Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 12:59:29 +0100 (BST) From: Elena Terlevich VIOLENT STAR FORMATION: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MEXICO NODE: Coordinator: ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Elena Terlevich (eterlevi@inaoep.mx) - hereafter ET tel: +52 22 22 ..... Participants: ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Roberto Terlevich Sergiy Silich Itziar Aretxaga Divakara Mayya Alberto Carramin~ana Guillermo Tenorio-Tagle Aurelio Lopez Olac Fuentes (and all the Computer Sciences people) Jose Franco Guillermo Garcia Segura Christophe Morisset Elena Terlevich Main ongoing collaborations with other proposed node members ------------------------------------------------------------ ********************************************************************************** INAOE ~~~~~ Training: The INAOE has a very vigorous postgraduate training programme. The nature of the Institute is such that we offer programmes for postgraduate courses (Masters and PhDs) not only in Astrophysics but also in Optics, in Electronics and in Computational Sciences. In the last period (comprising 1999 through March 2003) we have graduated 16 Masters in Astrophysics (188 in the other subjects) and 9 PhDs (82 in total). The Institute of Astronomy of the National University (IA-UNAM) forms an equivalent number of Masters and PhDs in Astrophysics, both in their headquarters at Mexico City and in the outpost at Ensenada (Baja California). The number of active students at present at INAOE is 20 doing their Master in Astrophysics, 18 doing their PhD (similar numbers at IA-UNAM) and 130 (working towards a Masters) and 106 (towards PhDs) in the other 3 disciplines. TOTAL postgraduate students: 275. ----------------------------------------------------- - Sergiy Silich - email: silich@inaoep.mx - contacts/existing colaborations with other network members Spain IAC, Tenerife Casiana Muoz-Tuon France IAP, Paris Daniel Kunth Mexico INAOE Guillermo Tenorio Tagle, Elena Terlevich, Roberto Terlevich IAUNAM Jose Franco Graduated Master students: 1. Martiushov V. ``Starburst supershells: X-ray luminosity and chemical composition'', 2000, Kiev State University, Kiev, 2. Ary Rodriguez Gonz{\'a}lez}, ``La alta metalicidad producida por remanentes de supernova compactos'', 2002, INAOE, Tonantzintla, Mexico; - interests/research topics Main scientific interests: Shock waves: Radiation hydrodynamics theory, semianalytic and numerical methods for the calculation of the shock-wave propagation. Interstellar medium: Structure, evolution, and energy budget of the interstellar medium powered by the action of massive stars, and star clusters. Supernova remnants, stellar and galactic winds: Numerical simulations of supernova remnants, stellar winds, superbubbles and galactic superwinds driven by massive star clusters into nonuniform interstellar medium. Comparison of numerical models predictions with observations in HI, H$_{\alpha}$, and X-ray energy bands. Star formation: The organizing role of mechanical feedback from massive star clusters and interstellar shells in the formation of molecular clouds and new generation of stars. -------------------------------------------------- - Alberto Carrami–ana - email: alberto@inaoep.mx - training in the last 3 years: postgrad course on radiation (INAOE) introductory course for admission to Master's degrees (INAOE) Cesar Alvarez Ochoa, PhD "Dynamical Spin-down Pulsar Evolution", 2002. - interests/research topics pulsars and compact stars: high energy emission and evolution; gamma-ray bursts. ----------------------------------------------------- Y. Divakara Mayya personal areas of interest: Star formation and Stellar populations in Giant HII regions and Starburst galaxies. Study of stellar populations in regions of recent star formation is my main area of interest. Over the years, I have used several indicators of recent star formation (Halpha flux and Equivalent Width, optical/NIR colours, Calcium Triplet EW etc), to investigate the age of the most recent stellar population. I have also developed a population synthesis model to calculate the observable quantities of star forming regions. Of late I am investigating the extisting stellar populations in starburst nuclei by fitting the observed optical/NIR spectra. Another area that interests me is the star formation history and chemical evolution of ring galaxies Possible titles for Ph.D. theses connected with my interests, 1. "recent star formation history in starburst regions". 2. "Photo-chemical evolution of ring galaxies". Existing colaborations with members of the network. Alessandro Bressan: investigation of stellar populations in a sample of M82-like starburst nuclei. Jose Vilchez: Photo-chemical evolution of Ring galaxies. ----------------------------------------------------- Itziar Aretxaga Personal areas of interest: The evolution of massive stars that end-up creating supernovae with characteristics similar to the nuclei of Seyfert galaxies: characterication of the masses of progenitors, energy outputs and reprocessing of kinetic energy via interaction with the interstellar medium. The history of star formation in powerful radio galaxies. We aim at deriving a clean test of whether all narrow-line AGN, regardless of the strength of their nuclear activity, have enhanced nuclear star formation. This will help formulate a more precise understanding about the origin of a starburst--AGN connection (including the effects of dust), whilst at the same time we can place limits on the age of the accretion process. Dust enshrouded massive star forming galaxies: ULIRGs at low and high-z. Predictions of the amount of dust and CO emission based on theoretical modelling and observational constraints at low-z. There are thesis projects in all these areas. Existing collaborations with people in external nodes: Angeles Diaz, Alessandro Bressan, and the SN people in Padova. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Elena Terlevich eterlevi@inaoep.mx Areas of interest and topics for PhD Thesis: Chemistry of regions of violent star formation; stellar fabric in the nuclei of active galaxies with different degrees of activity; star formation history in normal and active galaxies; interaction between violent star formation, massive stars and the interstellar medium; primordial abundance of light elements from studies of giant regions of star formation; HII galaxies as cosmological probes. Long history of successful colaborations with several members of the network: Daniel Kunth, Miguel Mas, Angeles Diaz, Marcelo Castellanos, Enrique Perez, Rosa Gonzalez Delgado, J.M. Vilchez, Casiana Mun~oz Tun~on, Sandro Bressan, besides internal collaborations with INAOE colleagues. I teach a postgraduate course at INAOE on massive stars and the interstellar medium, and have supervised an undergraduate Dissertation and 2 PhD Thesis. I am supervising now another PhD student. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Roberto Terlevich rjt@inaoep.mx Violent star formation, Star formation in elliptical galaxies, Starburst-AGN connection, Observational cosmology, Fundamental airplanes, Supervised and unsupervised analysis of megadatasets. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Guillermo Tenorio-Tagle gtt@inaoep.mx (as Silich) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Computational Sciences at INAOE: PI: allopez@haro.inaoep.mx The group of Computational Sciences at INAOE is formed by 16 researchers, all holding PhDs, working along 4 main lines: - Pattern recognition and automated learning - Natural language processing - Computer perception - Systems engineering They all share common research areas as Image analysis, reconfigured computing, data mining, text mining, computer networks, simulations and modelling, databases, conversational systems, man-machine interfaces, signal processing, information processing, speach recognition, encrypting, etc. The group also collaborates with industry in some developing projects. Last december we started a collaboration towards handling and analysing astronomical megadatasets, in which students are involved, both from computing sciences and from astrophysics. Group members: Dr. Ariel Carrasco Dr. Leopoldo Altamirano-Robles Dr. Miguel Arias-Estrada Dr. Olac Fuentes Dr. Jaime Muoz Arteaga Dr. Gustavo Rodrguez Dr. Carlos Alberto Reyes Garca Dr. Luis Villaseor Pineda Dr. Jess A. Gonzlez Bernal Dr. Aurelio Lpez Lpez Dr. Jos Francisco Martnez Trinidad Dr. Manuel Montes y Gmez Dr. Rene Armando Cumplido Parra Dr. Claudia Feregrino Uribe Dr. Rodrigo Montfar Chaveznava Dr. Saul Pomares -------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------- IA-UNAM Christophe Morisset Morisset@AstroScu.UNAM.mx Modelling of photoionization regions and massive stars. Uses own photoionization code developed with Daniel Pequignot (Meudon) and a version of the 3D photoionization code Mocassin, developed by B. Ercolano at U C London (with M. Barlow, P. Storey and X. Liu at UCL). These various codes (now being installed and tested at a cluster at IAUNAM) can form a unique set of tools to perform reliable modelling of HII regions. I'm currently working with Daniel Schaerer on O Stars EUV emission and UCHII regions; Dust formation is also a key point of the evolution of massive stars, I'm also involved in modelling dust effect in HII and HI regions using ISO observations and excitation diagnostics to constrain the EUV ionizing emission from massive hot stars (with J.-C. Bouret, D. Schaerer and F. Martins) I developped an IDL code devoted to the synthesis of emission line spectra: X-SSN (Spectral Synthesis for Nebulae). Using this code, we were able to identify and extract the Raman Scattering of HeII photons by HI atoms, a unique way to probe the neutral region in a Planetary Nebula. X-SSN is still in developpment and the use of it to extract very faint emission lines in complexe (blended) spectra is quite promising. I'm also interested in modelling the dust emission, in a collaboration with R. Szczerba (Torun). We included the effects of dust in the photoionization code, in terms of absorption, heating and emission. We already interfaced the photoionization code with a neutral dusty (no molecules nor ions) code to follow the radiative transfer through the HII and the dusty regions. The next step is to interface the photoionization code with a PDR code, to treat coherently the HII and HI region with a single modelling tool. Christophe MORISSET Tel: +52 55 56 22 40 02 of. 12, Instituto de Astronomia Fax: +52 55 56 16 06 53 UNAM Apdo. postal 70-264 mailto:Morisset@astroscu.UNAM.mx Ciudad Universitaria D.F.04510 MEXICO http://www.astroscu.unam.mx/~morisset/ -------------------------------------------------------------------- Guillermo Garcia-Segura ggs@astrosen.unam.mx Jose Franco pepe@astroscu.unam.mx --------------------------------------------------------------------- Apart from the topics relevant to this application, around which there exist successful collaborations between mexican astronomers and different (sometimes overlapping) sets of members of the network, there are two main contributions that we envisage from Mexico: 1- the unique possibility that opens from the LMT (large millimeter telescope) that Mexico is building together with UMASS on top of Cerro La Negra, and which is expected to begin operations around 2004. Mexico is also involved in the GTC telescope (at the level of 5%). 2- the multi-disciplinary character of INAOE that allows, for instance, close interaction with the computing sciences group, as the project we are involved with at present on the analysis of SLOAN data and the `handling' of megadatabases. The close interaction with experts in optics and electronics also opens the interesting possibility for instrument development at the frontier. ----------------------------------------------------------------------