Antonio La Marca

About Me

I am a PhD candidate at the SRON (Netherlands Institute for Space Research) and the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute of the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands.

For my Master's Degree in Physics, I studied at the University of Naples "Federico II" (Italy) and, as part of the Erasmus project, I spent 7 months at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute. In that period, I worked on my Master's Thesis in collaboration with the Capodimonte Astronomical Observatory, entitled "Studying the building blocks of the Universe: the low-surface brightness galaxy population in the Hydra I cluster".

I grew up in Naples, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, located in southern Italy. In Naples, I obtained my Bachelor's degree in Physics at the University of Naples "Federico II" (Italy).

Research

My research interests are in the area of galaxy formation and evolution, from the local Universe to the cosmic noon. Broadly speaking, I am interested in how galaxies change in terms of their stellar mass, morphology, dust content, the accretion rate and activation of the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) they host.

My current research focuses on galaxy mergers and how these interactions can trigger active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Indeed, the gravitational tidal torques induced during the merger of two galaxies can drive vast reservoirs of gas toward the SMBHs, activating the AGNs. We try to investigate the connection between mergers and AGNs analysing large samples of galaxies with multiwavelength data.

To identify interacting galaxies in astronomical images, we develop and utilize state-of-the-art machine learning techniques.

Publications

The complete list of my publications is on ADS.

First Author

"Galaxy populations in the Hydra I cluster from the VEGAS survey II. The ultra-diffuse galaxy population"

Astronomy & Astrophysics; A&A 665, A105 (September 2022)

La Marca A., Iodice E., Cantiello M., Forbes D. A., Rejkuba M., Hilker M., Arnaboldi M., Greggio L., Spiniello C., Mieske S., Venhola A., Spavone M., D’Ago G., Raj M. A., Ragusa R., Mirabile M., Rampazzo R., Peletier R., Paolillo M., Choque Challapa N., and Schipani P.
"Galaxy populations in the Hydra I cluster from the VEGAS survey I. Optical properties of a large sample of dwarf galaxies"

Astronomy & Astrophysics; A&A 659, A92 (March 2022)

La Marca A., Peletier R., Iodice E., Paolillo M., Choque Challapa N., Venhola A., Forbes D. A., Cantiello M., Hilker M., Rejkuba M., Arnaboldi M., Spavone M., D’Ago G., Raj M. A., Ragusa R., Mirabile M., Rampazzo R., Spiniello C., Mieske S., and Schipani P.

Co-Author

"Galaxy merger challenge: A comparison study between machine learning-based detection methods"

Astronomy and Astrophysics; eprint arXiv:2403.15118 (March 2024)

Margalef-Bentabol B., Wang L., La Marca A., C. Blanco-Prieto, D. Chudy, H. Domínguez-Sánchez, A. D. Goulding, A. Guzmán-Ortega, M. Huertas-Company, G. Martin, W.J. Pearson, V. Rodriguez-Gomez, M. Walmsley, R.W. Bickley, C. Bottrell, C. Conselice, and D. O’Ryan

"Looking into the faintEst WIth MUSE (LEWIS): Exploring the nature of ultra-diffuse galaxies in the Hydra-I cluster I. Project description and preliminary results"

Astronomy and Astrophysics; A&A 679, A69 (November 2023)

Iodice E., Hilker M., Doll G., Mirabile M., Buttitta C., Hartke J., Mieske S., Cantiello M., D’Ago G., Forbes D. A., Gullieuszik M., Rejkuba M., Spavone M., Spiniello C., Arnaboldi M., Corsini E. M., Greggio L., Falcón-Barroso J., Fahrion K., Fritz J., La Marca A., Paolillo M., Raj M. A., Rampazzo R., Sarzi M., and Capasso G.

"A multi-band AGN-SFG classifier for extragalactic radio surveys using machine learning"

Astronomy and Astrophysics; A&A 675, A159 (July 2023)

Karsten J., Wang L., Margalef-Bentabol B., Best P. N., Kondapally R., La Marca A., Morganti R., Röttgering H. J. A., Vaccari M., and Sabater J.

"The Intra-Group Baryons in the LEO I Pair From the VST Early-Type GAlaxy Survey"

Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, vol. 9, id. 852810 (March 2022)

Ragusa R., Mirabile M., Spavone M., Cantiello M., Iodice E., La Marca A., Paolillo M., and Schipani P.

"Formation of an ultra-diffuse galaxy in the stellar filaments of NGC 3314A: Caught in the act?"

Astronomy & Astrophysics Letter; A&A 652, L11 (August 2021)

Iodice E., La Marca A., Hilker M., Cantiello M., D’Ago G., Gullieuszik M., Rejkuba M., Arnaboldi M., Spavone M., Spiniello C., Forbes D. A., Greggio L., Rampazzo R., Mieske S., Paolillo M., and Schipani P.

"The first detection of ultra-diffuse galaxies in the Hydra I cluster from the VEGAS survey"

Astronomy & Astrophysics; A&A 642, A48 (October 2020)

Iodice E., Cantiello M., Hilker M., Rejkuba M., Arnaboldi M., Spavone M., Greggio L., Forbes D. A., D’Ago G., Mieske S., Spiniello C., La Marca A., Rampazzo R., Paolillo M., Capaccioli M., and Schipani P.

PhD Astronomy candidate at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute (Groningen)

About Me

Research

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First Author

Co-Author

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Available Data

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