El Laboratorio Subterráneo de Canfranc (LSC) es una ICTS española localizada entre el túnel carretero de Somport y el antiguo túnel ferroviario, de unos 8 km, en la frontera España-Francia, y diseñado para la investigación en física de neutrinos, materia oscura y otros fenómenos inusuales en la naturaleza que requieren muy baja radioactividad ambiental para ser observados.
Su director, Carlos...
Summary of the cosmology activities @ICTEA. It will cover both the gravitational lensing activities as well as the Neural Network applications to the CMB images.
We will discuss the progress of the project.
Hyper-Kamiokande (HK) is a next-generation neutrino experiment in Japan featuring a large water-Cherenkov detector. It aims to tackle key questions in fundamental physics, including precise neutrino oscillation measurements, the study of astrophysical neutrinos (like those from supernovae and the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background), and searches for proton and exotic nucleon...
The New Robotic Telescope (NRT) is a 4-meter-class, robotic and fully autonomous optical telescope under development at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma, Canary Islands. The design of the NRT is motivated by the challenges of time-domain astronomy, aiming to support rapid-response observations of transient events such as supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, and variable active...
In recent years, neural networks have been extensively employed within our group to address challenges in adaptive optics, leading to several innovative approaches, including sensorless wavefront correction and the prediction of atmospheric turbulence. Despite their potential, a major limitation of these methods lies in the substantial computational demands associated with real-time...
The Arcturus stream is an overdensity of stars surrounding the star Arcturus, whose origin remains uncertain. One hypothesis suggests that it could have an extragalactic origin, which would offer a unique opportunity to detect exoplanets originating from outside our Galaxy. After conducting a search for stars and downloading their TESS photometry, we detected that one of the stars (TIC...
We study how certain "defects" tied to continuous symmetries affect correlation functions in bosonic field theories. We show that to match expected action, these defects must include a correction term as a kind of singular background gauge field. This fact has deep consequences in holography, where these defects are realized as $D(q-1)$ branes near the boundary of the bulk. We show that the...
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The Mine-to-H2 project is a large-scale European initiative co-funded by the Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS) under the "Big Ticket" mechanism. It aims to repurpose legacy coal infrastructures for the production and distribution of green hydrogen, contributing to the decarbonisation of the energy and transport sectors while supporting the just transition of coal-dependent...
In this talk, I will present the different observational projects I am involved in, for which I am actively seeking support in the form of master’s and PhD students, as well as collaborations within the ICTEA and the University of Oviedo.
One of the main projects is ESSTE-JWST, which builds upon the success of previous programs such as DiSCo and GTO-KBOs, both operational since 2022....
The study of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and its anisotropies is crucial for understanding the cosmology and formation processes of the Universe. Investigating the E and B modes of CMB polarization provides insights into early Universe density and gravitational perturbations, respectively. B-mode polarization, in particular, offers vital information regarding the existence of...
Neuromorphic computing is based on encoding information across a "time" component: the so-encoded information can be processed in a nontrivial way with spiking neural networks. We simulate hadrons impinging on a homogeneous lead-tungstate calorimeter and detect the resulting light via an array of light-sensitive sensors whose signals we process using a neuromorphic computing system. We show...
Submillimetre galaxies (SMGs) are exceptional background sources for magnification‑bias studies, but the inherently limited sky coverage in the submillimetre band constrains their statistical power. Beyond H‑ATLAS, Herschel has produced additional submm catalogues, although not optimised for statistical lensing analyses.
Our goal is to enhance the cosmological constraints derived from SMG...
String Theory and Holography provide a framework which geometrically describes Quantum Field Theory (QFT) phenomena. This has been particularly fruitful for the study of confining QFT, whose strong coupling regime is not accessible through standard QFT techniques. The geometries realizing these type of theories usually have a submanifold that shrinks to zero size at some point. We review some...
I will review the history of the concept of black hole starting with the Newtonian idea of "dark stars" and finishing with some of the puzzles and paradoxes they lead to, specially when quantum-mechanical effects are taken into account.
We will review the different lines of research carried out by the institute members working in the field of holography, supergravity and string theory.
Gravitational lensing magnification bias is a valuable tool for studying mass density profiles, with submillimetre galaxies (SMGs) serving as ideal background sources. The satellite distribution in galaxy clusters also provides insights into their mass distribution. This study aims to investigate the signal drop in mass density profiles from magnification bias measurements, assessing the role...
Modern theoretical physics suggests that our universe might be just one of many possible solutions allowed by string theory, a leading candidate for a theory of everything. These possible solutions, often called the "string landscape," describe different ways in which extra dimensions can be compactified so as to produce different physical universes. While much of the focus has traditionally...
In this talk I will describe the process in place to produce the third update to the European Strategy for Particle Physics (ESPP) that should be ready in 2026. I will go through the more than 200 inputs received as of March $31^{st}$ and the decisions taken during the process. All this information will be discussed during an open symposium that will be held in Venice at the end of June.
This contribution will present the main results obtained by the ICTEA in various areas of astrophysical research over the past few years.
One of the research lines focuses on studying the spin state and morphology of Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs). For this, photometric techniques are applied, specifically light curve inversion, which allows for the reconstruction of 3D models and the...
Monte Carlo (MC) event generation is a crucial component of high-energy physics simulations, yet its computational cost poses significant challenges, particularly in the era of increasing data volumes. Recently, new solutions are being explored by developers of MC generators, that aim to accelerate the process of integrating matrix elements in GPU architechtures. These solutions achived great...
Supersymmetric QFTs in 5 dimensions are a surprising result coming from string theory. In this talk, we will present two powerful methods from which they are constructed: one using geometries called Calabi-Yau (CY) 3-folds in M-theory, and another involving networks of 5-dimensional branes that form intricate structures called brane webs. A singular CY engineers a superconformal theory. The...
Traditional methods for component separation, while effective, often require extensive masking to mitigate contamination from galactic and extragalactic foregrounds, limiting the amount of usable sky for analysis and introducing residual biases and systematic uncertainties. By employing modern neural network (NN) architectures, such as convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and fully...
We present a new and independent methodology to identify gravitational lens candidates using data from the H-ATLAS and AllWISE surveys. Unlike previous approaches, which are typically biased toward bright, strongly lensed submillimeter galaxies (SMGs), our method targets fainter systems with lower magnifications. This enables the identification and individual study of lensing events that would...
