Seminars – academic year 2026/2027 - ASTROFISICA ALLA STATALE

Unless otherwise noted, the Astrophysics Seminars take place on Monday, usually every other week, at 1:30pm in Aula Caldirola.

September 2026

September 7th

Speaker 1: Luna Rampinelli (Università degli Studi di Milano)
Title 1: The chemical conditions of planet formation as revealed by spatially-resolved molecular lines observations with ALMA

Abstract 1: Protoplanetary disks are the birthplaces of planets, where planetary cores assemble, and atmospheres are accreted. The composition of these disks is expected to leave an imprint on the composition and architecture of planetary systems, while the formation of giant planets can, in turn, influence the chemical and physical structure of their natal environments. Unraveling this interplay between planets and disks, and characterizing the chemical conditions under which planetary systems form, is therefore fundamental to understanding how planets form and acquire their compositions.
In this talk, I will show how spatially resolved ALMA observations of molecular lines in protoplanetary disks can be used to probe the astrochemistry of planet formation. I will focus on three main aspects: (1) tracing the chemical link between planets and their natal disks in a system where planets are known to be forming; (2) mapping the distribution of water vapor — a key molecule for planet formation — in the regions where planets are born; and (3) tracing the chemical history of the building blocks of planets and of relevant prebiotic precursors across the different stages of star and planet formation.

Speaker 2: Viviana Pezzotta (Università degli Studi di Milano)
Title 2: A kinematic view of protoplanetary disks: structure, dynamical mass, and gravitational instability

Abstract 2: A detailed characterization of the structure and properties of protoplanetary disks is essential to understand the physical mechanisms and timescales determining planet formation. In particular, reconstructing the two-dimensional disk structure (i.e., gas temperature, pressure and velocity) is fundamental to understand the physical conditions under which planets are formed. Additionally, constraining the disk mass is crucial to assess the reservoir of material available for planet formation, and hence constrain the evolutionary pathways that connect forming planetary systems to the diversity of mature systems observed today. In this context, the kinematic information encoded in molecular line emission provides a powerful tool to tackle these open questions, offering unique constraints on many disk properties. In this talk, I leverage the potential of gas kinematics to: (1) explore how the simultaneous analysis of multiple molecular tracers probing different disk regions enables the retrieval of the disk two-dimensional structure, in particular the temperature, pressure, velocity field, and vertical stratification; (2) provide accurate measurements of disk masses based on gas dynamics, improving this promising methodology to determine the mass reservoir of planet-forming disks; (3) investigate the presence of gravitational instability in protoplanetary disks based on dynamical masses, exploring how kinematic deviations from the Keplerian motion can provide insights into its possible role in disk evolution and planet formation.

September 21st

Speaker: Matilde Barberi Squarotti (Università degli Studi di Milano)
Title: TBD

October 2026

October 5th