Scientific Interests

My principal interests at the moment are:

• Herschel SPIRE instrument
  I'm working for the SPIRE Instrument Control Center on the software pipeline, in particular I'm in charge to develop the Engineering Data Processing software, i.e. the software that will translate raw telemetry data into physical measured quantities.
• Stellar populations in Early Type galaxies from MIR
  The SED of Early Type galaxies shows at around 10 microns an emission feature due to silicate grains contained in circumstellar envelopes of AGB stars. This feature can be used to break the age-metallicity degeneracy in early type galaxies and to study possible recent episode of rejuvenation. We had three approved Spitzer programs to observe Early Type galaxies. You can find more details here.
• Models for spectrophotometric evolution of galaxies
  in particular I'm working on the code GRASIL (Silva et. al. 1998, ApJ, 509, 109) builted by G. L. Granato and L. Silva, in which I'm developing the inclusion of nebular emission using the photoionization code CLOUDY.
  This work is based on a pre-computed library of HII region emission models that provide the emission line luminosities for a given ionizing stellar population. This model can be easily re-implemented in other population synthesis codes. The HII region library that I built can be retrieved here.
  This paper (2003, A&A, 409, 99) describes the model and some applications.
  Here you can find an example of a SED computed with GRASIL for a normal spiral galaxy.

In past years I was interested to a lot of other things:

• After the degree in Astronomy:
  Application of a model of physical evolution of dust for the study of observed extinction curves.
  Statistical study of peculiar extinction curves.
  calculation of optical properties of composit dust grains with various models, in particular with the DDSCAT code.
  
• During my studies at the University of Padova:
  Plasma physics
  Simulations of magnetized plasmas
  Magnetohydrodynamical models of gravitational collapse in star formation
  Dusty Plasmas
  Physical evolution of interstellar dust in molecular clouds
  Physical evolution of interstellar dust in radiative shocks
  Chemical evolution of molecular clouds