Antonio La Marca

PhD Astronomy candidate at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute (Groningen)

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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

Co-Author

Here are some of the most recent publications I have contributed to as a co-author.

Data & Codes

Here you can find the links to the data published in my works and the codes developed.

Available Data

    • The multi-wavelength catalogue of galaxies for studying the galaxy mergers - AGN connection in the KiDS NW-2 field, which includes the GAMA 09 field. Two catalogue versions are available: complete and light. The light version includes only the most relevant columns for the analysis (merger classification, AGN and galaxy properties). The complete version contains all the multi-wavelength data (X-ray to the sub-millimeter), and the entire SED fitting output.
      NW2_galaxy_sample_light

      NW2_galaxy_sample_complete
      For more details, refer to the README_light and README_complete files.
    • The new XID+ deblended far-IR and sub-mm catalogue (short version) for the COSMOS field. This catalogue contains the fluxes of the Spitzer/MIPS, Herschel/PACS and SPIRE, and the JCMT/SCUBA-2 maps.
      XID+COSMOS2024
      For more details we refer the reader to the README file.
    • A catalogue of dwarf galaxies detected in nearby Hydra I galaxy cluster:
      Hydra I galaxy cluster dwarf catalogue

Public Codes

  • Galaxy fitting tools : a collection of python scripts and routines to study the photometry of individual galaxies.

Media

Press Releases

Contact

Feel free to reach out to me for collaboration opportunities or any inquiries.

Email: a.la.marca@sron.nl

Address: Faculty of Science and Engineering Astronomy Institute
Kapteyn Astronomical Institute
Landleven 12 (room 0152)
9747 AD Groningen
The Netherlands