Courses
TOPICS AND INVITED LECTURERS
1.-Introductory lectures to
Course | Lecturer |
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Exoplanets |
Yilen Gomez Maqueo Chew (IA-UNAM, Mexico) |
Monica Rodriguez (INAOE, Mexico) and Roberto Galvan-Madrid (IRyA, Mexico) |
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2.-Courses related to the topic of the School:
Course | Lecturer |
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Spectral/SED Fitting Techniques and Applying them to Databases |
Roberto Cid-Fernandez (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil). |
3.- Workshops:
Course | Lecturer |
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Arturo Gómez Ruíz (GTM-INAOE-CONACyT, Mexico), Alfredo Montaña (INAOE, Mexico) and Luis Zapata (IRyA, Mexico). |
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Itziar Aretxaga (INAOE, Mexico) and David Mota (University of Oslo, Norway) |
Daniel Rosa-González (INAOE, Mexico)
Daniel Rosa González was born and did his undergraduate studies in La Laguna. After that, he accomplished his Master thesis in the University of Manchester analysing interferomic radio data from Mira Variables. In 1998 he moved to the INAOE to do his PhD studies, on distant galaxies and the possibility of detecting them using the Sunyaev Zeldovich effect. After defending the thesis he obtained a postdoctoral grant and worked in Imperial College, London under the supervision of Professor Michael Rowan-Robinson. He come back to the INAOE in 2014 and now is a member of the staff at that Institution been at this moment the Head of Astrophysical Postgraduate Studies.
Introduction to Python
During the python courses we will go throw some basic concepts of programing, and then we will move to numerical solutions that we will apply to different practical astrophysical problems.
Concepts such as interpolation, numerical integration or monte carlo simulations ar going to be treated during the lectures. We will apply the given material to study real spectra obtained with the GTC, the GTM or even the JWST. The lectures will be a tool that without a doubt will help the students with the different challenges proposed by other professors of the school.
Career Development Workshop
ISYAs are three-week long intensive graduate schools for parts of the world where students do not have access to a broad up-to-date astrophysics education. The goal of this 52-yr old program sponsored by the IAU and the Norwegian academy of Science and Letters (NASL) is to broaden the participants’ perspective on astronomy by lectures from an international faculty on selected topics of astronomy, seminars, practical exercises, observations, and exchange of experiences. The program includes a set of workshops on Career Development of 1.5-2 hrs each led by ISYA directors, based on talks, discussions, practice and activities. All faculty is invited to participate.
1- The researcher’s path (talk and discussion): - description of the typical career path of a researcher: mobility and opportunities - advice for starting students: project focus, who to learn from, networking - battling the dark thoughts in our heads: impostor syndrome and mental hygiene - unconcious bias in science: the cultural micro-stoppers for minorities - general recommendations on support systems 2- Job/School hunting (talk and discussion): - The application letter - The CV - The interview - Opinions on how to address/prevent biases - Now that you are in, what? Plans, advisors, mentors - Alternative career paths for PhDs on Astronomy 3- Work Ethics (activity): “The Grey Zone of Academics” by Cailtin Casey and Kartik Sheth, based on 25 real scenarios, rating from acceptable to reprobable. It promotes discussion on: - gender, age, ethnic inclusion and unconcious biases - cultural differences and behaviour - nurturing and toxic work environments - harassment - undue use of others’ ideas and work - role models and career stances - diversity in career paths and opportunities 4- How to write a paper (talk and discussion): a set of recommendations on how to make your paper sharp and exciting. Do’s and do not’s. 5- How to give a talk (talk and practice, spaced by a few days): 1-min flash talks for students with only 1 viewgraph. The elevator talk model rational. Do’s and do not’s. Measured ISYA alumni satisfaction of ~97%.Itziar Aretxaga Mendez (INAOE, Mexico)
Dr. Itziar Aretxaga is a class-C researcher (equivalent to Full Professor) at Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE), a member of the Mexican National Researcher System (SNI) at the highest level and a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences (AMC) and of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). Since her arrival in Mexico in 1998, she has devoted her effort to build her research group on galaxy evolution and also to contribute to the development of the astronomy community. In 2011- 2016 she was appointed Head of Dept. of Astrophysics at INAOE. In 2006-2013 she coordinated the Astronomy section of the AMC and, in such capacity, has since contributed and led national plans for the development of Basic Sciences in the country.
From 2016 onwards she leads the effort of the International Astronomical Union to bring education, development and networking opportunities to graduate students in isolated areas of the world, as the Director of the International Schools for Young Astronomers (ISYA).
She has coauthored more than 140 research papers in Q1 journals and been invited more than 100 times to international conferences and other research institutes as a speaker. She also has an active outreach program of talks, articles and pieces in social media. The main scientific objective of her research is to unravel the importance of massive star formation around supermassive black holes and their role in galaxy formation and evolution. Among her contributions, she has been able to find and estimate the virulence of star formation episodes around the most active supermassive black holes, just a mere 100pc away. She also designed photometric techniques to derive distance and luminosities to dusty galaxies that have star formation rates larger than 100 times those of the Milky Way. These techniques, that were controversial 20 years ago, are a standard nowadays. With those in hand, she and her collaborators have established distance records to star-forming galaxies and found correlations between distant and nearby large scale structures. She is nowadays the Project Scientist of a large legacy program to be executed in the 50m Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano with the new technology camera TolTEC, that impacts more than 300 scientist worldwide.
David Mota (University of Oslo, Norway)
Dr. David Fonseca Mota born in Luanda, Angola. Bachelor degree in Lisbon, Portugal. PhD in Cambridge, UK. Researcher in Oxford, UK and in Heidelberg in Germany. Presently Professor in Cosmology at the University of Oslo, Norway.
Cosmology
Description:
We will start with an overview of the main observational features of the Universe: matter content, geometry, expansion rate, dark energy, and dark matter. We will then introduce General Relativity and the standard model to describe the Universe geometry. An overview of inflation and how it can explain some of the main cosmological puzzles. As a concrete example, we will study the physics of the CMBR and how one can extract information that can be used to understand the very early Universe as well as the late epochs. The course finishes with an overview of how nonlinear structure formation, in particular galaxy clusters, can be used to unveil the nature of dark energy and gravity. Syllabus: Lecture 1: Observational Cosmology The main observational features of the Universe: matter content, geometry, expansion rate, dark energy, and dark matter. Lecture 2: General Relativity and Inflation General Relativity and the FRW model of the Universe. An introduction to Inflation, the main cosmological puzzles, and how Inflation could explain them. Lecture 3: Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation Formation of the CMB photons, its main properties, and how one can use the CMB features to probe the main large-scale properties of the Universe. Lecture 4: Galaxy Clusters as a probe of Gravity beyond General Relativity Main features of Modified Gravity models, and how one can use galaxy cluster properties to test and search for signatures of those models.Machine Learning in Astronomy
Session 1:
-Introductions and icebreakers to get students comfortable -Lecture (but casual style, want to ask questions get their answers and opinions on the topics) *History of observational astronomy and the increasing amounts of data *Overview of machine learning and the difference types (e.g. unsupervised, supervised) *Ease into how and why we might need machine learning in general in astronomy Session 2: - lecture/workshop style - Identifying a problem that machine learning would be useful for *Get students to list types of data they’ve heard of or worked with before and use these examples for the task. -Breaking down how to identify what type of learning would suit different problems. - Start to introduce preparing data for ML Session 3: -Feature identifying workshop -Light curves and python. *Students will need python and anaconda installed on their laptops (but will have note books online which they can use if needed too) *Working in groups to identify which features are useful, which are not. *Introduction to PCA Session 4: -Unsupervised learning on the light curves and features from the previous session. -Trying different clustering methods. -Trying t-SNE, UMAP projections. Getting them to identify which method meaningfully groups data, and which doesn’t. -Getting students to identify what features they need and when to drop ones they don’t. Session 5: -Unsupervised learning on images. -First have students Identify what images this could be useful on (galaxies etc) -Break down the different methods which have been used in the past in sudo code for students to get an idea of what specific types of algorithms might be needed. Session 6: -Supervised learning, introduction to basic CNNs and how they work -Looking over examples in open source data, how successful they have been and looking at some previous uses in astronomy -Introduction into the ROBOT pipeline, why we needed it and why we used a CNN Session 7: -Supervised learning ROBOT example. Students work in jupyter notebooks to build Basic CNN network on astronomy images. Session 8: -The future of Astronomy and ML - short talk and then group brainstorm -How could ML help the work they are doing or plan to do? What problems in astronomy could benefit from ML, what problems don’t need it. Making sure the students can identify when ML is overkill in a situation. -Get them to brainstorm their own ML projects with open source data for the future.Stellar Astrophysics
Lecture 1) Stars and stellar populations.
Magnitudes; Colors; Distances; Proper Motions; Spectral classification; The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram; Star clusters; Stellar ages and element abundances: archaeology of the Milky Way. Lecture 2) The equations of stellar structure. Mass and momentum conservation. The Virial theorem. Energy transport and energy conservation. Numerical Methods: solution of the system of stellar structure equations. Lecture 3) From the Pre Main Sequence to the Main Sequence. Cloud collapse, fragmentation and proto-star contraction. Opacity of stellar matter. Low temperature nuclear reactions. Proton-Proton cycle and CNO cycle; Mixing of elements. Evolution in the HRD Lecture 4) Post Main Sequence evolution of Low and Intermediate mass stars. Equation of state with electron degeneracy. The Red Giant Branch. The Helium Flash. The Horizontal Branch. Cepheids. The Asymptotic Giant Branch. White Dwarfs. Lecture 5) Massive stars. The HRD of massive stars. Stellar winds and stellar evolution with mass-loss. Stellar Rotation. Wolf-Rayet stars. Advanced evolutionary phases, neutrino losses and pre-supernova nucleosynthesis. Supernovae: electron-capture and core collapse SN; pair-instability SN; compact remnants. (Type Ia Supernovae)Interstellar Medium
The cold phase (Roberto Galvan-Madrid)
-Phases of the ISM -Cold neutral gas, (large) dust, and PAHs -Chemistry and kinematics of molecular clouds -From molecular clouds to star (cluster) and planet formationThe ionized phase (Monica Rodriguez)
- Ionization - Heating and cooling - Dust - The emitted spectrum - Ionization modelsObservational Millimetre Astronomy
Interferometry (Luis A. Zapata)
Theory: - Submillimeter Interferometry - Aperture Synthesis - uv Weighting Schemes Practice: - Introduction to CASA - Calibration of ALMA data (using the pipeline) - CLEANning ImagesErika Benítez Lizaola (UNAM, Mexico)
Erika Benítez obtained her Ph.D. in Sciences with a specialty in Astronomy in 1997 at the Faculty of Sciences at UNAM in Mexico City. She was an invited professor at the Florida International University in Miami USA from 1998 to 2000. Back in Mexico, she started to work at Instituto de Astronomía UNAM in the eld of Extragalactic Astronomy. She is a specialist in optical variability observations of AGN. Since 2008 led the optical photopolarimetric variability observational program that aims to study a sample of TeV blazars at the San Pedro Mártir Observatory (OAN-SPM) in Baja California, Mexico. Since 2000 is member of the international GASP-WEBT monitoring program that aims to obtain multifrequency observations of TeV blazars from radio to gamma rays. She also leads a project related to the study and characterization of dual and binary AGN candidate systems in nearby AGN, using radio, IR, optical, and X-ray databases, including optical data obtained with the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) and also IR and optical data obtained with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) with the instruments Canaricam and MEGARA. She has experience processing photometric, spectrophotometric, and polarimetric data. She has also observed with the SARA telescope at KPNO in the USA, with the WHT telescope, and with the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in Spain. She is a regular member of the Mexican Physical Society, the Mexican Academy of Sciences, and the International Astronomical Union (IAU).
Optical Observational Astronomy
Brief course description
The aim of this course is introducing students to optical observations by means of preparing an observing night, obtain data using the 1m OAN telescope if weather permits, and learn how to process CCD images with the software IRAF. Photometry techniques will be explain, in particular aperture photometry, and students will also learn how to process long-slit spectra. Finally, a brief introduction to the HST telescope will be given and we will show how to use the HST archival database. A list of HST images will be downloaded in order to obtain a RGB combined image.
Session 1 Introduction to Observational Astronomy
- Telescopes
- Charge couple devices : CCDs
- How to prepare an observational proposal
- Preparing the observing night
- Sideral time, airmass, telescope focus
- Getting the calibrations
- Observing standards stars and main targets
- Hands-on session: observations with the OAN 1m telescope
Session 2 Introduction to IRAF
- Starting IRAF: the cl, packages, tasks
- Image reduction basics: bias, dark current, at eld, CR removal
- Hands-on session:
- Using IRAF for basic image reduction
- iraf: xgterm and DS9 visual interface
- Master bias and a normalized master flat.
Session 3 Photometry with IRAF
- Introduction to photometry and photometric systems
- Hands-on session:
- Cleaning images: subtract the master bias, divide by master at, CR removal
- Aperture photometry: using Phot, obtain instrumental magnitudes
- Using standards and estimate the zero point
- Calibrate instrumental magnitudes
Session 4 Spectrophotometry with IRAF
- Introduction to Spectra and spectrographs
- Hands-on session:
- Processing long slit spectra
- Bias removal, trimming spectra
- Identifying the arc lines
- Lambda and flux calibration
Session 5 Working with HST archival data
- Hubble Space Telescope: introduction, instruments and filters.
- HST data: images, spectra
- Downloading data: Hubble Legacy site, MAST
- Free software for FITS le management: DS9, FITS liberator, GIMP
- Hands-on session:
- Processing some HST archival data: list of images
Bibliography
The Handbook of Astronomical Image Processing, Richard Berry and James Burnell, Willmann-Bell Inc, Second Edition 2005
Observational Astronomy, Scott Birney, Guillermo Gonzalez and David Oesper, Cambridge University Press, Second Edition 2006.
Measuring the Universe, A multi wavelength Perspective, George H. Rieke, Cambridge University Press 2012.>/p>
Roberto Galvan-Madrid (IRyA, Mexico)
Dr. Roberto Galván-Madrid was born in Chetumal, Mexico. He studied physics at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL) and obtained his PhD in Sciences (Astronomy) from UNAM in 2011. To conduct his PhD research, he was a predoctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics from 2007 to 2011. Later he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the headquarters of the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany. During this time he had the opportunity to participate in the first years of observations of the ALMA radiotelescope. In 2014 he started as faculty at the Instituto de Radioastronomía y Astrofísica (IRyA) of UNAM, Campus Morelia.
The research of Dr. Galván-Madrid is focused on the formation of individual stars, star clusters, and their progenitor molecular clouds. He has made contributions to our understanding of the most extreme star formation regions in our Galaxy, which are the only local sites capable of forming the most massive stars. In recent years Dr. Galván-Madrid has had an important participation in large (sub)millimeter surveys of star formation in the Milky Way. He also has worked in creating tools to produce synthetic observations from theoretical models, which is becoming the standard to compare theory and observations.Galaxies
Lecture 1:
- General Introduction, morphological classification, physical properties in the local universe. Changes with redshift. - Spectral energy distributions and the dominant physical mechanisms at each wavelength.Lecture 2:
- Measurements of physical properties from fits of spectral energy distributions. - Models and assumptions. Population Synthesis Models: strengths and weaknesses of existing codes.Lecture 3:
- Zoom-in into one physical parameter: Star Formation Rates. Definitions, and limitations. - Star Formation Rates from different wavelengths and physical mechanisms.Lecture 4:
- The Elephant in the Room: Dust! Dust extinction and attenuation. Dust emission. How to convince dust to work for you.Daniela Calzetti (UMASS, USA)
Daniela Calzetti is a Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (USA). She obtained her PhD in 1992 from the University of Rome `La Sapienza' (Italy), and was a staff astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute from 1995 to 2007, after which she joined the University of Massachusetts. Her research interests are centered on the observational properties of galaxies and their translation to physical properties.
Monica Rodriguez (INAOE, Mexico)
Mónica Rodríguez was born in Petrer (Alicante, Spain), and studied Physics and Astrophysics (Bachelor and PhD degrees) in Universidad de Granada, Universidad de La Laguna, Imperial College, and Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. She then settled in Mexico, and works at Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE) since the year 2000.
Her areas of interest include H II regions and planetary nebulae, their chemical composition and dust content, and, in general, the distribution of metals in galaxies and the evolution of the universe. She started her career studying the depletion of iron into dust grains in H II regions, and has lately explored, mostly along with her PhD students, the uncertainties of chemical abundances in ionized gas due to observational uncertainties, to uncertainties in atomic data, and to failures in the assumptions we need to make.Alessandro Bressan (SISSA, Italy)
Born in Verona (Italy). Degree in Astronomy at Padova University, Phd at SISSA, Trieste, Italy. Associate Researcher, then Associate Astronomer at INAF, Astronomical Observatory of Padova. Full Professor at SISSA since 2011. Head of the SISSA Astrophysics Sector, from 2011 to 2016. About 250 published refereed papers.
Research Interests - Stellar structure and evolution: physics of stars, stellar evolutionary tracks, from very low mass to very massive stars; compact stellar remnants; metals and dust yields; dark matter annihilation on the first stars. - Population synthesis: isochrones and panchromatic integrated properties of simple stellar populations; the colour-magnitude diagram of star clusters. - Spectral evolution of galaxies: chemo-spectro-photometric models of galaxies from far ultraviolet to radio wavelengths; dusty star forming galaxies; early type galaxies in the mid infrared.