Mirosław Kicia (CAMK PAN, Warsaw)
Observatory software system is a critical component of modern astronomical facilities, ranking just below telescopes and instruments in importance. The level of automation achieved through software development directly influences the scientific productivity of an observatory by affecting the quality and usability of collected data. The presentation focuses on the software system developed for the Rolf Chini Cerro Murphy Observatory (OCM), located in the Chilean Atacama Desert. Originally established as a collaboration between the Catholic University of the North (UCN) and Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), the observatory later integrated into the Araucaria Project and the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences (CAMK) institution. The modern phase of the observatory, beginning in 2020, involved substantial upgrades to telescopes, instruments, and infrastructure, where shortly will operates all of planned five telescopes, ranging from 0.6 m to 2.5 m in diameter. The observatory software was developed to integrate systems with new solutions, improve reliability, and bring control systems up to state-of-the-art standards. Increased automation and computerization, including the use of ML and AI methods, were implemented to address the objectives of the modern observatory systems, resulting flexible platform that supports both current and future scientific goals of the OCM, CAMK and Araucaria group.
Pratik Dabhade (National Center for Nuclear Research (NCBJ), Warsaw)
Extragalactic radio sources powered by active galactic nuclei (AGN) are extraordinary signposts of cosmic evolution. They trace the growth of supermassive black holes, shape their host galaxies through feedback, and illuminate the magnetised filaments of the large-scale cosmic web. In this seminar, I will present an overview of my research on these systems, spanning a wide range of scales and epochs - from giant and double-double radio galaxies in the nearby Universe to powerful high-redshift quasars and rare, unusual sources such as Odd Radio Circles. Through these studies, we gain insight into jet physics, episodic activity, and environmental influence. I will also discuss the role of modern radio continuum surveys - from LOFAR, MeerKAT, ASKAP, and the JVLA to the upcoming SKA, in transforming our understanding of the radio Universe. These surveys now offer unprecedented sensitivity and resolution across wide frequency ranges, enabling population studies of diverse extragalactic radio sources from star-forming galaxies and AGN to large-scale diffuse structures with a level of detail never achieved before. Finally, I will introduce the recently approved DHRUV survey, the first deep, wide-sky survey with the upgraded GMRT (uGMRT), designed to map the Euclid Deep Field North at unprecedented depth. This project aims to bridge the observational gap between LOFAR and GHz facilities, offering new opportunities to probe galaxy and AGN evolution, cosmic magnetism, feedback, and large-scale structure formation. Together, these efforts form a coherent framework for understanding how radio AGN connect small-scale jet physics to the grand structure of the Universe, setting the stage for the next generation of discoveries with the SKA.
Clea Sunny (AstroCent/CAMK PAN, Warsaw)
The Global Argon Dark Matter Collaboration is currently developing its flagship detector, DarkSide-20k (DS-20k), a multi-tonne-scale experiment designed for the direct detection of the weakly interacting massive particles using a double-phase Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LAr TPC) with 20.2 tonnes of fiducial mass. The shift from its predecessor, DarkSide-50, with 46.4 kg of active mass, to a significantly larger detector relies on intermediate prototypes for technical design validation. The DS-20k TPC Mockup is one such prototype detector intended to replicate the critical aspects of the functionality of DS-20k in a tonne-scale setup. The Mockup detector was assembled in a clean room of the Nuova Officina Assergi (NOA) facility at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) above ground in early 2025, and was later transported to Hall C of the LNGS underground laboratory to be put inside a cryostat. The main tests focused on the long-term exposure of the Clevios coatings, an innovative conductive polymer, to LAr, analyzing gas-pocket formation, and conducting tests of the high voltage delivery. The detector is now decommissioned and transported back to the NOA facility for visual inspection for any possible damage or degradation. This talk presents the assembly, operation, ongoing analysis, findings, and future prospects of the Mockup project.
Anabella Araudo (Institute of Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences)
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are transient episodes of intense, coherent radio emission lasting from microseconds to milliseconds. While the origin of FRBs remains uncertain, most are detected at extragalactic distances. Notably, the repeating FRB 200428 has been associated with the Galactic magnetar SGR 1935+2154. We propose a new model for FRB emission from SGR 1935+2154, where streaming instabilities in a baryon-loaded expanding fireball with different electron and ion temperatures forms density cavities filled with electrostatic fields. Using one-dimensional particle-in-cell kinetic simulations, we constrain the size of these plasma cavities and characterize the electrostatic fields. The resulting FRB emission originates from the coherent Bremsstrahlung of relativistic particle bunches accelerated within the cavities. Our model reproduces the observed radio fluxes of FRBs from SGR 1935+2154 with a small coherence parameter. The relationship between the wave coherence scale and the electric field amplitudes indicates that harmonic emission is several orders of magnitude weaker than the fundamental emission. Moreover, unlike previous models that attribute cavity formation to Langmuir collapse in pair plasmas, our results show that these structures can continue to generate ion acoustic waves after Langmuir saturation. Detecting harmonics in FRB observations, or placing upper limits on their luminosity, can help discriminate among emission mechanisms and constrain the electron–ion or electron–positron composition of magnetar environments during such events.
Maciej Zgirski (Institute of Physics, PAN,, Warsaw)
