Journal Club



03.12.2018

"Three-Dimensional Simulations of Neutrino-Driven Core-Collapse Supernovae"

David Abarca (CAMK, Warsaw)

The talk will review some recent findings about 3D simulations of supernova explosions. Based on: https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.05483


10.12.2018

"Milky Way dark matter density profile and its reconstruction"

Ekaterina Karukes (ICTP South American Institute for Fundamental Research & The Institute for Theoretical Physics/Sao Paulo State University)

In this talk I am going to present the results of the dark matter density reconstruction of the Milky Way galaxy. In our analysis we assume a gNFW profile and we use the global rotation curve mass modeling. We further apply a Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach in order to perform the five parameter model fitting. We then validate the accuracy of the results on a suite of mock rotation curves where we a priori know the parameters of the underlying gNFW dark matter profile. We show that the local dark matter density values are recovered with a very good accuracy (within uncertainties < 10 per cent). We also find degeneracy between the scale radius and the inner dark matter density slope.


17.12.2018

"Chankillo, America's first Solar Observatory"

Iván Ghezzi (Instituto de Investigaciones Arqueológicas, IFEA - Lima)

Chankillo, a prehistoric monument date 210 BC in coastal Peru, is the oldest and most complete solar observatory known throughout the world. From the Observatory, the first American astronomers observed the cyclical passage of the sun in relation to a large man-made measuring device: an "artificial horizon" formed by thirteen stone towers built on a hill to span exactly the range of positions of the sun through the year. For example, it marked the December Solstice, a key date for the start of the rainy season on the coast, by the perfect alignment observed between sunrise and Tower 13. Thanks to astronomical observations, it was possible to identify any date of the year, with an accuracy of 1 to 2 days; a real achievement for a society without writing. Chankillo is a "masterpiece of the human creative genius", and under that criterion is nominated as a World Heritage Site.