A Physical Model for Co-evolution of QSOs and of their Spheroidal Hosts

At variance with most semi-analytic models, in the Anti-hierarchical Baryon Collapse scenario (Granato et al. 2001, 2004) the main driver of the galaxy formation and evolution is not the merging sequence but are baryon processes. This approach emphasizes, still in the framework of the hierarchical clustering paradigm for dark matter halos, feedback processes from supernova explosions and from active nuclei, that tie together star formation in spheroidal galaxies and the growth of black holes at their centers. We review some recent results showing the remarkably successful predictive power of this scenario, which allows us to account for the evolution with cosmic time of a broad variety of properties of galaxies and active nuclei, which proved to be very challenging for competing models.Comment: Invited talk at the Specola Vaticana Workshop on "AGN and Galaxy Evolution", Castel Gandolfo, 3-6 October 2005, 10 pages, 2 figure

Prevalence and incidence of bronchiectasis in Italy

BACKGROUND: The understanding of the epidemiology of bronchiectasis is still affected by major limitations with very few data published worldwide. The aim of this study was to estimate the epidemiological burden of bronchiectasis in Italy in the adult population followed-up by primary care physicians. METHODS: This study analyzed data coming from a large primary care database with 1,054,376 subjects in the period of time 2002-2015. Patients with bronchiectasis were selected by the use of International Statistical Classification of Diseases, 9th revision, Clinical Modification codes (ICD-9-CM). RESULTS: Patients with bronchiectasis were more likely to have a history of tuberculosis (0.47% vs. 0.06%, p\u2009<\u20090.0001), had higher rates of asthma (16.6% vs. 6.2%, p\u2009<\u20090.0001), COPD (23.3% vs. 6.4%, p\u2009<\u20090.0001) and rheumatoid arthritis (1.9% vs. 0.8%, p\u2009<\u20090.0001). The prevalence and incidence of bronchiectasis in primary care in Italy in 2015 were 163 per 100,000 population and 16.3 per 100,000 person-years, respectively. Prevalence and incidence increased with age and overall rates were highest in men over 75\u2009years old. Prevalence and incidence computed after the exclusion of patients with a diagnosis of either asthma or COPD is 130 per 100,000 and 11.1 cases per 100,000 person-years, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Bronchiectasis is not a rare condition in Italian adult population. Further studies are needed to confirm our results and provide a better insight on etiology of bronchiectasis in Italy

Probing modified gravity with magnetically levitated resonators

We present an experimental procedure, based on Meissner effect levitation of neodymium ferromagnets, as a method of measuring the gravitational interactions between milligram masses. The scheme consists of two superconducting lead traps, with a magnet levitating in each trap. The levitating magnets behave as harmonic oscillators and, by carefully driving the motion of one magnet on resonance with the other, we find that it should easily be possible to measure the gravitational field produced by a 4 mg sphere, with the gravitational attraction from masses as small as 30 μg predicted to be measurable within a realistic measurement time frame. We apply this acceleration sensitivity to one concrete example and show the abilities of testing models of modified Newtonian dynamics

Black hole and galaxy coevolution from continuity equation and abundance matching

We investigate the coevolution of galaxies and hosted supermassive black holes (BHs) throughout the history of the universe by a statistical approach based on the continuity equation and the abundance matching technique. Specifically, we present analytical solutions of the continuity equation without source terms to reconstruct the supermassive BH mass function from the active galactic nucleus (AGN) luminosity functions. Such an approach includes physically motivated AGN light curves tested on independent data sets, which describe the evolution of the Eddington ratio and radiative efficiency from slim- to thin-disk conditions. We nicely reproduce the local estimates of the BH mass function, the AGN duty cycle as a function of mass and redshift, along with the Eddington ratio function and the fraction of galaxies with given stellar mass hosting an AGN with given Eddington ratio. We exploit the same approach to reconstruct the observed stellar mass function at different redshift from the ultraviolet and far-IR luminosity functions associated with star formation in galaxies. These results imply that the build-up of stars and BHs in galaxies occurs via in situ processes, with dry mergers playing a ☉marginal role at least for stellar masses ≤ 3 × 1011 M☉ and BH masses 109 M where the statistical data are more secure and less biased by systematic errors. In addition, we develop an improved abundance matching technique to link the stellar and BH content of galaxies to the gravitationally dominant dark matter (DM) component. The resulting relationships constitute a testbed for galaxy evolution models, highlighting the complementary role of stellar and AGN feedback in the star formation process. In addition, they may be operationally implemented in numerical simulations to populate DM halos or to gauge subgrid physics. Moreover, they may be exploited to investigate the galaxy/AGN clustering as a function of redshift, mass, and/or luminosity. In fact, the clustering properties of BHs and galaxies are found to be in full agreement with current observations, thus further validating our results from the continuity equation. Finally, our analysis highlights that (i) the fraction of AGNs observed in the slim-disk regime, where most of the BH mass is accreted, increases with redshift; and (ii) already at z\gtrsim 6$ a substantial amount of dust must have formed over timescales 108 yr in strongly star-forming galaxies, making these sources well within the reach of ALMA surveys in (sub)millimeter bands

Application Of Safety And Security Principles To Flood Event Management In Highly Populated Urban Areas

This paper refers to non-structural actions which are to be carried out on the Arno river basin (Italy). In particular the town of Florence is considered where 56 catastrophic flood events have been recorded in the last 1000 years, the latter in 1966 with damages estimated at 10,000 billion euros. A huge system of structural works is presently being carried out planned to the 200-year return period event in the next ten years. To manage the present and future residual risk, specific safety plans have been provided at the scale of single buildings in order to give residents an effective instrument to prevent and protect them from the major flooding risk. This paper illustrates how safety and security principles can be applied to the management of a flood event at the scale of several thousands of square kilometres. A specific Security Plan and, if needed, a Recovery Plan is linked to each building which is potentially subject to flooding. Based on analytical hazard assessment and mapping, techniques to improve or increase the safety-level as well as appropriated information are described. These local scale plans are interfaced with civil protection and disaster management plans at the regional scale by suitable procedures. Keywords: risk assessment, flood event, security plan, recovery plan, signs, procedures, building. 1 Introduction A study for a plan in order to provide the residents of the area of the Arno River basin (and in future perspective all the residents) with one useful instrument t

Unraveling the Ag+ ion coordination and solvation thermodynamics in the 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ionic liquid

The solvation of the Ag+ ion in the 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([C4mim][BF4]) ionic liquid (IL) has been studied by means of experimental and theoretical methods with the aim of elucidating the cation coordination structure and thermodynamic properties. Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics (CPMD) simulations showed that the Ag+ ion is coordinated by an average number of four [BF4]− anions in a pseudo-tetrahedral geometry. A high configurational disorder of the first solvation sphere is found, where the anions can be found both in mono- and bidentate coordination mode around the Ag+ ion. Also, a solvational equilibrium is observed as due to [BF4]− anion dissociation along the trajectory. The analysis of X-ray absorption spectroscopy data confirmed the picture provided by the CPMD simulation. Classical molecular dynamics simulations were carried out to obtain the single-ion solvation thermodynamic parameters. The negative water → IL free energy of transfer suggests that the Ag+ ion is more favorably solvated in the [C4mim][BF4] IL than in water. This behavior is due to a balance between the enthalpic and entropic contributions, which allows to find a rationale to the strong solvation capabilities of BF4-based ILs towards Ag+

The growth of the nuclear black holes in submillimeter galaxies

We show that the ABC scenario we proposed for the co-evolution of spheroids and QSOs predicts accretion rates and masses of supermassive black holes in sub-mm galaxies in keeping with recent X-ray determinations. These masses are well below the local values, and those predicted by alternative models. The observed column densities may be mostly due to ISM in the galaxy. The contribution of the associated nuclear activity to the X-ray background is likely negligible, while they may contribute a sizeable fraction $\sim 10$ to hard-X cumulative counts at the faintest observed fluxes.Comment: 5 pages 4 figures, MNRAS letters, accepte

Measuring the Spin of Spiral Galaxies

We compute the angular momentum, the spin parameter and the related distribution function for Dark Matter halos hosting a spiral galaxy. We base on scaling laws, inferred from observations, that link the properties of the galaxy to those of the host halo; we further assume that the Dark Matter has the same total specific angular momentum of the baryons. Our main results are: (i) we find that the gas component of the disk significantly contributes to the total angular momentum of the system; (ii) by adopting for the Dark Matter the observationally supported Burkert profile, we compute the total angular momentum of the disk and its correlation with the rotation velocity; (iii) we find that the distribution function of the spin parameter $\lambda$ peaks at a value of about 0.03, consistent with a no-major-merger scenario for the late evolution of spiral galaxies.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Minor changes. Accepted on ApJ

Radio Observations of Star Forming Galaxies in the SKA era

We have combined determinations of the epoch-dependent star formation rate (SFR) function with relationships between SFR and radio (synchrotron and free-free) emission to work out detailed predictions for the counts and the redshift distributions of star-forming galaxies detected by planned Square Kilometer Array (SKA) surveys. The evolving SFR function comes from recent models fitting the far-infrared (FIR) to millimeter-wave luminosity functions and the ultraviolet (UV) luminosity functions up to z=10, extended to take into account additional UV survey data. We used very deep 1.4 GHz number counts from the literature to check the relationship between SFR and synchrotron emission, and the 95 GHz South Pole Telescope (SPT) counts of dusty galaxies to test the relationship between SFR and free-free emission. We show that the SKA will allow us to investigate the SFRs of galaxies down to few Msun/yr up to z=10, thus extending by more than two orders of magnitude the high-z SFR functions derived from Herschel surveys. SKA1-MID surveys, down to microJy levels, will detect hundreds of strongly lensed galaxies per square degree; a substantial fraction of them will show at least two images above the detection limits