Unless otherwise noted, the Astrophysics Seminars take place on Monday, usually every other week, at 1:30pm in Aula Caldirola.
October 2025
October 6th
Speaker: Dr. Tullia Sbarrato (INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera)
Title: Mature jetted black holes in a young Universe: do they have a super-Eddington history?
Abstract: The formation and evolution of the first supermassive black holes (SMBHs) have been put in the spotlight after the discovery of few hundreds extremely massive quasars at high redshift. An interesting twist in our understanding of the matter was introduced by the discovery of an unusual number of jetted sources: X-ray observations of blazars (i.e. AGN with jets aligned to our LoS) at z>4 prove that the most massive active black holes are preferentially hosted in jetted quasars in the first Gigayear from the Big Bang. Jets might thus play a crucial role in fast assembling and accreting matter onto SMBHs. Weirdly, the z>4 blazar population does not show common signs of super-critical accretion. I will present our current knowledge about z>4 blazars, that trace a comprehensive view on jet, accretion and mass features of the M>10^9Msun jetted quasars population. Then I will explore the possibility that sustained super-Eddington episodes are key to launching relativistic jets. Finding jets accelerating in their earliest stages might be our best bet to catch in the act early super-critical evolution.
October 20th
Speaker: Dr. Davide Basilico (Università degli Studi di Milano)
Title: Towards the first JUNO measurements of neutrino oscillations
Abstract: One of the most important open problems in astroparticle physics is the determination of the Neutrino Mass Ordering (NMO). This is the key goal of JUNO (Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory), a huge liquid-scintillator based neutrino experiment located in China, which is going to enter the precision era for neutrino oscillation physics through spectroscopy of reactor antineutrinos. After ten years of on-site work, the construction of the detector was completed at the end of 2024, at which point the commissioning phase of the JUNO experiment began. This stage involved the filling of the central detector sphere with 20 kilotons of liquid scintillator. The first data-taking campaign began in August 2025 and is still ongoing, for which we expect to release the first results on neutrino oscillations soon. This talk will summarize the JUNO physics goals and methods, as well as the detector’s long journey from construction to the first data-taking campaign.
November 2025
November 3rd
Speaker: Dr. Cristiano Longarini (University of Cambridge, UK)
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD
November 17th
Speaker: TBD
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD
Dicember 2025
December 1st
Speaker: TBD
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD
December 15th
Speaker: Prof. Alvaro Hacar (University of Vienna)
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD