Publications (69)
Correlations between IR Luminosity, Star Formation Rate, and CO Luminosity in the Local Universe
Matteo Bonato, Ivano Baronchelli, Viviana Casasola +5
We exploit the DustPedia sample of galaxies within approximately 40 Mpc, selecting 388 sources, to investigate the correlations between IR luminosity (L), the star forma…
HERschel Observations of Edge-on Spirals (HEROES). III. Dust energy balance study of IC 2531
Aleksandr V. Mosenkov, Flor Allaert, Maarten Baes +11
We investigate the dust energy balance for the edge-on galaxy IC 2531, one of the seven galaxies in the HEROES sample. We perform a state-of-the-art radiative transfer modelling ba…
The Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey XIV: transition-type dwarf galaxies in the Virgo cluster
Ilse De Looze, Maarten Baes, Alessandro Boselli +19
We use dust scaling relations to investigate the hypothesis that Virgo cluster transition-type dwarfs are infalling star-forming field galaxies, which is argued based on their opti…
Survival of very small carbonaceous dust grains in the inner-CGM of NGC 891 from JWST/MIRI MRS
Jérémy Chastenet, Ilse De Looze, Karl D. Gordon +26
We present new spectroscopic observations of the inner circumgalactic medium (CGM) of NGC 891 taken with the Mid-Infrared Imager/Medium Resolution Spectroscopy instrument onboard J…
DustPedia and Local Volume Legacy samples as benchmarks for dust evolution in galaxies
Evangelos D. Paspaliaris, Simone Bianchi, Edvige Corbelli +8
DustPedia and LVL are two samples representative of the local galaxy population, including in total 1011 unique objects of all morphological types, with a wide range of stellar mas…
Probing the spectral shape of dust emission with the DustPedia galaxy sample
Angelos Nersesian, Wouter Dobbels, Manolis E. Xilouris +10
The objective of this paper is to understand the variance of the far-infrared (FIR) spectral energy distribution (SED) of the DustPedia galaxies, and its link with the stellar and…
Astro2020: Unleashing the Potential of Dust Emission as a Window onto Galaxy Evolution
Christopher Clark, Julua Roman-Duval, Sarah Sadavoy +15
We present the severe, systematic uncertainties currently facing our understanding of dust emission, which stymie our ability to truly exploit dust as a tool for studying galaxy ev…
The radial variation of the silicate-to-carbon ratio in M31 probed by PRIMA
Jérémy Chastenet, Ilse De Looze, Maarten Baes +12
The properties of interstellar dust grains are being scrutinized more than ever before, with the advent of large facilities. Infrared emission from dust grains is a powerful asset…
The First Maps of -- the Dust Mass Absorption Coefficient -- in Nearby Galaxies, with DustPedia
Christopher J. R. Clark, Pieter De Vis, Maarten Baes +17
The dust mass absorption coefficient, , is the conversion function used to infer physical dust masses from observations of dust emission. However, it is notoriously poorly…
IGM metal enrichment through dust sputtering
Simone Bianchi, Andrea Ferrara
We study the motion of dust grains into the Intergalactic Medium (IGM) around redshift z=3, to test the hypothesis that grains can efficiently pollute the gas with metals through s…
The Wide-field Spectroscopic Telescope (WST) Science White Paper
Vincenzo Mainieri, Richard I. Anderson, Jarle Brinchmann +214
The Wide-field Spectroscopic Telescope (WST) is proposed as a new facility dedicated to the efficient delivery of spectroscopic surveys. This white paper summarises the initial con…
Dust Emissivity in the Far-Infrared
Simone Bianchi, Jonathan I. Davies, Paul B. Alton
We have derived the dust emissivity in the Far-Infrared (FIR) using data available in the literature. We use two wavelength dependences derived from spectra of Galactic FIR emissio…
Monte Carlo simulations of dusty spiral galaxies: extinction and polarization properties
Simone Bianchi, Andrea Ferrara, Carlo Giovanardi
We present Monte Carlo simulations of dusty spiral galaxies, modelled as bulge + disk systems, aimed to study their extinction and polarization properties. The extinction parameter…
A Nearby Galaxy Perspective on Dust Evolution. Scaling relations and constraints on the dust build-up in galaxies with the DustPedia and DGS samples
Frédéric Galliano, Angelos Nersesian, Simone Bianchi +14
Methods. We have modelled a sample of ~800 nearby galaxies, spanning a wide range of metallicity, gas fraction, specific star formation rate and Hubble stage. We have derived the d…
The Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey: X.The relationship between cold dust and molecular gas content in Virgo spirals
Edvige Corbelli, Simone Bianchi, Luca Cortese +16
Using the far-infrared emission, as observed by the Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey (HeViCS), and the integrated HI and CO brightness, we infer the dust and total gas mass for a magn…
The Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey - XIII. Dust in early-type galaxies
Sperello di Serego Alighieri, Simone Bianchi, Cirino Pappalardo +16
Aims. We study the dust content of a large optical input sample of 910 early-type galaxies (ETG) in the Virgo cluster, extending also to the dwarf ETG, and examine the results in r…
The Drivers of Cosmic Dust Temperature Evolution
Massimiliano Parente, Francesco Salvestrini, Gian Luigi Granato +7
The paper uses a cosmological semi‑analytic galaxy formation model with dust radiative transfer to study how dust temperature evolves with redshift, finding that star‑formation rat…
PRIMA survey of the Virgo cluster
Jacopo Fritz, Maarten Baes, Diego Alejandro Vasquez Torres +11
Clusters of galaxies are unique laboratories for investigating the dependence of galaxy evolution on their environment. The Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey (HeViCS) mapped the centra…
A Bayesian chemical evolution model of the DustPedia Galaxy M74
Francesco Calura, Marco Palla, Laura Morselli +8
We introduce a new, multi-zone chemical evolution model of the DustPedia galaxy M74, calibrated by means of MCMC methods. We take into account the observed stellar and gas density…
Revisiting the Local Interstellar Radiation Field using Gaia DR3
Simone Bianchi
Context: Dust grains in the interstellar medium are heated by the integrated radiation from stars in the Milky Way. A knowledge of the Local Interstellar Radiation Field (LISRF) is…
Reproducing the Universe: a comparison between the EAGLE simulations and the nearby DustPedia galaxy sample
Ana TrÄka, Maarten Baes, Peter Camps +17
We compare the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and inferred physical properties for simulated and observed galaxies at low redshift. We exploit UV-submillimetre mock fluxes of…
Effects of Clumping on the Observed Properties of Dusty Galaxies
Simone Bianchi, Andrea Ferrara, Jon Davies +1
We present Monte Carlo radiative transfer simulations for spiral galaxies modelled as a stellar disk and a two-phase clumpy dust distribution. We divide the volume occupied by the…
High-resolution, 3D radiative transfer modelling V. A detailed model of the M51 interacting pair
Angelos Nersesian, Sebastien Viaene, Ilse De Looze +13
Investigating the dust heating mechanisms in galaxies provides a deeper understanding of how the internal energy balance drives their evolution. Over the last decade, radiative tra…
The dust-star interplay in late-type galaxies at z < 0.5: forecasts for the JWST
Ciro Pappalardo, George J. Bendo, Mederic Boquien +4
In recent years, significant growth in the amount of data available to astronomers has opened up the possibility to uncover fundamental correlations, linking the dust component of…
The resolved scaling relations in DustPedia: Zooming in on the local Universe
Viviana Casasola, Simone Bianchi, Laura Magrini +18
We perform a homogeneous analysis of an unprecedented set of spatially resolved scaling relations (SRs) between ISM components and other properties in the range of scales 0.3-3.4 k…
The Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey. IX. Dust-to-gas mass ratio and metallicity gradients in four Virgo spiral galaxies
Laura Magrini, Simone Bianchi, Edvige Corbelli +20
Using Herschel data from the Open Time Key Project the Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey (HeViCS), we investigated the relationship between the metallicity gradients expressed by metal…
Exploring the interplay of dust and gas phases in DustPedia star-forming galaxies
Francesco Salvestrini, Simone Bianchi, Edvige Corbelli
Molecular gas is the key ingredient of the star formation cycle, and tracing its dependencies on other galaxy properties is essential for understanding galaxy evolution. In this wo…
The first low-mass stars: critical metallicity or dust-to-gas ratio?
Raffaella Schneider, Kazuyuki Omukai, Simone Bianchi +1
We explore the minimal conditions which enable the formation of metal-enriched solar and sub-solar mass stars. We find that in the absence of dust grains, gas fragmentation occurs…
Radiative Transfer in Spiral Galaxies
Simone Bianchi
The internal dust extinction in spiral galaxies can affect our understanding of their structure and morphology, as well as our perception of the distant universe in the background.…
Scaling relations of metallicity, stellar mass, and star formation rate in metal-poor starbursts: II. Theoretical models
Laura Magrini, Leslie Hunt, Daniele Galli +6
Scaling relations of metallicity (O/H), star formation rate (SFR), and stellar mass give important insight on galaxy evolution. They are obeyed by most galaxies in the Local Univer…
Dust Extinction and Emission in a Clumpy Galactic Disk. An Application of the Radiative Transfer Code TRADING
Simone Bianchi
AIMS: I present the Monte Carlo radiative transfer code TRADING (Transfer of RAdiation through Dust In Galaxies). The code computes self-consistently the extinction of radiation in…
The Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey. XIX. Physical properties of low luminosity FIR sources at 0.5
Ciro Pappalardo, Luca Bizzocchi, Jacopo Fritz +12
The Star formation rate (SFR) is a crucial parameter to investigate galaxy evolution. At low redshift the cosmic SFR density declines smoothly, and massive active galaxies become p…
Ultraviolet Background Radiation from Cosmic Structure Formation
Francesco Miniati, Andrea Ferrara, Simon D. M. White +1
We calculate the contribution to the ultraviolet background (UVB) from thermal emission from gas shock heated by cosmic structure formation. Our main calculation is based on an upd…
High-resolution, 3D radiative transfer modelling. II. The early-type spiral galaxy M81
Sam Verstocken, Angelos Nersesian, Maarten Baes +14
Interstellar dust absorbs stellar light very efficiently and thus shapes the energetic output of galaxies. Studying the impact of different stellar populations on the dust heating…
The distribution of dust in edge-on galaxies: I. The global structure
Aleksandr V. Mosenkov, Pavel A. Usachev, Zacory Shakespear +9
In this first paper in a series we present a study of the global dust emission distribution in nearby edge-on spiral galaxies. Our sample consists of 16 angularly large and 13 less…
The ISM scaling relations in DustPedia late-type galaxies: A benchmark study for the Local Universe
Viviana Casasola, Simone Bianchi, Pieter De Vis +18
The purpose of this work is the characterization of the main scaling relations between all the ISM components (dust, atomic/molecular/total gas), gas-phase metallicity, and other g…
Effective supernova dust yields from rotating and non-rotating stellar progenitors
Koki Otaki, Raffaella Schneider, Luca Graziani +4
Supernovae (SNe) are believed to be the dominant sources of dust production at high redshift. However, the reverse shock generated by the interaction of the SN forward shock and th…
The origin of the Far-infrared continuum of z ~ 6 quasars: a radiative transfer model for SDSS J1148+5251
Raffaella Schneider, Simone Bianchi, Rosa Valiante +2
We investigate the origin of the FIR continuum of SDSS J1148+5251, using it as a prototype for the more general class of high-luminosity high-redshift QSOs. We run the radiative tr…
HERschel Observations of Edge-on Spirals (HEROES). IV. Dust energy balance problem
Aleksandr V. Mosenkov, Flor Allaert, Maarten Baes +15
We present results of the detailed dust energy balance study for the seven large edge-on galaxies in the HEROES sample using 3D radiative transfer (RT) modelling. Based on availabl…
Far-reaching Dust Distribution in Galaxy Disks
Matthew W. L. Smith, Stephen A. Eales, Ilse De Looze +21
In most studies of dust in galaxies, dust is only detected from its emission to approximately the optical radius of the galaxy. By combining the signal of 110 spiral galaxies obser…
Benchmarking the Calculation of Stochastic Heating and Emissivity of Dust Grains in the Context of Radiative Transfer Simulations
Peter Camps, Karl Misselt, Simone Bianchi +9
We define an appropriate problem for benchmarking dust emissivity calculations in the context of radiative transfer (RT) simulations, specifically including the emission from stoch…
On the Dust Extinction in High-z Galaxies and the Case of Extremely Red Objects
Andrea Cimatti, Simone Bianchi, Andrea Ferrara +1
We present the preliminary results of Monte Carlo simulations aimed to investigate the effects of realistic dust extinction (absorption + scattering) on the colours of high-z galax…
Star formation drivers across the M33 disk
Edvige Corbelli, Bruce Elmegreen, Sara Ellison +1
We investigate the star formation process across the disk of M33 using a multiwavelength dataset and disk dynamics. We computed numerically equilibrium values of gas densities and…
Dust enrichment from core-collapse supernovae and extinction curves in the high-redshift universe
Koki Otaki, Raffaella Schneider, Simone Bianchi +4
Recent JWST observations have revealed that some galaxies at generally exhibit relatively flat ultraviolet (UV) attenuation curves and a weak UV bump. These features…
The PRIMA promise of deciphering interstellar dust evolution with observations of the nearby Universe
Frédéric Galliano, Maarten Baes, Léo Belloir +25
This paper develops a few science cases, using the PRIMA far-IR probe, aimed at achieving several breakthroughs in our understanding of the dust properties and their evolution. We…
Scaling relations of metallicity, stellar mass, and star formation rate in metal-poor starbursts: I. A fundamental plane
Leslie Hunt, Laura Magrini, Daniele Galli +6
Most galaxies follow well-defined scaling relations of metallicity (O/H), star formation rate (SFR), and stellar mass. However, low-metallicity starbursts, rare in the Local Univer…
The Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey. XI. Environmental effects on molecular gas and dust in spiral disks
Ciro Pappalardo, Simone Bianchi, Edvige Corbelli +19
We investigate the dust-to-gas mass ratio and the environmental effects on the various components of the interstellar medium for a spatially resolved sample of Virgo spirals. We ha…
The optical-to-radio spectral energy distributions of low-metallicity blue compact dwarf galaxies
Leslie Hunt, Simone Bianchi, Roberto Maiolino
We present global spectral energy distributions (SEDs) from 0.3m to 90cm for a sample of seven low-metallicity blue compact dwarf galaxies (BCDs). In addition to data compiled…
The Effect of Light Scattering by Dust in Galactic Halos on Emission Line Ratios
Andrea Ferrara, Simone Bianchi, Ralf-Juergen Dettmar +1
We present results from Monte Carlo simulations describing the radiation transfer of line emission, produced both by HII regions in the disk and in the diffuse ionized gas (D…
High-resolution, 3D radiative transfer modelling III. The DustPedia barred galaxies
Angelos Nersesian, Sam Verstocken, Sebastien Viaene +17
Context: Dust in late-type galaxies in the local Universe is responsible for absorbing approximately one third of the energy emitted by stars. It is often assumed that dust heating…
The role of young and evolved stars in the heating of dust in local galaxies
Vidhi Tailor, Viviana Casasola, Francesca Pozzi +9
Context. Dust is a fundamental component of the interstellar medium (ISM) and plays a critical role in galaxy evolution. Dust grains influence the ISM by cooling the gas, altering…
A panchromatic spatially resolved analysis of nearby galaxies -- II. The main sequence - gas relation at sub-kpc scale in grand-design spirals
Laura Morselli, Giulia Rodighiero, Andrea Enia +13
In the second work of this series, we analyse the connection between the availability of gas and the position of a region with respect to the spatially resolved main sequence (MS)…
Modelling the Far-Infrared emission in spyral galaxies
Simone Bianchi
This thesis presents an original model for the FIR emission in spirals, developed from an existing radiative transfer code (Bianchi, Ferrara & Giovanardi, 1996, ApJ, 465, 127). The…
Can dust emission be used to map the interstellar medium in high-redshift galaxies? Results from the Herschel Reference Survey
Stephen Eales, Matthew W. L. Smith, Robbie Auld +23
It has often been suggested that an alternative to the standard CO/21-cm method for estimating the mass of the interstellar medium (ISM) in a galaxy might be to estimate the mass o…
The contribution of galaxies to the UV ionising background and the evolution of the Lyman forest
Simone Bianchi, Stefano Cristiani, Tae-Sun Kim
We have modelled the evolution of the number of Ly_alpha absorbers with redshift, resulting from the evolution of the ionising background and the Hubble expansion. The contribution…
Vindicating single-T modified blackbody fits to Herschel SEDs (Research Note)
Simone Bianchi
I show here that the bulk of the dust mass in a galaxy can be equivalently estimated from: i) the full spectral energy distribution of dust emission, using the approach of Draine &…
Where was Mean Solar Time first adopted?
Simone Bianchi
It is usually stated in the literature that Geneva was the first city to adopt mean solar time, in 1780, followed by London (or the whole of England) in 1792, Berlin in 1810 and Pa…
JWST MIRI and NIRCam observations of NGC 891 and its circumgalactic medium
Jérémy Chastenet, Ilse De Looze, Monica Relaño +37
We present new JWST observations of the nearby, prototypical edge-on, spiral galaxy NGC 891. The northern half of the disk was observed with NIRCam in its F150W and F277W filters.…
Stellar sources of dust in the high redshift Universe
Rosa Valiante, Raffaella Schneider, Simone Bianchi +1
With the aim of investigating whether stellar sources can account for the >10^8 Msun dust masses inferred from mm/sub-mm observations of samples of 5<z<6.4 quasars,we develop a che…
The founding of Arcetri Observatory in Florence
Simone Bianchi
The first idea of establishing a public astronomical observatory in Florence, Capital of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, dates to the mid of the 18th century. Initially, the use of a l…
The origin of dust in high redshift QSOs: the case of SDSS J1148+5251
Rosa Valiante, Raffaella Schneider, Stefania Salvadori +1
We present a semi-analytical model for the formation and evolution of a high redshift quasar (QSO). We reconstruct a set of hierarchical merger histories of a 10^13 Msun dark matte…
The dust distribution in edge-on galaxies. Radiative transfer fits of V and K'-band images
Simone Bianchi
Aims: I have analyzed a sample of seven nearby edge-on galaxies observed in the V and K'-band, in order to infer the properties of the dust distribution. Methods: A radiative trans…
The extent of dust in NGC 891 from Herschel/SPIRE images
Simone Bianchi, Emmanuel Xilouris
We analyse Herschel/SPIRE images of the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 891 at 250, 350 and 500 micron. Using a 3D radiative transfer model we confirm that the dust has a radial fall-off…
Composite biasing in Monte Carlo radiative transfer
Maarten Baes, Karl D. Gordon, Tuomas Lunttila +4
Biasing or importance sampling is a powerful technique in Monte Carlo radiative transfer, and can be applied in different forms to increase the accuracy and efficiency of simulatio…
The Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey. XVII. SPIRE point-source catalogs and number counts
Ciro Pappalardo, George J. Bendo, Simone Bianchi +19
We present three independent catalogs of point-sources extracted from SPIRE images at 250, 350, and 500 micron as a part of the Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey (HeViCS). The source p…
ISO observations of spirals: modelling the FIR emission
Simone Bianchi, Paul B. Alton, Jonathan I. Davies
ISO observations at 200 micron have modified our view of the dust component in spiral galaxies. For a sample of seven resolved spirals we have retrieved a mean temperature of 20K,…
Nonparametric galaxy morphology from UV to submm wavelengths
Maarten Baes, Angelos Nersesian, Viviana Casasola +13
We present the first nonparametric morphological analysis of a set of spiral galaxies from UV to submm wavelengths. Our study is based on high-quality multi-wavelength imaging for…
The formation of the extremely primitive star SDSS J102915+172927 relies on dust
Raffaella Schneider, Kazuyuki Omukai, Marco Limongi +4
The relative importance of metals and dust grains in the formation of the first low-mass stars has been a subject of debate. The recently discovered Galactic halo star SDSS J102915…
A decline and fall in the future of Italian Astronomy?
Angelo Antonelli, Vincenzo Antonuccio-Delogu, Andrea Baruffolo +89
On May 27th 2010, the Italian astronomical community learned with concern that the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) was going to be suppressed, and that its employees wer…