Ph.D. in Astronomy, 2006, UNLP, Argentina, "Photopolarimetric studies on the fast variability of blazars"
Current position: Researcher
La Plata Institute for Astronomy (IALP-CONICET), Argentina
Faculty of Astronomical and Geophysical Sciences, University of La Plata
(FCAyG-UNLP), Argentina
Contact: andru@fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar
For my M.Sc. research (Licenciatura), I performed simulations of globular cluster images with and without nebular material. Then, I analysed the output of the simulations with IRAF routines in order to measure the level of detectable dust in bright profiles of the globular clusters. This work was done under the direction of Dr. Juan Carlos Forte (University of La Plata) and with the important collaboration of Leonardo Pellizza (from IAFE-UBA).
For my Ph.D. Thesis, I have implemented studies of the incidence of optical
microvariability in the light curves of different types of Active Galactic
Nuclei, with special emphasis on EGRET blazars. These studies were carried
out, first, from a purely observational point of view, collecting data from
the sources through photometry and polarimetry (we used mainly the 2.15-m
telescope at CASLEO, San Juan, Argentina). These data were reduced using
IRAF package in the case of the photometry and a FORTRAN code for the case
of polarimetry. Then, I performed a statistical analysis of the processed
data to characterise the different classes of objects (LBLs, HBLs, OVVs,
etc.). Afterwards, I went into the theoretical discussion of the origin of
the observed variability, testing same models with the observations.
Complementary to these studies, I investigated the influence of the
atmospheric conditions in the polarimetric measurements during the
observation of blazars with prominent host galaxies. Such studies allowed
the identification of possible sources of error during monitoring campaigns
under a wide variety of circumstances. I implemented a numerical simulation
of the host galaxy, the nuclei and the atmosphere, in order to predict the
incidence of spurious variability in this kind of studies. My Ph.D.
research was made under the supervision of Prof. Gustavo E. Romero and Dr.
Sergio A. Cellone (Both members of GARRA).
During my postdoctoral research I stated to investigate the incidence of microvariability and the optical polarization properties of blazars with very high emission at gamma-ray wavelengths (VHE sources), those detected by H.E.S.S. and MAGIC. This research was also made under the supervision of the Dr. Gustavo E. Romero and Dr. Sergio A. Cellone.
Since then, I am working, more or less, in the same direction. In particular, since the VHE sources could not be to much far away because of the effect of the Electromagnetic Background Light (EBL) over the very high radiation, we have also started to try to obtaind better estimations of the redshift of same Blazars, using high resolution spectrums taking with telescopes such as Gemini.