober, S., Yepes, G.,Wang, P., Sorce, J., & Pawlowski, M. 2019, The origin of lopsided satellite galaxy distribution in galaxy pairs, MNRAS, 488, 3100

    Guiglion, G., Battistini, C., Bell, C. P. M., Bensby, T., Boller, T., Chiappini, C., Comparat, J., Christlieb, N., Church, R., Cioni,M. R. L., Davies, L., Dwelly, T., de Jong, R. S., et al. 2019, 4MOST Survey Strategy Plan, The Messenger, 175, 17

    H¨utsi, G., Raidal,M., & Veerm¨ae, H. 2019, Small-scale structure of primordial black hole dark matter and its implications for accretion, Phys. Rev. D, 100, 083016

    Kalberla, P. M. W. & Haud, U. 2019, Turbulent power distribution in the local interstellar medium, A&A, 627, A112

    Kashlinsky, A., Ali-Ha¨ımoud, Y., Clesse, S., Garcia-Bellido, J., Amendola, L., Wyrzykowski, L., Annis, J., Arbey, A., Arendt, R. G., Atrio-Barand ela, F., Bellomo, N., Belotskiy, K., Bernal, J. L., et al. 2019, Electromagnetic probes of primordial black holes as dark matter, BAAS, 51, 51

    Kipper, R., Tempel, E., & Tenjes, P. 2019a, A method to calculate gravitational accelerations within discrete localized regions in the Milky Way, MNRAS, 482, 1724

    Kipper, R., Tenjes, P., H¨utsi, G., Tuvikene, T., & Tempel, E. 2019b, The influence of dark matter halo on the stellar stream asymmetry via dynamical friction, MNRAS, 486, 5924

    Kooistra, R., Silva, M. B., Zaroubi, S., Verheijen, M. A. W., Tempel, E., & Hess, K. M. 2019, Detecting the neutral IGM in filaments with the SKA, MNRAS, 490, 1415

    Kruuse, M., Tempel, E., Kipper, R., & Stoica, R. S. 2019, Photometric redshift galaxies as tracers of the filamentary network, A&A, 625, A130

    Nesci, R., Tuvikene, T., & Gualandi, R. 2019, Historic flares of the cataclysmic variable ASASSN-18aan, Open European Journal on Variable Stars, 196, 1

    Nevalainen, J., Tempel, E., Ahoranta, J., Liivam¨agi, L. J., Bonamente, M., Tilton, E., Kaastra, J., Fang, T., Hein¨am¨aki, P., Saar, E., & Finoguenov, A. 2019, To be or not to be: the case of the hot WHIM absorption in the blazar PKS 2155-304 sight line, A&A, 621, A88

    Nogueira-Cavalcante, J. P., Dupke, R., Coelho, P., Dantas, M. L. L., Gonc¸alves, T. S., Men´endez-Delmestre, K., Lopes de Oliveira, R., Jim´enez-Teja, Y., L´opez-Sanjuan, C., Alcaniz,

    J., Angulo, R. E., Cenarro, A. J., Crist ´obal-Hornillos, D., et al. 2019, J-PLUS: Impact of bars on quenching timescales in nearby green valley disc galaxies, A&A, 630, A88

    Richard, J., Kneib, J. P., Blake, C., Raichoor, A., Comparat, J., Shanks, T., Sorce, J., Sahl´en, M., Howlett, C., Tempel, E., McMahon, R., Bilicki, M., Roukema, B., et al. 2019, 4MOST Consortium Survey 8: Cosmology Redshift Survey (CRS), The Messenger, 175, 50

    Streblyanska, A., Aguado-Barahona, A., Ferragamo, A., Barrena, R., Rubi ˜no-Mart´ın, J. A., Tramonte, D., Genova-Santos, R. T., & Lietzen, H. 2019, Optical validation and characterization of Planck PSZ2 sources at the Canary Islands observatories. I. First year of LP15 observations, A&A, 628, A13

    Walcher, C. J., Banerji,M., Battistini, C., Bell, C. P.M., Bellido-Tirado, O., Bensby, T., Bestenlehner, J. M., Boller, T., Brynnel, J., Casey, A., Chiappini, C., Christlieb, N., Church, R., et al. 2019, 4MOST Scientific Operations, The Messenger, 175, 12

    Wang, P., Guo, Q., Libeskind, N. I., Tempel, E., Wei, C., & Kang, X. 2019, The shape alignment of satellite galaxies in Local Group-like pairs from the SDSS, MNRAS, 484, 4325


Black Holes and Quasars (Page 457)

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.

Papers published in 2019 include:

    Punsly, B. Discrete and Continuous Ejection Models of the Radio Source Associated with GW170817 2019 ApJL 871 34

    Punsly, B. Constraints on Black Hole Jet Models Used As Diagnostic Tools of Event Horizon Telescope Observations of M87 2019 ApJL 879 11


The electron-positron pairs in physics, astrophysics and cosmology (Page 461)

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 691, 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 → 2γ, has been by far the most successful. The Breit-Wheeler process, 2γ → 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 τC (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+eγ 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 2019 include:

    M. Haghighat, S. Mahmoudi, R.Mohammadi, S. Tizchang and S.S. Xue "Circular polarization of cosmic photons due to their interactions with Sterile neutrino dark matter, ", arXiv;1909.03883.

    Mehdi Abdi (IUT), Roohollah Mohammadi (INMOST and SoA-IPM), She-Sheng Xue (ICRANet), Moslem Zarei (IUT) "Distinguishing Dirac from Majorana neutrinos in a microwave cavity, ", arXiv:1909.01536.

    She-Sheng Xue "Einstein equation and Hawking radiation govern Universe evolution, ", arXiv:1910.03938.

    Damien B´egu´e, Cl´ement Stahl and She-Sheng Xue "A model of interacting dark fluids tested with supernovae and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations data, ", Nuclear Physics, Section B, Volume 940, p. 312-320, (2019),


From nuclei to compact stars (Page 1037)

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 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 , "On the nature of some SGRs and AXPs as rotation-powered neutron stars", A&A 599, A87 (2017), 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 2019 include:

    Rodr´ıguez, J. F.; Rueda, J. A.; Ruffini, R., SPH Simulations of the Induced Gravitational Collapse Scenario of Long Gamma-Ray Bursts Associated with Supernovae, The Astrophysical Journal 871, 14, 2019.

    Rueda, J. A.; Ruffini, R.; Becerra, L. M.; Fryer, C. L., Universal relations for the Keplerian sequence of rotating neutron stars, Physical Review D 99, 043004, 2019.

    Wang, Y.; Rueda, J. A.; Ruffini, R.; Becerra, L.; Bianco, C.; Becerra, L.; Li, L.; Karlica, M., Two Predictions of Supernova: GRB 130427A/SN 2013cq and GRB 180728A/SN 2018fip , The Astrophysical Journal 874, 39, 2019.

    Rueda, J. A.; Ruffini, R.; Wang, Y.; Bianco, C. L.; Blanco-Iglesias, J. M.; Karlica, M.; Lor´en-Aguilar, P.; Moradi, R.; Sahakyan, N., Electromagnetic emission of white dwarf binary mergers, Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Issue 03, 044, 2019.

    Rueda, J. A.; Ruffini, R.; Wang, Y., Induced Gravitational Collapse, Binary-Driven Hypernovae, Long Gramma-ray Bursts and Their Connection with Short Gamma-ray Bursts, Universe, 5, issue 5, 2019. Invited Review Published by Universe as part of the Special Issue Accretion Disks, Jets, Gamma-Ray Bursts and Related GravitationalWaves.

    Becerra, L.; Boshkayev, K.; Rueda, J. A.; Ruffini, R., Time evolution of rotating and magnetized white dwarf stars, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 487, 812, 2019.

    Ruffini, R.; Moradi, R.; Rueda, J. A.; Becerra, L.; Bianco, C. L.; Cherubini, C.; Filippi, S.; Chen, Y. C.; Karlica, M.; Sahakyan, N.;Wang, Y.; Xue, S. S., On the GeV Emission of the Type I BdHN GRB 130427A, The Astrophysical Journal 852, 120, 2018.


Supernovae (Page 1177)

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 is given in the report, which contains the many publications in international journals. 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.

Papers published in 2019 include:

    Search for the optical counterpart of the GW170814 gravitational wave event with the VLT Survey Telescope., Grado et al. 2019, MNRAS, tmp.3186G

    GRB 171010A/SN 2017htp: a GRB-SN at z = 0.33, Melandri, A. et al. 2019, MNRAS, 490, 5366

    The Spectral Evolution of AT 2018dyb and the Presence of Metal Lines in Tidal Disruption Events, Leloudas, G. et al. 2019, ApJ, 887, 218

    Prospects for multi-messenger extended emission from core-collapse supernovae in the Local Universe, van Putten, M., Levinson, A., Frontera, F., Guidorzi, C., Amati, L., Della Valle, M. 2019, EPJP, 134,537

    Evidence for a Chandrasekhar-mass explosion in the Ca-strong 1991bg-like type Ia supernova 2016hnk, Galbany, L. et al. 2019, A&A, 630, 76

    Multi-messenger Extended Emission from the Compact Remnant in GW170817, van Putten, M., Della Valle, M., Levinson, A. 2019, ApJ., 876, L2

    Signatures of a jet cocoon in early spectra of a supernova associated with a γ-ray burst, Izzo et al. 2019, Nature, 565, 324

    Observational evidence for extended emission to GW170817, van Putten, M., Della Valle, M. 2019, MNRAS, 482, L46

    Unveiling the enigma of ATLAS17aeu, Melandri et al. 2019, A&A, 621, 81

    GW170817: implications for the local kilonova rate and for surveys from ground-based facilities, Della Valle et al. 2019, MNRAS, 481, 4355


Symmetries in General Relativity (Page 1181)

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 2019 include:

    Bini D., Geralico A., Jantzen R.T., Black hole geodesic parallel transport and the Marck reduction procedure, Phys. Rev. D, 99 , 064041 (2019).

    Bini D., Geralico A., PlastinoW.,Cylindrical gravitational waves: C-energy, super-energy and associated dynamical effects, Class. Quantum Grav., 36, no. 9, 095012 (2019).

    Nagar A., Messina F., Rettegno P., Bini D., Damour T., Geralico A., Akcay S., Bernuzzi S., Nonlinear-in-spin effects in effective-one-body waveform models of spin-aligned, inspiralling, neutron star binaries, Phys. Rev. D 99, no. 4, 044007 (2019)

    Bini D., Geralico A., Jantzen R.T., Plastino W., G¨odel spacetime: elliptic-like geodesics and gyroscope precession, Phys. Rev. D, 100, 084051, (2019)

    Bini D., Geralico A., Gionti G., PlastinoW., Velandia N., Scattering of uncharged particles in the field of two extremely charged black holes, Gen. Rel. Gravitation, vol. 51, 153, (2019)

    Bini D. and Geralico A., New gravitational self-force analytical results for eccentric equatorial orbits around a Kerr black hole: redshift invariant, Phys. Rev. D, 100, 104002, (2019)

    Bini D. and Geralico A., New gravitational self-force analytical results for eccentric equatorial orbits around a Kerr black hole: gyroscope precession, Phys. Rev. D, 100, 104003, (2019)

    Bini D. and Geralico A., Analytical determination of the periastron advance in spinning binaries from self-force computations, Phys. Rev. D, to appear, (2019)

    Bini D., Damour T. and Geralico A., Novel approach to binary dynamics: application to the fifth post-Newtonian level, Phys. Rev. Lett., 123, 231104, (2019)


Self Gravitating Systems, Galactic Structures and Galactic Dynamics (Page 1295)

The work on classical rotating self-gravitating configurations characterized by a multi-parametric rotation law, written in collaboration with Dr F. Cipolletta, Dr J. Rueda and Prof. R. Ruffini, has been published. In the manuscript a detailed and elegant graphical analysis regarding the stability of the configurations (in particular against mass shedding) in the velocity field’s parameters’s space has been presented. In the general relativistic context, an article regarding the last stable orbit around neutron stars has been published. An interesting comparison between numerical simulations and analytical estimates in this case led the authors to find simple, accurate and especially analytical formulas of great interest for astrophysical applications. The study has been performed by using three different equations of state (EOS) based on nuclear relativistic mean field theory models but it is expected that the formulas found will be still valid also for other equations of state. Finally a "compare and contrast" procedure of these results with Kerr metric quantities has been performed too.

Papers published in 2019 include:

    R. Ruffini, R. Moradi, J. A. Rueda, L. Becerra, C. L. Bianco, C. Cherubini, S. Filippi, Y. C. Chen, M. Karlica, N. Sahakyan, Y. Wang, and S. S. Xue, ApJ 886, 82 (2019).

     

Interdisciplinary Complex Systems (Page 1335)

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 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. On the other hand, a numerical analysis of the same mathematical problem, but 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.

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 2019 include:

    Loppini A., Gizzi A., Cherubini C., Cherry E.M.,Fenton F.H. and Filippi S. "Spatiotemporal correlation uncovers characteristic lengths in cardiac tissue", Phys. Rev. E, vol. 100 , 020201(R) 5 pages (2019)

    Loppini A., Filippi S. and Stanley H. E."Critical transitions in heterogeneous networks: Loss of low-degree nodes as an early warning signal", Phys. Rev. E, vol. 99, 040301(R) 5 pages (2019)



5. The 2019 ICRANet activities through the ICRANet Newsletter

We turn now (see Enclosure 9) to review the ICRANet activities of 2019 though the issues of the ICRANet Newsletter bimonthly published in 2019 simultaneously in Armenian, Chinese, English, Italian, Portuguese, and Russian (see http://www.icranet.org/news).



Acknowledgements

I would 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 Finance of Italy, of Armenia, including also the State Committee of Science of Armenia, and Brazil for their support.

I would 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, and Kazakhstan which, coordinated by 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 Mexico, Colombia 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 Belarus, Brazil, China, Colombia, Italy, Mexico.

I also express the plaudit for the support of ongoing activities of the IRAP-PhD to the President of Université Côte d'Azur Prof. Jeanick Brisswalter, 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, Carlo Masci, 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 ICRANet a collaboration agreement. The complete list can be found http://www.icranet.org/ScientificAgreements

ICRANet, as sponsor of the IRAP-PhD program, expresses its gratitude to AEI - Albert Einstein Institute - Potsdam (Germany), ASI - Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (Italy), Bremen University (Germany), Bucaramanga University (Colombia), Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Germany), CBPF - Brazilian Centre for Physics Research (Brazil), CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Italy), Ferrara University (Italy), ICRA (Italy), INAF - Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (Italy), Indian centre for space physics (India), Institut Hautes Etudes Scientifiques - IHES (France), Inst. of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Science - IHEP-CAS, China, INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Brasil), Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie - MPIfR (Germany), National Academy of Science (Armenia), Observatory of the Côte d'Azur (France), Rome University - "Sapienza" (Italy), Savoie-Mont-Blanc University (France), Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (China), Stockholm University (Sweden), Tartu Observatory (Estonia), UAM - Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Mexico), Université Côte d'Azur (France) 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.

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.

 
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