The Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental (IATE) is a scientific institute funded by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones en Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) and the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC), located in the city of Córdoba, Argentina, and dedicated to the study of different topics in astronomy. The headquarters of the institute are located at the Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba.
History In the 1960s, Dr. José Luis Sérsic (Argentinian scientist mainly known for his empirical law for the intensity of a galaxy called Sersic's Law) created the extragalactic astronomy department at the Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba, where he developed his academic and research activities, forming his first disciples. In 1983, the department became the "Programa de Investigaciones en Astronomía Teórica y Experimental" (IATE), funded by CONICET, under Dr. Sérsic direction. Following the death of Dr. Sérsic on July 19, 1993, the program was discontinued. However, those graduates and PhD who were trained under his tutelage were ordered to continue with the group IATE as a research group within the Observatorio Astronómico, under the leadership of Dr. Diego Garcia Lambas, one of the main disciples of Dr. Sérsic. After more than 10 years of hard work forming graduates, PhD and researchers, and to become one of the most numerous research groups within the Observatorio Astronómico, the IATE group became one of the institutes of CONICET in 2006, with Dr. Diego Garcia Lambas being its first director. The institute then took the name of Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental, retaining the acronym IATE. Dr. Diego Garcia Lambas was the director of the institute during the period 2006-2021. In the year 2022, Dr. Nelson Padilla was designated to assume the direction of the IATE.
Members At the IATE, there are 38 Ph.D. in the researcher career of CONICET, 30 Ph.D. and postdoctoral fellows, 7 members of the support staff career of CONICET, 1 contract staff, and 2 graduates and Ph.D. working at the institute. Abadi, Mario Cerioni, Matías Ferreiro, Diego Marioni, Ornela Renzi, Víctor Stasyszyn, Federico Alfaro, Germán Chalela García, Martín García Lambas, Diego Martínez, Héctor Julián Rodríguez, Agustín Taverna, Antonela Alonso, María Victoria Coenda, Valeria Gianuzzi, Emanuel Merchán, Manuel Rodríguez, Facundo Tissera, Patricia Andrada, Lúcas Colazo, Milagros Giuppone, Cristian Muriel, Hernán Rodríguez, Horacio Valotto, Carlos Baravalle, Laura Correa, Carlos Gonzalez, Elizabeth O'Mill, Ana Laura Rost, Agustín Vega Neme, Luis Beaugé, Cristian Costa, Andrea Granato, Gian Luigi Oio, Gabriel Rubio, Marcelo Vena Valdarenas, Román Benavides Blanco, José Cristiani, Valeria Graña, Darío Padilla, Nelson Ruíz, Andrés Villalón, Carolina Bertazzi, Viviana Dávila, Federico Gualpa, Sebastián Parisi, Celeste Sahade, Abril Villarreal D'Angelo, Carolina Boero, Ezequiel Daza, Vanessa Gurovich, Sebastián Paz, Dante Salerno, Juan Volpe, Gabriela Bornancini, Carlos Díaz-Giménez, Eugenia Kozameh, Nicolas Pereyra, Luis Santucho, Victoria Vrech, Rubén Cabral, Juan Díaz, Mario Lares, Marcelo Racker, Juan Schneiter, Matías Yaryura, Yamila Cécere, Mariana Domínguez, Mariano López, Pablo Ragone Figueroa, Cinthia Sgró, Mario Zandivarez, Ariel Ceccarelli, Laura Donzelli, Carlos Luparello, Heliana Ramirez, Marcos Sillero, Emanuel Zopetti, Federico
Scientific Areas The lines of research are:
Galactic and Extragalactic Astronomy Large Scale Structure of the Universe Planetary Systems Astrophysical Plasmas Stellar Astrophysics Instrumental Astronomy and Site Testing
Galactic and Extragalactic Astronomy
The 13.8 billion years of the Universe is enough time to form giant objects, being the galaxies one of the most interesting. Galaxies are truly island universes where dark matter, billions of stars and huge amounts of gas and dust coexist in equilibrium, and yet, they are an environment suitable for the formation of new stars. Galaxies also tend to cluster in a network of cosmic proportions which highlights fabulous large structures formed by thousands of galaxies. At the IATE, the study of galaxies has been a constant challenge, which has allowed to consolidate over the years different methods for the study of the formation and evolution of galaxies. Some of the most important are: Numerical Simulations: the physical processes that govern the evolutionary history of one or many galaxies are recreated by using supercomputers: Statistical Studies: properties of galaxies are inferred and analysed from large data surveys; Astronomical Observations: classic observations and the most modern and sophisticated techniques are combined by using the telescope facilities around the world.
These and other tools are used by different scientists at the IATE to perform original and reliable astronomical research.
Large Scale Structure of the Universe
The large-scale structure of the Universe is the field of cosmology that studies the distribution of the matter in the Universe on the largest scales. This field has grown remarkably since the '80s, with the development of three-dimensional maps of galaxies in several bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, and with the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The increasing flow of information generated by observations has allowed to obtain reliable characterization of the content of the universe comprising 74% of vacuum or dark energy, 26% dark matter and 4% ordinary baryonic matter, as well as its distribution. The distribution of the structures seems to follow a hierarchical model where the upper level is dominated by a network of clusters and filaments. On top of that, the universe appears to be isotropic and homogeneous in accordance with the cosmological principle. From the analysis of catalogs and the development of numerical simulations, the distribution is characterized through the implementation of different statistics that allow the study of the spatial distribution as well as the dynamics by means of the velocity field of the matter distribution.
Planetary Systems
The question of the existence of other worlds has been present in the history of mankind for centuries, but only recent scientific evidence has confirmed that planets could exist and are common outside the Solar System. Since the first discovery in 1992, over 850 new exoplanets have been cataloged. Contrary to the Solar System, exoplanets' population presents several examples of exoplanets at very small distances from its stars, highly eccentric planetary orbits, and they are frequently found in configurations not previously imagined. This led to the development of new theories and areas of research, which ultimately can help us to better understand the Solar System. Some of the projects that are currently being developed at the IATE include: Analyses of observational data for exoplanets (radial velocity and transit); Models of tidal interaction with the central star to study the origin of the population of "hot" exoplanets Study of the dynamics of extrasolar planets in mean motions resonances; Development of hydrodynamic codes to describe the interaction between planets and the protoplanetary disk; Analyses of the formation of planets in binary stellar systems.
Astrophysical Plasmas
The plasma is the most common state of the baryonic matter in the Universe (99%). Most of a star, the interplanetary and interstellar medium, and the ionosphere, are plasmas. The plasma can also be generated in terrestrial laboratories for industrial applications such as producing surface coatings, precision cuts in lamps, micro-motors, and plasma reactors. A plasma is a fluid consisting of a large number of free charged particles (globally neutral and whose kinetic energy is larger than the electrostatic potential energy between them). The charges and currents that conform a plasma are sources of the electromagnetic fields and, in turn, these fields affect the distribution of charges and currents which makes its dynamics highly nonlinear and very different from that of a neutral gas. When the magnetic fields are capable of modifying an individual particle trajectory, it is said that the plasma is magnetized. The corona is highly magnetized and therefore, several structures are observed, some of which can maintain its stability for relatively long times as dark filaments on the surface of the Sun. In the group of astrophysical plasmas, our scientist perform studies about the dynamic configuration and structures of the corona through the analysis of magnetic arcs and prominences, the formation of voids that remain in the plasma due to the interaction of nonlinear waves, the formation of very energetic shock wave capable of sweeping the chromosphere along a whole quadrant, etc. The team also analyse the interaction of stellar winds with the magnetosphere of exoplanets, and they model the morphology of supernova remnants affected by instabilities and the influence of the magnetic field.
Stellar Astrophysics The Universe is full of stars and most of them form stellar systems and associations. Among the many stellar systems that can be observed, star clusters (SCs) are among the objects whose research is relevant in a wide variety of astrophysical studies. Just to mention some examples, the SCs are important for Stellar Astrophysics: since it allows to test the star formation and evolutionary models; for Galactic and Extragalactic Astronomy: as tracers of the structure, formation history and chemical evolution of the different components of the Milky Way, and of galaxies in general; for Dynamics: since the interaction between galaxies leaves distinctive marks on the global astrophysical properties of their SCs systems; for Cosmology: imposing restrictions on cosmological models, because, for example, no model can predict the age of the Universe incompatible with the age of the oldest SCs, which are among the first stellar systems formed in the early Universe; etc. Currently, the projects included in this area are mainly related to the study of Galactic and Extragalactic SCs. They focus on the study of the chemical and kinematic properties of the SC system belonging to the bulge of the Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds and of the farthest galaxies. SCs are used as tracers of the formation history, chemical evolution and dynamical history of their host components. These observational studies apply spectroscopic and photometric techniques based on specific data, obtained with different instruments, mainly on the GEMINI telescopes (Cerro Pachón, Chile) and VLT (Cerro Paranal, Chile), among others.
Site Testing The IATE also performs site testing for the installation of large astronomical facilities in the Argentinian territory.