Ciro Pappalardo

My main research interests are:

Star formation history in Virgo Cluster.
Using high resolution spectra and multiwavelengths photometry, I developed a tool that reconstruct the star formation history of a defined region of a galaxy. The tool is based on Beaysian method and produces an independent way to study environmental effects in clusters. The method has been applied to a galaxy that underwent ram pressure stripping in its recent past, NGC 4388. The method showed that the star formation in the external disc was quenched about 200 Myr ago, because of the gas removal due to the ram pressure (Pappalardo et al. 2010).

Molecular gas and dust in spiral discs.
Using different observational facilities, mainly IRAM 30m telescope, I am investigating the presence of molecular gas in spiral disc and I analyze possible correlation with neutral gas and dust. In particular I am interested in the relation with HI deficiency parameter (Giovanelli & Haynes 1984) and the gas to dust ratio in spiral discs.

Source Extractions in HeViCS.
I make part of the HeViCS consortium and I am investigating the possibility to detect as many source as possible in the cosmic infrared background. Since the number of sources is enormous, in the order of thousands in a square of 0.5 degrees of side, I am investigating a way to overcome the confusion noise limit.

Analysis of dust in ETG.
I am studying the presence of dust in early type galaxies, from S0 to faint elliptical dwarfs. Using ALFALFA we want to compare the dust emission with the neutral gas distribution.

Dust removal in spiral discs.
In 2006 I observed at IRAM-30m telescope NGC 4522, a galaxy that is undergoing at present the peak of the ram pressure, as shown by extraplanar neutral gas observed at 21 cm. In the related paper (Vollmer et al. 2008) we showed that also the molecular component can be dislocated and removed, partially, from the disc. Starting from this consideration I am at present analyzing all the spirals discs in the HeVICS sample, to find evidences of dust removed or strongly perturbed by environments, both ram pressure and/or tidal interactions.