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Research

I am a member of the Euclid consortium, the BUFFALO collaboration, the J-PAS, the J-Plus, the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS) and the Dark Energy Science Collaboration (LSST-DESC). Here are some of the running projects where I am currently involved. For more details about my research activities, please consult my publications on ADS.



These are the topics I can curently offer for Bachelor and Master thesis:

Detection of galaxy clusters

We are working on a multi-wavelength matched filter for the detection of galaxy clusters in optical data: AMICO. (Adaptive Itentifier of Clustered Objects) is going to be implemented in the pipeline of the ESA Euclid space mission. The code has already been succesfully applied to the data of KiDS. Collaborators: Fabio Bellagamba (INAF), Mauro Roncarelli (INAF), Alexander Gelsin, Fabio Schlindwein, Laila Linke.

Detection of giant arcs

Strong gravitational lensing produces extremely distorted images of far background galaxies in form of giant arcs. We are working on an arcfinder capable to detect such features in optical observations: EasyCritics. Collaborator: Mauricio Carrasco, Gregor Seidel, Sebastian Stephelberg. "Multi-color detection of gravitational arcs".

Weak lensing measurements

I am implementing a full pipeline (EasyLens) for the measurement of ellipticity of background galaxies for the measure of weak lensing via DEIMOS. I'm also investigating the application of PCA for this purpose. With the latter technique we are evaluating the errors in flexion measurements. Collaborator: Agnese Fabris

Weak lensing peak counts and extreme value statistics

We constructed a model to describe gravitational lensing peak counts in presence on noise useful to constrain cosmological parameters together with Extreme value statistics. Collaborator: Robert Reischke.

Galaxy cluster mass reconstruction

Non parametric cluster reconstruction of galaxy clusters by combining weak and strong lensing, galaxy dynamics, X-rays and SZ observations. Collaborator: Mauricio Carrasco, Korbinian Huber.

Model independent reconstruction of the Hubble expansion rate

We are using type Ia Supernovae to constrain the expansion history of the universe in a model independent way. Our method implies a direct inversion of the luminosity distance equation and a set of PCA. Collaborator: Sandra Benitez.

Weak lensing measure of the dark matter abundances in the cosmic-web

I created a matched filter capable to detect the extremely elusive lensing imprint of the intracluster filaments. So far, it has been tested on numerical simulations but now we are going to apply it on real data. Collaborator: Julian Merten, Ludo Wan.

Codes & Toolls

This is a partial list of codes I wrote or to which I contributed to.
  • AMICO: for the detection of clusters in arbitrary data sets (Adaptive Matched Identifier of Clustered Objects)
  • SinFoniA: for the generation of data-driven mock galaxy catalogues and the derivation of selection functions (Selection Function extrActor)
  • EasyCritics: an LTM approach for the efficient search of strong lensing regions in wide-field optical surveys
  • EasySmooth: smoothng adaptive algorithm to
  • EasySky: it creats images of the sky including, noise, stars, galaxies with realistic morphologies and lensing distortions
  • EasyLens: full weak lensing pipeline
  • EasyImage: plotting tool to facilitate image data reduction with the THELI pipeline
  • GtF: optimal linear matched filter to detect elongated structures in weak lensing data (Get the Filaments)
  • GtH: optimal linear matched filter to detect dark matter haloes in weak lensing data (Get the Haloes)
  • GtM: optimal linear matched filter (also anisotropic) which can be applied to any fits file (Get the Match)
  • Image2empca: performs an eaximization maximization principal components anaysis
  • Image2pca: performs a principal components analysis of the input fits files
  • Image2pcaFit: evaluates components of input images
  • Image2UpCrossing: creats a catalog of peaks satisfying the upcrossing criteria
  • Gadget2density: computes the density field of a collection of particles/galaxies (flat sky)
  • Gadget2rs: computes the Rees-Shiama and Sachs-Wolfe effects form Gadget simulations (spherical/flat sky)
  • FldClassifier: Fisher-linear-discriminants classifier
  • ClusterFinder: detects glaxy clusters in multi-wavelength photometric catalogues [A. Gelsing, F. Bellagamba, M. Maturi, F. Schlindwein]
  • ColoredArcsFinder: select gravitational arcs by applying a color selection [S. Mizera, M. Maturi, G. Seidel]
  • CosmoLensCrossSection: evaluates the lesing optical depth and cross section for a LCDM cosmplogy
  • CosmoWLdetectCounts: evaluates the w.l. detections number counts from blended upcrosisng cireteria
  • ...