Publications_Curriculum Vitae_Acknowledgements

Cover Page
The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/24094 holds various files of this Leiden University
dissertation.
Author: Iacobelli, Marco
Title: Exploring the magnetic, turbulent Milky Way through radio waves
Issue Date: 2014-02-25
Publications
Galactic interstellar turbulence in the southern sky seen through spatial gradients
of the polarization vector. Interstellar turbulence in the southern sky
Iacobelli M., Burkhart B., Haverkorn M., Lazarian A., Carretti E., Staveley-Smith L.,
Gaensler B.M., Bernardi G., Kesteven M.J., Poppi S.
Submitted to Astronomy & Astrophysics (Chapter 4)
The brightness and spatial distributions of terrestrial radio sources
Offringa A.R., de Bruyn A.G., Zaroubi S., Koopmans L.V.E., Wijnholds S.J., Abdalla F.B., Brouw W.N., Ciardi B., Iliev I.T., Harker G.J.A. et al.
MNRAS (2013) 435, 584
Studying Galactic interstellar turbulence through fluctuations in synchrotron emission. First LOFAR Galactic foreground detection
Iacobelli M., Haverkorn M., Orrú E., Pizzo R.F., Anderson J., Beck R., Bell M.R.,
Bonafede A., Chyzy K., Dettmar R.-J. et al.
Astronomy & Astrophysics (2013) 558, 72 (Chapter 3)
LOFAR: The LOw-Frequency ARray
van Haarlem M.P., Wise M.W., Gunst A.W., Heald G., McKean J.P., Hessels J.W.T.,
de Bruyn A.G., Nijboer R., Swinbank J., Fallows R. et al.
Astronomy & Astrophysics (2013) 556, 2
The LOFAR view of cosmic magnetism
Beck R., Anderson J., Heald G., Horneffer A., Iacobelli M., Köhler J., Mulcahy D.,
Pizzo R., Scaife A., Wucknitz O. et al.
Astron. Nachr. (2013) 334, 548
Calibrating high-precision Faraday rotation measurements for LOFAR and the next
generation of low-frequency radio telescopes
Sotomayor-Beltran C., Sobey C., Hessels J.W.T., de Bruyn G., Noutsos A., Alexov A.,
Anderson J., Asgekar A., Avruch I.M., Beck R. et al.
Astronomy & Astrophysics (2013) 552, 58
177
Publications
LOFAR detections of low-frequency radio recombination lines towards Cassiopeia
A
Asgekar A., Oonk J.B.R., Yatawatta S., van Weeren R.J., McKean J.P., White G.,
Jackson N., Anderson J., Avruch I.M., Batejat F. et al.
Astronomy & Astrophysics (2013) 551, 11
Initial deep LOFAR observations of epoch of reionization windows. I. The north
celestial pole
Yatawatta S., de Bruyn A.G., Brentjens M.A., Labropoulos P., Pandey V.N., Kazemi S.,
Zaroubi S., Koopmans L.V.E., Offringa A.R., Jeli´c V., et al.
Astronomy & Astrophysics (2013) 550, 136
Synchronous X-ray and Radio Mode Switches: A Rapid Global Transformation of
the Pulsar Magnetosphere
Hermsen W., Hessels J.W.T., Kuiper L., van Leeuwen J., Mitra D., de Plaa J.,
Rankin J.M., Stappers B.W., Wright G.A.E., Basu R. et al.
Science (2013) 339, 436
Rotation measure synthesis at the 2 m wavelength of the Fan region: unveiling
screens and bubbles
Iacobelli M., Haverkorn M., Katgert P.
Astronomy & Astrophysics (2013) 549, 56 (Chapter 2)
Radio and X-ray properties of galactic supernova remnants G7.7-3.7 and G344.70.1
Giacani E., Loiseau N., Smith M.J.S., Dubner G., Iacobelli M.
AIP Conf. Ser. (2010) 1248, 39
Splitting Neutrino masses and Showering into Sky
Fargion D., D’Armiento D., Lanciano O., Oliva P., Iacobelli M., de Sanctis Lucentini P.G., Grossi M., de Santis M.
Nucl.Phys. B (2007) 168, 292
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Curriculum Vitae
I was born in the beautiful city of Rome, where I received my education. After I graduated in a school for science (high school education) I studied physics at “La Sapienza”
university. Because of my interest in astrophysics and space science, I focused on this
field of the activity. In order to improve and develop new skills I had several research
experiences. In 2002–2003 I was involved in an Earth observation project proposed in the
framework of the Success Student Contest (a competition for European university student
from all disciplines to propose an experiment that can be conducted on-board the International Space Station (ISS)) under the supervision of Prof. Alessandro Cacciani. The aim
of the experiment was the investigation of the atmospheric sodium layer at 90 km in the
Mesosphere, with the collaboration of JPL Laboratory (Pasadena) for the construction of
the image sensor and with a planned collaboration with the Earthshine project at the Big
Bear Solar Observatory and Caltech in California. In 2004 I performed photometric asteroseismology on a Rapid Oscillating star, asteroseismology being the topic of my practical
astrophysics course thesis. Then I decided to focus on cosmic rays physics. This was the
topic of my master thesis and I performed a study on inclined air showers and in particular the Up going Tau air showers under the supervision of Dr. Daniele Fargion. After I
graduated I applied at the ENEA (Italian National agency for new technologies, Energy
and sustainable economic development) research institute to be involved in a laser physics
project. The aim of this project was the development of a Thomson spectrograph in order
to estimate the velocity distribution for different ions species in laser’s produced plasmas.
Finally, in 2009 I spent a year of trainee at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC)
under the supervision of EASC scientists Matthias Ehle and Matteo Guainazzi. During
my trainee I was a member of the XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre (SOC) and
I gained a valuable experience with X-ray data reduction and increasing my interest in
high-energy astrophysics.
Then I started my duty as a Ph.D. student at Leiden observatory under the supervision
of Dr. Marijke Haverkorn. The purpose of my doctoral studies was twofold. I worked as
a commissioner of the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR), a new generation aperture array
radio telescope performing data reduction and software testing. Also, I investigated the
interstellar turbulence in the warm ionized medium of the Galaxy regarding two complementary science cases: mapping of the magneto-ionic structures in the interstellar medium
and characterizing the hydromagnetic turbulence of the diffuse interstellar medium. The
approach to investigate the interplay of the Galactic magnetism with the diffuse and turbulent magneto-ionic medium of the Milky Way was observational. During my PhD I
attended several international and national meetings where I presented my work.
179
Acknowledgements
These few lines are aimed to give thanks to all people who contribute to make this important life experience successful. Of course, I am grateful to my promotor Huub Röttgering
and my supervisor Marijke Haverkorn. Then a special thank is for you, Peter: you guided
me through a difficult period of my Ph.D experience and your life. I have no words to
explain my respect for you.
I thank my collaborators Emanuela Orrú, Roberto Pizzo, Blakesley Burkhart, Gianni
Bernardi and Dominic Schnitzeler for their precious support and patience. I am also in
debt with expertise at ASTRON for their kind support and guidance. A special thank to
the MKSP people for their support and enjoyable discussions and meetings. Thanks to my
colleague Carl Shneider for the nice days we had. Travelling and attending conferences
was a pleasure. The Netherlands for being a tolerant and welcoming country. People at
Karalis for the delightful Italian atmosphere and the delicious food, isn’t true Carl? I am
also grateful to the great office mates and all colleagues which contribute the Sterrewatch
to be such an amazing melting-pot both culturally as well as scientifically. Steven thanks
for your prompt support to translate this thesis summary to Dutch. Thanks to the “computer group” as well as the support staff for their kind help.
Lights and shadows have characterized these years and allowed me to grow up but at
a price for my dearest loved ones. I thank my father and my mother which supported me
unconditionally over these years. My wife, Carmen, for your indescribable, pure love and
your patience. I dedicate this work to you and I apologize for not having been with you all
the time you needed. Last but not least, I thank all my friends spread in Italy and Europe:
I hope to meet you again altogether.
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“Life is a play that does not allow testing. So, sing, cry, dance, laugh and live intensely,
before the curtain closes and the piece ends with no applause.”
– Charles Chaplin

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