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Newsletter English October/November 2021 Print E-mail


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ICRANet Newsletter



ICRANet Newsletter
October/November 2021



SUMMARY
1. The forth successful prediction of a supernova following a GRB by ICRANet scientists
2. ICRANet - Isfahan Astronomy Meeting, IUT (Iran) and online, November 3-5, 2021
3. Visit of H.E. Alfonso Di Riso, Ambassador of Italy in Armenia, to the ICRANet Armenia Seat, November 30, 2021
4. New cooperation protocol between ICRANet and Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN), October 27, 2021
5. ICRANet scientists are among the top 2 per cent of most cited authors, according to Elsevier
6. Italian Knowledge Leaders meeting, November 24, 2021
7. Visit of Prof. Remo Ruffini to Bremen (Germany), October 31-November 2, 2021
8. Damour fest meeting, IHES Paris (France), October 12 - 15, 2021
9. Armenian Summit of Minds, Dilijan (Armenia), October 23-24, 2021
10. Space Tech Expo Europe, Bremen (Germany), November 16-18, 2021
11. USTC Global Vista - Europe Day, November 17, 2021
12. "From the Sundial to the Relativity", online meeting, October 1, 2021
13. Scientific visits to ICRANet
14. Recent publications


1. The forth successful prediction of a supernova following a GRB by ICRANet scientists

On October 23rd, 2021, the Gamma-Ray Burst GRB 211023A was detected by the Fermi satellite (GCN 30958), both by the GBM instrument (GCN 30965), operating in keV-MeV energy range, and by the LAT instrument (GCN 30961), operating in the GeV energy range. GRB 211023A was detected as well by the AGILE satellite (GCN 30969) and by Konus/WIND (GCN 31022).
The MASTER network of robotic telescopes detected the optical counterpart (GCN 30977). A large observational campaign followed this detection.

On November 8th, 2021, after 16 days of the detection of this GRB, the measurement of its spectroscopic redshift was reported by Pozanenko et al., (GCN 31053) thanks to the data of the BTA telescope of the SAO RAS.

Just 4 hours after the publication of GCN 31053 with the announcement of the redshift measurement, our groups at ICRANet and ICRA-USTC published GCN 31056 offering a theoretical interpretation of this event:
• computed an isotropic energy Eiso~6x1052 erg for GRB 211023A from known distance thanks to to the measurement of the redshift and from prompt phase observations of the Fermi satellite;
• since its energy is between 1052 and 1054 ergs identified GRB 211023A as a type I BdHN;
• predicted the appearance of the peak of associated optical supernova emission at (18.4+/-2.6) days after the trigger (November 10th 2021, uncertainty from November 8th 2021 to November 12th 2021), with a bolometric optical luminosity of L=(9.0+/-2.7)x1042 erg/s based on the statistics of 26 supernovae associated with GRBs (Della Valle et al., 2021).

On November 20th, 2021 the supernova was observed, see Fig. 1, as reported by Belkin et al. 2021 (GCN 31098), making it the fourth successful prediction of a supernova associated with GRB made by ICRANet scientists.

Large observational campaign in optical band is still ongoing, and as of today the lightcurve of this GRB is represented in Fig. 2.


Fig. 1. Optical supernova following the GRB 211023A, predicted by the ICRANet team.
Source: http://grb.rssi.ru/GRB211023A/GRB211023A_AG_subtracted_LC.png


Fig. 2. The lightcurve of GRB 211023A as observed by different optical instruments.


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TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  31056
SUBJECT: GRB 211023A: A BdHN of type I
DATE:    21/11/08 19:17:11 GMT
FROM:    Remo Ruffini at ICRA ruffini@icra.it
Y. Aimuratov, L. Becerra, C.L. Bianco, Y-C. Chen, C. Cherubini, S. Eslamzadeh, S. Filippi, M. Karlica, Liang Li, G.J. Mathews, R. Moradi, M. Muccino, G.B, Pisani, F. Rastegar Nia, J.A. Rueda, R. Ruffini, N. Sahakyan, Y. Wang, S.S. Xue, on behalf of the ICRANet and ICRA-USTC team, report:
The identification of the redshift z=0.36 of GRB 211023A (A. Pozanenko et al. 2021, GCN 31053), with the isotropic energy of Eiso~6x1052 erg in 10-1000 keV (S. Lesage et al. 2021, GCN 30965, S. Poolakkil et al. 2021, GCN 30998), qualify GRB 211023A as a BdHN I, confirmed by the observation of the GeV emission (N. Di Lalla et al. 2021, GCN 30961), originated from the black hole (R. Ruffini et al. 2019 ApJ 886 82, Moradi et al 2021. Phys. Rev. D 104, 063043) and the afterglow emission (Jan Strobl et al. 2021 GCN 31042) originated from the newborn neutron star (J.A. Rueda et al. 2020 ApJ 893 148).
Following Ruffini et al. 2021 (MNRAS, 504, 5301, doi:10.1093/mnras/stab724) we indicate the appearance of the peak of optical supernova to be observed at (18.4+/-2.6) days after the trigger (November 10th 2021, uncertainty from November 8th 2021 to November 12th 2021), with the bolometric optical luminosity of L=(9.0+/-2.7)x1042 erg/s.
The follow-up optical observations for the SN are recommended.


*********************************************************************

TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER: 31098
SUBJECT: GRB 211023A: optical observations and photometric evidence of supernova
DATE: 21/11/20 14:54:34 GMT
FROM: Alexei Pozanenko at IKI, Moscow apozanen@iki.rssi.ru
S. Belkin (IKI), A. Pozanenko (IKI), I. Sokolov (INASAN, KIAM), E. Klunko (ISTP), A. S. Moskvitin (SAO RAS), V. Kim (HSE, FAI), V. Rumyantsev (CrAO), R. Ya. Inasaridze (AbAO), M. Krugov (FAI), D. Berezin (IC AMER NASU), G. Butenko (IC AMER NASU), N. Pankov (HSE), D. Datashvili (AbAO), V. R. Ayvazian (AbAO), G. V. Kapanadze (AbAO) report on behalf of GRB IKI FuN:
We observed the field of the GRB 211023A (Fermi GBM team, GCN 30958; Di Lalla et al., GCN 30961; Lesage et al, GCN 30965; Ursi et al, GCN 30969; Poolakkil, GCN 30998; Ridnaia et al., GCN 31022) with Zeiss-2000 and Zeiss-600 telescopes of Terskol observatory, AZT-33IK telescope of Sayan observatory (Mondy), AZT-20 telescope of Assy-Turgen observatory, ZTSh 2.6m-telescope of CrAO observatory, AS-32 telescope of AbAO observatory, and Zeiss-1000 1-m telescope of SAO RAS. The optical counterpart (Lipunov et al., GCN 30970; Zhirkov et al, GCN 30977; Kann et al, GCN 30982; Hu et al, GCN 30990; Belkin et al, GCN 31004; Vinko et al, GCN 31008; Belkin et al, GCN 31018; Belkin et al, GCN 31020; Kumar et al, GCN 31023; Gupta et al., GCN 31041; Strobl et al., GCN 31042; Pozanenko et al., GCN 31053; Moskvitin et al., GCN 31066) was detected in most of the stacked images. A preliminary light curve based on our observations and GCN Circulars cited above can cab be found at
http://grb.rssi.ru/GRB211023A/GRB211023A_LC.png
Starting from the fifth day, a systematic flux excess over the approximation of the afterglow by a single power law is observed. After subtraction of the afterglow approximated by the light curve with a power law (Belkin et al, GCN 31020), and neglecting a contribution of the host galaxy we determine a preliminary light curve of possible SN, see
http://grb.rssi.ru/GRB211023A/GRB211023A_AG_subtracted_LC.png

Using redshift of GRB 211023A (Pozanenko et al., GCN 31053) we calculated an absolute magnitude at the maximum of the supposed supernova (M_R=-19.9 +0.40 -0.29; adjusted by a Galactic extinction (Schlafly & Finkbeiner, 2011)) and a time since the burst trigger in the observer frame (t-T0 = 16.9+/-1.5). These parameters are in agreement with parameters of known SN-GRB (e.g. see Figure 12 from Belkin et al., Astronomy Letters, 2020). The supernova associated with GRB 211012A is in agreement with early predictions (Kann et al, GCN 30982; Aimuratov et al., GCN 31056; Minaev et al., GCN 31081).



2. ICRANet - Isfahan Astronomy Meeting, IUT (Iran) and online, November 3-5, 2021


The "ICRANet - Isfahan Astronomy Meeting. From the Ancient Persian Astronomy to Recent Developments in Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Astrophysics and General Relativity" took place from 3 to 5 November 2021. Isfahan, an historical city in the center of Iran and one of the world's most beautiful cities, hosted the first series of this meeting at the Isfahan University of Technology (IUT - Iran) and online.
The meeting, organized under the aegis of the H.E. Mohammad Ali Zolfigol, Minister of Science, Research and Technology of the Islamic Republic of Iran, exceeded every expectation with more than 190 registered participants and attendees. This meeting, by inviting more than 33 prominent speakers from more than 16 countries, provided a great opportunity for discussing about topics ranging from the ancient Persian astronomy to recent developments in observational astronomy, high energy astrophysical phenomena such as Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs), Theories of Gravity, General Relativity and its mathematical foundation, Black Holes, Dark matter and Early Universe Cosmology. The rich program of the conference included 33 talks and a workshop on Data Science in Astrophysics.
Members of the meeting Scientific Committee were Prof. Remo Ruffini (ICRANet/ICRA), co-chair with Prof. Yousef Sobouti (ISABS, Iran), Prof. Hassan Firouzjahi (IPM, Iran), Prof. Shahram Khosravi (KHU, Iran), Prof. Habib Khosroshahi (IPM), Prof. Kourosh Nozari (UMZ, Iran), Prof. Sohrab Rahvar (SUT, Iran), Prof. Soroush Shakeri (IUT), Prof. Shadi Tahvildar-Zadeh (Rutgers, USA) and Prof. She-Sheng Xue (ICRANet).
Members of the meeting Organizing Committee were the Chair, Prof. Soroush Shakeri (IUT), Prof. Amin Farhang (IPM and IUT), Prof. Fazlollah Hajkarim (UNIPD, Italy), Prof. Rahim Moradi (ICRANet), Prof. Sedigheh Sajadian (IUT), Prof. Shahab Shahidi (DU, Iran), Prof. Wang Yu (ICRANet) and Prof. M. H. Zhollideh Haghighi (IPM,KNTU, Iran).
The opening remarks of the meeting have been presented by H.E. Mohammad Ali Zolfigol, Minister of Science, Research and Technology of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who sent a special thanks to IUT and ICRANet (the organizers) as well as to the Scientific and Organizing Committee of the meeting. He also gave a very warm welcome to all the participants, highlighting his strong support to this significant event, which marked the continuation of a longstanding, active and fruitful collaboration between ICRANet and the Islamic Republic of Iran and, more generally, between Italy and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The speech of the Minister has been presented to the participants by Prof. Yousef Sobouti (founder of IASBS).

Prof. Mohammad Ali Zolfigol, Minister of Science, Research and Technology of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Prof. S. M. Abtahi, President of the Isfahan University of Technology (IUT). Prof. Yousef Sobouti (founder of IASBS).

Following this speech, Prof. Sobouti also gave a talk about the development of the modern astronomy in Iranian universities in the morning session. This continued by a presentation from Prof. Remo Ruffini about the 50th anniversary of "Introducing the Black Hole" and his non-stop efforts during past decades to understand the physical nature of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) as the most luminous explosions in the Universe. After the lecture by prof. Ruffini, Prof. Habib Khosroshahi (Iranian National Observatory - INO - Project Director) presented an extensive overview about the Iranian National Observatory and its 3.4m optical telescope. He also drew the attention to the unique potential of INO to follow the transient sources such as GRBs. During the meeting, a series of talks have been presented about the physics of GRBs, GRBs in the optical domain, GRB - Supernovae connection and the use of GRBs as a cosmological tool which led to many interactive discussions. The first day of the meeting finished with a presentation by Prof. Shadi Tahvildar-Zadeh about the dream of Einstein to arrive at a quantum theory of atomistic matter, which included electrodynamics phenomena.
The second day of the meeting started with a presentation by Prof. Roy Patrick Kerr: he discussed about the nature of singularities and his Kerr metric, which was among hot topics in most of the scientific discussions around General Relativity (GR) in the past 50 years. Afterwards, Prof. Shing-Tang Yau talked about the notion of angular momentum in GR. There were several talks in the morning session about some European missions in astrophysics, such as New high precision tests of GR presented by Prof. Claus Lammerzahl, Mercury and the Bepi Colombo mission presented by Prof. Roberto Peron and also about Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project presented by Prof. Fatemeh Tabatabaei. This day finished with a workshop on "Data Science and Machine Learning in Relative Astrophysics" in the afternoon session, chaired by Prof. Wang Yu and Prof. Rahim Moradi.
The last day of the meeting started with a talk given by Prof. Hossein Masoumi Hamedani about the similarities and the differences of the methods of Ibn al-Haytham and that of the Galileo discussing about the Light of the Moon. Then, Prof. Richard Kerner presented an historical talk from a European perspective about Astronomy in Islamic World. There were also several talks about the Dark Matter, Modified Gravity and Early Universe Cosmology in the morning and afternoon sessions, which made the program of the meeting more richer.
The recordings of the different sessions are available on the ICRANet YouTube channel at the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nM0WwpawdM&list=PLr5RLbSWSonuzZt0K4CkKjbHuKcYgpSZl&index=2
For more information about the meeting and about the proceedings publication, please check the official webpage of the meeting: https://indico.icranet.org/event/2/
For the IUT newsletter issue on this meeting and the speeches delivered in the opening session of ICRANet-Isfahan Astronomy Meeting, please see: http://english.iut.ac.ir/newsletter



3. Visit of H.E. Alfonso Di Riso, Ambassador of Italy in Armenia, to the ICRANet Armenia Seat, November 30, 2021


Fig. 3: H.E. Alfonso Di Riso, Ambassador of Italy in Armenia with Prof. Narek Sahakyan, Director of ICRANet Seat in Armenia, visiting the center on Tuesday November 30, 2021.

On November 30, 2021, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Italy to Armenia, H.E. Alfonso Di Riso and the Head of the Consular and Administrative Department, Dr Annarosa Colangelo, visited the ICRANet Armenia Seat, located at the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia.
Prof. Narek Sahakyan, Director of the ICRANet Seat in Armenia, presented the center and its current activities as well as the main research topics and the obtained results. Also, the current projects implemented with the ICRANet center in Pescara have been presented and discussed. The importance of the ICRANet Armenia center to expand the activities of ICRANet in the regional countries was highlighted and discussed.
Both parties strongly highlighted the importance of the Armenian-Italian scientific cooperation in the field of astrophysics and discussed the possibilities of further develop and expand the Armenian-Italian scientific cooperation.
Press Release by the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia (in Armenian): https://www.sci.am/newsview.php?id=454&arch=&langid=2



4. New cooperation protocol between ICRANet and Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN), October 27, 2021


On October 27, 2021 ICRANet has signed a new Cooperation protocol with the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN). The Cooperation Protocol has been signed by Prof. Oleg Yastrebov (Rector of RUDN), by Prof. Yefremov Alexander Petrovich (President IGC of RUDN), by Prof. Remo Ruffini (Director of ICRANet) and By Prof. Narek Sahakyan (Director of ICRANet Seat in Armenia).
The agreement will be valid for 5 years and the main joint activities to be developed under their framework include: the promotion of theoretical and observational activities within the field of Relativistic Astrophysics; the institutional exchange of faculty members, researchers, post-doctorate fellows and students; the promotion of technological developments; the development of Data Centers for Astrophysical data in all wavebands; the organization of training and teaching courses, seminars, conferences, workshops or short courses, the development of inter-institutional research areas associated to local graduate programs and joint publications.
For the text of the Cooperation Protocol: http://www.icranet.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1398



5. ICRANet scientists are among the top 2 per cent of most cited authors, according to Elsevier

Recent update of the publicly available database of over 100,000 top-scientists listed by Elsevier, show that Prof. Remo Ruffini (Director of ICRANet), Prof. Thibault Damour (IHES, Paris), Prof. Paolo Giommi (ASI, Rome), Prof. Behzad Eslam Panah (ICRANet-Mazandaran, Iran), Prof. Thomas Buchert (Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon, UCBL1, ENS-L, CNRS, France), Prof. Donato Bini (CNR), Prof. Chris L. Fryer (University of Arizona, Tucson), Prof. Hagen Kleinert (Richard Feynmann - ICRANet Chair, Freie Universitat Berlin), Prof. Hernando Quevedo (Institute of Nuclear Science, UNAM) and several other ICRANet scientists are in this list.

Prof. Remo Ruffini Prof. Thibault Damour Prof. Paolo Giommi Prof. Behzad Eslam Panah
Prof. Thomas Buchert Prof. Donato Bini Prof. Chris L. Fryer Prof. Hagen Kleinert Prof. Hernando Quevedo

Reference:
Baas, Jeroen; Boyack, Kevin; Ioannidis, John P.A. (2021), "August 2021 data-update for "Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators", Mendeley Data, V3, DOI: https://doi.org/10.17632/btchxktzyw.2



6. Italian Knowledge Leaders meeting, November 24, 2021


Fig. 4: Prof. Remo Ruffini receiving his prize on the occasion of the Italian Knowledge Leaders meeting, November 24, 2021

On November 24, 2021, Prof. Ruffini, Director of ICRANet has been invited to participate to the Italian Knowledge Leaders. This project, organized under the aegis of the Italian Ministry of tourism, aims to start a path which will bring together the support of the italian Institutions and firms as well as the scientific and cultural competences of the most relevant "knowledge leaders" of our country. This meeting was attended by relevant representatives of the national and local Institutions, as well as by a delegation of the main ‘Italian Knowledge Leaders’, prominent members of the international scientific and professional Institutions.
This event initiated a series of meetings, which will provide a nice occasion to organize networking activities, training courses and conferences aiming at to improve the awareness of the scientific and cultural development at national and international level. The main goal of the project is to give the right recognition to these "intellectual leaders" as ambassadors of the italian intellectual capital, involving them in the promotion of Italy as a "destination of knowledge" and encouraging the opinion leader to be even more active at international level, in order to promote the scientific and cultural knowledge of our country.
At the end of the meeting, Prof. Ruffini has also received an award recognizing his fundamental role in this field as an "Italian Knowledge leader".



7. Visit of Prof. Remo Ruffini to Bremen (Germany), October 31-November 2, 2021


Fig. 5: From left to right: Dr. Claudia Schilling (Senator for Science and Ports), Marco Fuchs (Honorary Consul of Italy in Bremen and OHB), and Dr. Vincenzo Fiorentini (Italian Embassy in Berlin) during the meeting with Prof. Remo Ruffini.

From October 31 to November 2, 2021, Prof. Remo Ruffini, Director of ICRANet, visited Bremen (Germany). On November 1, he participated to a very important meeting concerning the collaboration ICRANet - Bremen, the proposal of a collaboration project and the possible entrance of Germany to ICRANet as a Member State. Several eminent representatives joined the meeting, such as Dr. Claudia Schilling (Senator for Science and Ports), Marco Fuchs (Honorary Consul of Italy in Bremen and OHB), Dr. Arianna Pascoli (Honorary Consulate of Italy in Bremen), Marco Eggert (Honorary Consulate of Italy in Bremen), Dr. Vincenzo Fiorentini (Italian Embassy in Berlin), Prof. Dr. Hansjörg Dittus (University of Bremen), Priv.-Doz. Dr. Eva Hackmann (University of Bremen), Dr. Meike List (University of Bremen) and Prof. Claus Laemmerzahl (University of Bremen). After that strategic meeting, a joint German - Italian cooperation project, with a leading role played by Bremen and ICRANet, is in preparation.



8. Damour fest meeting, IHES Paris (France), October 12 - 15, 2021


Fig. 6: from the left to the right: Prof. Thibault Damour, Prof. Remo Ruffini and Prof. Nathalie Deruelle.

From October 12 to 15, 2021 Professor Ruffini, Director of ICRANet, visited Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES) in Paris (France). Prof Ruffini was invited to deliver a plenary lecture on the occasion of the Damour fest meeting. This conference, organized by Nathalie Deruelle (APC, Université de Paris), Alessandro Nagar (INFN Torino), and Slava Rychkov (IHES), has been a tribute on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Prof. Thibault Damour.
Prof. Ruffini presented a lecture titled "On the nature of the ultrarelativistic prompt emission phase of GRB 190114C and GRB 180720B", here below the abstract:
We address the physical origin of the ultra-relativistic prompt emission (UPE) phase of GRB 190114C and GRB 180720B. We assume that during the UPE phase, the "inner engine" of the GRB, composed of a Kerr black hole (BH) and a uniform test magnetic field B0, aligned with the BH rotation axis, a Wald - Papapetrou solution operates in an overcritical field |E| ≥ Ec, where Ec = m2ec3/ (e ħ), being me and -e the mass and charge of the electron. We infer an e+e- pair electromagnetic plasma in presence of a baryon load, a PEMB pulse, originating from a vacuum polarization quantum process in the inner engine. This modifies both the boundary conditions and the physics interpretation of the pioneering work of Damour-Ruffini 1975. The new process determine the time varying mass and spin of the Kerr BH in the inner engine, fulfilling the Christodoulou-Hawking-Ruffini mass-energy formula of a Kerr BH. For the first time, we quantitatively show how the inner engine, by extracting the rotational energy of the Kerr BH, produces a series of PEMB pulses and the overall GRBs MeV emissions (detailed in Phys. Rev. D: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.063043).


Fig. 7: Prof. Ruffini delivering his plenary lecture on the occasion of the Damour Fest meeting at IHES (Paris).


For the website of the meeting: https://indico.math.cnrs.fr/event/6802/overview
For the video of Prof. Ruffini presentation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V50aJ5UQx_w



9. Armenian Summit of Minds, Dilijan (Armenia), October 23-24, 2021


Fig. 8: Group photo of the Armenian Summit of Minds 2021, Dilijan

From October 23 to 24, 2021, Professor Ruffini, Director of ICRANet, was invited by the President of the Republic of Armenia, H. E. Armen Sarkissian, to participate to the Armenian Summit of Minds 2021. This meeting united famous figures of the world's political, economic, scientific, and cultural circles. It was a unique platform for exchanging ideas, knowledge and experience, the main goals of which are to present new ideas on most significant issues of global interest and establish mutually reliable partnerships through direct discussions. High level representatives in the field of international politics and economy were present.
On Sunday, October 24, Prof. Ruffini was also invited to participate to the gala dinner and official reception hosted by H.E. Armen Sarkissian at the Presidential Palace.
For video and photos of the meeting: https://www.president.am/en/press-release/search/?search_q=summit+of+minds



10. Space Tech expo Europe, Bremen (Germany), November 16-18, 2021


Fig. 9: H.E. Armando Varricchio, Ambassador of Italy in Berlin, during the Space Tech Expo meeting in Bremen.

From November 16 to 18, 2021, Professor Ruffini, Director of ICRANet, participated to the meeting Space Tech Expo Europe, organized in Bremen (Germany). Comprising of 75+ high-level speakers focusing on key topics including investment, launch, sustainability, space exploration and downstream applications, the conference provided a very critical insights into the most exciting innovations and developments in the European (and beyond) space industry. It brought together professionals in the space industry in Europe and beyond, high-level industry experts from space agencies, prime integrators, New Space start-ups and suppliers, in order to discuss current trends, developments and challenges in the market, as well as innovative and ground-breaking technologies.
On Tuesday November 16, Prof. Ruffini was also invited to participate to the gala dinner organized by OHB, one of the leading aerospace industries in Europe, located in Bremen. OHB has been also collaborating with participated highly qualified italian companies in important space missions.
For more information about the meeting: https://www.spacetechexpo.eu/



11. USTC Global Vista - Europe Day, November 17, 2021

The USTC Global Vista - Europe Day took place at the University of Sciences and Technology of China (USTC) and online from November 16 to 17, 2021. On that occasion, around 20 Universities and Colleges from Germany (RWTH Aachen University, University of Jena, University of Cologne, Technical University of Munich), France (French Higher Education Agency, Paris Technical School of Engineering, Nantes Centrale, EPITA French Higher School of Information Engineers, Tours and Orleans School of Engineering, ISEP Paris School of Electronics and Computer Information Engineers, Toulouse First University, French SKEMA Business School, Lyon Business School, France, ESSEC Business School), the Netherlands (University of Twente), Belgium (Dutch Free University of Brussels - VUB), Ghent University), Italy (ICRANet and the University of Ferrara - UNIFE), and Poland (University of Warsaw) jointly launched an online presentation of their PhD active programs.


Wednesday, November 17 was totally devoted to Astrophysics. On that occasion, Prof. Remo Ruffini (Director of ICRANet), followed by Prof. Jorge Rueda (ICRANet Faculty Professor, UNIFE) and Prof. Piero Rosati (UNIFE), have been invited to give a plenary lecture presentation. The day started with the opening remarks by Prof. Ruffini, Prof. Rosati and Prof. Rueda. The first lecture was presented by Prof. Ruffini on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the article "Introducing the Black Hole" by Remo Ruffini and John A. Wheeler. The second lecture was presented by Prof. Rosati about the structure of the University of Ferrara and the new joint PhD program on Relativistic Astrophysics (JIRA PhD) established by USTC and UNIFE, with the participation of ICRANet and ICRA. The last lecture, on ICRANet Seats and structures, has been presented by Prof. Jorge Rueda.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/NG-FewMlj9zF2trS0re90A



12. "From the Sundial to the Relativity", online meeting, October 1, 2021


Fig. 10: Prof. Sigismondi chairing the online event "From the Sundial to the Relativity" on October 1, 2021.

The event "From the Sundial to the Relativity" has been held virtually on October 1, 2021. Prof. Costantino Sigismondi, ICRANet collaborator and chair of the event, thanks also to the support of ICRANet and many other scientists from all over the world, organized this virtual meeting as well as a podcast meeting in order to create a nice occasion for discussion among students and researchers. This event is part of the series "School and Research" coordinated as well by Prof. Sigismondi.
The virtual meeting started at 10 AM on Friday October 1, with the opening remarks made by Prof. Sigismondi and went on with some important contributions by Lorenzo Ricciardi, Diego Guglielmi and G. Dragut. The main topics discussed during the meeting went from the history and the alignment of the Vatican obelisk, to the limit between special and general relativity, the planet Earth and the light’s aberration, the figure of James Bradley and the aberration of Gamma Draconis, the work of Le Verrier on the orbit of Mercury, the meridian of Saint Peter and the day observation of the Stars. Other topics were also discussed, such as the Comets grazing the Sun, the interaction between the Earth, the Sun and the climate, the main difference concerning the climate in the past and in the future, the Calderone of Gran Sasso, the well of Monte Amaro, the Terminillo, the Velino and the date of disappearance of the snow.
This theoretical section was also integrated with the podcast materials prepared by Prof. Sigismondi. The program of the event and all the relevant podcast materials, can be found at the following link: http://www.icranet.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1390
A recording of the meeting can also be found on ICRANet YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_INBWTo2s78&t=418s



13. Scientific visits to ICRANet

• Dr Yerlan Aimuratov
Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute - Kazakhstan
October 8 - 31, 2021

• Sareh Eslamzadeh Askestani
University of Mazandaran - Iran
October 8, 2021 - ongoing

• Prof. Massimo Della Valle
Osservatorio di Capodimonte - Italy
November 24 - 25, 2021

Dr. Yerlan Aimuratov Sareh Eslamzadeh Askestani Prof. Massimo Della Valle

During their visit, those scientists had an opportunity to discuss their scientific research and to have fruitful exchange of ideas with other researchers from ICRANet and from different parts of the world.



14. Recent publications

C. R. Argüelles, M. F. Mestre, E. A. Becerra-Vergara, V. Crespi, A. Krut, J. A. Rueda, R. Ruffini, What does lie at the Milky Way centre? Insights from the S2 star orbit precession, ref. MN-21-3399-L.R2, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters.

Fig. 11: Relativistic precession of S2 in the projected orbit on the plane of the sky as predicted in the BH and RAR DM models. While it is prograde for the BH and RAR (m = 58 keV/c2) (in dashed black and green respectively), it is retrograde for the RAR DM model (m = 56 keV/c2) (in dashed red). The solid (theoretical) curves and gray (data) points correspond to the first period (1994-2010) while the dashed (theoretical) curves and cyan (data) points to the second period (2010-2026). Right panels: zoom of the region around apocentre (top panel) and pericentre (bottom panel). The astrometric measurements are taken from Do et al. (2019).

It has been recently demonstrated that both, a classical Schwarzschild black hole (BH), and a dense concentration of self-gravitating fermionic dark matter (DM) placed at the Galaxy centre, can explain the precise astrometric data (positions and radial velocities) of the S-stars orbiting SgrA*. This result encompasses the 17 best resolved S-stars, and includes the test of general relativistic effects such as the gravitational redshift in the S2-star. In addition, the DM model features another remarkable result: the dense core of fermions is the central region of a continuous density distribution of DM whose diluted halo explains the Galactic rotation curve. In this Letter, we complement the above findings by analyzing in both models the relativistic periapsis precession of the S2-star orbit. While the Schwarzschild BH scenario predicts a unique prograde precession for S2, in the DM scenario it can be either retrograde or prograde, depending on the amount of DM mass enclosed within the S2 orbit, which in turn is a function of the DM fermion mass, see Fig. 7. We show that all the current and publicly available data of S2 cannot discriminate between the two models, but upcoming S2 astrometry close to next apocentre passage could potentially establish if SgrA* is governed by a classical BH or by a quantum DM system.
ArXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.10729


Zhu, M., Zheng, Y., Improved DHOST Genesis, published on November 22, 2021 on J. High Energ. Phys. 2021, 163 (2021).
We improve the DHOST Genesis proposed in [1], such that the near scale invariant scalar power spectrum can be generated from the model itself, without invoking extra mechanism like a string gas. Besides, the superluminality problem of scalar perturbation plagued in [1] can be rescued by choosing proper DHOST action.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP11(2021)163


Mian Zhu, Amara Ilyas, Yunlong Zheng, Yi-Fu Cai, Emmanuel N. Saridakis, Scalar and tensor perturbations in DHOST bounce cosmology, published on November 2021 on JCAP11(2021)045.
We investigate the bounce realization in the framework of DHOST cosmology, focusing on the relation with observables. We perform a detailed analysis of the scalar and tensor perturbations during the Ekpyrotic contraction phase, the bounce phase, and the fast-roll expansion phase, calculating the power spectra, the spectral indices and the tensor-to-scalar ratio. Furthermore, we study the initial conditions, incorporating perturbations generated by Ekpyrotic vacuum fluctuations, by matter vacuum fluctuations, and by thermal fluctuations. The scale invariance of the scalar power spectrum can be acquired introducing a matter contraction phase before the Ekpyrotic phase, or invoking a thermal gas as the source. The DHOST bounce scenario with cosmological perturbations generated by thermal fluctuations proves to be the most efficient one, and the corresponding predictions are in perfect agreement with observational bounds. Especially the tensor-to-scalar ratio is many orders of magnitude within the allowed region, since it is suppressed by the Hubble parameter at the beginning of the bounce phase.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2021/11/045


Gasparyan, S; Bégué, D.; Sahakyan, N., Time-dependent lepto-hadronic modeling of the emission from blazar jets with SOPRANO: the case of TXS 0506+056, 3HSP J095507.9+355101 and 3C 279, accepted for publication in MNRAS.
The observation of a very-high-energy neutrino by IceCube (IceCube-170922A) and its association with the flaring blazar TXS 0506+056 provided the first multimessenger observations of blazar jets, demonstrating the important role of protons in their dynamics and emission. In this paper, we present SOPRANO (https://www.amsdc.am/soprano), a new conservative implicit kinetic code which follows the time evolution of the isotropic distribution functions of protons, neutrons and the secondaries produced in photo-pion and photo-pair interactions, alongside with the evolution of photon and electron/positron distribution functions. SOPRANO is designed to study leptonic and hadronic processes in relativistic sources such as blazars and gamma-ray bursts. Here, we use SOPRANO to model the broadband spectrum of TXS 0506+056 and 3HSP J095507.9+355101, which are associated with neutrino events, and of the extreme flaring blazar 3C 279. The SEDs are interpreted within the guise of both a hadronic and a hybrid model. We discuss the implications of our assumptions in terms of jet power and neutrino flux.
ArXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.01549


MAGIC collaboration, First detection of VHE gamma-ray emission from TXS 1515-273, study of its X-ray variability and spectral energy distribution, published in MNRAS, Volume 507, Issue 1, October 2021, pp.1528-1545.
We report here on the first multiwavelength (MWL) campaign on the blazar TXS 1515-273, undertaken in 2019 and extending from radio to very-high-energy gamma-rays (VHE). Up until now, this blazar had not been the subject of any detailed MWL observations. It has a rather hard photon index at GeV energies and was considered a candidate extreme high-synchrotron-peaked source. MAGIC observations resulted in the first-time detection of the source in VHE with a statistical significance of 7.6σ. The average integral VHE flux of the source is 6 ± 1 per cent of the Crab nebula flux above 400 GeV. X-ray coverage was provided by Swift-XRT, XMM-Newton, and NuSTAR. The long continuous X-ray observations were separated by ∼9 h, both showing clear hour scale flares. In the XMM-Newton data, both the rise and decay time-scales are longer in the soft X-ray than in the hard X-ray band, indicating the presence of a particle cooling regime. The X-ray variability time-scales were used to constrain the size of the emission region and the strength of the magnetic field. The data allowed us to determine the synchrotron peak frequency and classify the source as a flaring high, but not extreme synchrotron-peaked object. Considering the constraints and variability patterns from the X-ray data, we model the broad-band spectral energy distribution. We applied a simple one-zone model, which could not reproduce the radio emission and the shape of the optical emission, and a two-component leptonic model with two interacting components, enabling us to reproduce the emission from radio to VHE band.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab1994


Fan Xu, Jin-Jun Geng, Xu Wang, Liang Li, Yong-Feng Huang, Is the Birth of PSR J0538+2817 Accompanied by a Gamma-ray Burst?, accepted for publication in MNRAS.
Recently, the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) measured the three-dimensional velocity of PSR J0538+2817 in its associated supernova remnant S147 and found a possible spin-velocity alignment in this pulsar. Here we show that the high velocity and the spin-velocity alignment in this pulsar can be explained by the so-called electromagnetic rocket mechanism. In this framework, the pulsar is kicked in the direction of the spin axis, which naturally explains the spin-velocity alignment. We scrutinize the evolution of this pulsar and show that the pulsar kick can create a highly relativistic jet at the opposite direction of the kick velocity. The lifetime and energetics of the jet is estimated. It is argued that the jet can generate a Gamma-ray Burst (GRB). The long term dynamical evolution of the jet is calculated. It is found that the shock radius of the jet should expand to about 32 pc at present, which is well consistent with the observed radius of the supernova remnant S147 (32.1±4.8 pc). Additionally, our calculations indicate that the current velocity of the GRB remnant should be about 440 km s−1, which is also consistent with the observed blast wave velocity of the remnant of S147 (500 km s−1).
ArXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.11485
 
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