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Livio Scarsi: 40 Years of Astrophysics from Space

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Livio Scarsi: 40 Years of Astrophysics from Space Livio Scarsi: 60 years of scientific activity dedicated to Physics, Cosmic Rays and High Energy Astrophysics from Space. (B. Sacco, 6th Intnl Workshop of the “Data Analysis in Astronomy, Livio Scarsi, 15-22 April 2007, Erice, Italy ) The reach scientific career of Livio Scarsi starts at Genoa University, as physics student in the Institute of Augusto Occhialini father of Beppo Occhialini. On 1950’ Livio took the degree in physics discussing a thesis on “ Cosmic Radiation Soft Electromagnetic Component at Pic du Midi : Investigation with nuclear emulsions “ . Tutor : Giuseppe (Beppo) Occhialini . “ During the studies in Genoa he had, also, the opportunity to know Bruno Rossi. Beppo Occhialini and Bruno Rossi are the reference points in the scientific life of Livio. From memories of Livio: Bruno Rossi and Beppo Occhialini Artistic photo composition by A. Spizzichino, “The Active X-ray Sky”, 21-24 October, 1997, Roma A. Watson, Intl. Workshop “ The UHE Universe”, Villa Mondragone, Frascati,19-21 June,2006 In 1952 Livio follows Beppo Occhialini in Milan and in 1955 Beppo send Livio in France, at the Centre d’Etudes Nucleaires de Saclay where he remains for 3 years: researches for “New Particles” in the Cosmic Radiation with the tecnique of Nuclear Emulsions flown in the Upper Atmosphere with Stratospheric Balloons. Relevant results are : First classification of Decay modes for K-mesons and Hyperons In 1957 he comes back in Milan but ….. From memories of Livio: “A. Watson, UHE Workshop , Villa Mondragone, Frascati, June 21, 2006.” Volcano Ranch , “ The desert Quinn” In Volcano Ranch, New Mexico desert, Jonh Linsley and Livio Scarsi installed 19 plastic scintillators (3.3 m2 area each-one) in an exagone of about 2,430,000 m2 area. Scintillators are coupled with fotomultipliers and oscilloscopes controlled by photo -cameras. Among many observed showers one contains more than 30 billions particles corresponding to a primary particle energy of 6 x 1019 eV. From memories of Livio Scarsi “A. Watson, UHE Workshop , Villa Mondragone, Frascati, June 21, 2006.” A part a brief period (1981-1983) in which he had the Chair of Space Physics at the University of Rome, La Sapienza, Livio Scarsi remains in Palermo as Professor of Advanced Physics and General Physics. In Palermo he establishes the High Energy Astro-Physics research group from which originates the Istituto di Fisica Cosmica con Applicazioni all’Informatica /CNR now Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica/INAF. The scientific activity of Livio Scarsi since 1961 to 2000 is manly devoted to Astrophysics from Space: Cosmic Rays, X and Gamma-ray Astronomy. Its activity concerns proposals, implementation and scientific driving of space missions in a the framework of the international Space community, participating as main actor. Researches on rare components of the Cosmic Radiation with detectors on board of stratospheric balloons and rockets. The ESRO/ESA COS-B gamma-ray mission. Proposal to NASA of a Spark Chamber alternative to the one of EGRET/GRO. Participation to the ESA experiment Space-lab on the Shuttle. The French-Italian Gamma Ray balloon experiment, FIGARO. The Italian satellite SAX. Contribution to the ESA EXOSAT mission . The Russian mission SPECTRUM X-Gamma with the British/Italian JET-X Telecsope Extreme Universe Space Observatory, EUSO 1961 – 1974, Research on rare components of the Cosmic Radiation with detectors on board of stratospheric balloons and rockets. 9First experiment in Italy with a Rocket in the Program of the European Space Research Organization – ESRO 9Extensive use and improvement of the Stratosferic Balloon Technique. 9Establishement of a Balloon Launch Facility in Sicily at Trapani Birgi (operated by Palermo group); after transferred to Trapani Milo and now operated by the Italian Space Agency ASI. Relevant results: • Measurement of the albedo flux of low energy neutrons from Earth and of their Latitude effect. • Discovery and flux measurement of Primary electron with energy above several GeV and measurement of the ratio e+ / e- . • FIRST detection of Pulsed emission of Gamma Radiation above 50 MeV from the Crab Nebula Pulsar PSR0531+21. COS_B is the name of a The feasibility study of the cosmic ray satellite successful space mission was realised in ESTEC by a group of European aimed at studying celestial scientists (L. Scarsi, M. Sommer, H. Martin, R. gamma rays. Pacault, J. van Boeckel, J. Ortner, Feasibility It was carried out by a team of study of a cosmic ray satellite, ESRO SP-23, European scientists within the August 1967). framework of the scientific The group presented two possible alternatives: programme of the European COS-A an heavy low orbit satellite Space Organization (ESRO) COS-B an highly eccentric orbit satellite. first and of the European Space Agency later. The second option, COS-B, lighter and less expensive respect to the first-one, competed with other projects as GEOS for studies of terrestrial plasma and UVAS for UV astronomy. At the end of a two years discussions (1969), ESRO adopted COS-B and GEOS. COS-B is the first example of the establishment of the “big science” in space research in Europe. Many scientists involved in the construction of the scientific payload of COS-B and in the analysis of its data were widely distributed in space and time spread as they over six laboratories calling themselves the Caravane Collaboration,in four countries and over three scientific generations. Livio Scarsi and Klaus Pinkau linked between the old group of the proponents, Labeyrie for France, Lust for Germany, Trendelenburg for ESRO/ESTEC and Occhialini for Italy and the following younger generation who carried on the mission and data analysis until the end. COS-B provided a continuous flow of useful data from August 1975 until April 1982, when the instruments on board were switched off because of irreversible deterioration of the spark chamber due to the consumption of the gas. COS-B gave a fundamental contribution to the field of gamma-ray astronomy, dramatically improving the available data base from about 8000 gamma-ray events (manly from the NASA SAS-2 mission) to more than 200.000 events in the range from 50 MeV to 5 GeV. the first gamma-ray map of the milk way in three different energy bands (Mayer-Hasselwander et al., Astronomy & Astrophysics, 105, 1982); COS-B provided the first complete map of the Galaxy in gamma-rays the first catalogue of discrete sources (25 sources), ( Swanenburg et al., Astrophysical Journal, 243, 1981); the first extragalactic source emitting gamma-ray (the AGN 3C273), Swanenburg et al., Astrophysical Journal, 243, 1981; Bignami et al., Astron. Astrophys, 93, 1981 detailed studies of gamma-ray emission from radio-pulsar (Crab, Vela,.. and other pulsars) Main references: Kanbach et al. Astron. Astrophys. 90, 1980; Wills et al., Nature, 5859, 1982; Buccheri et al. Astron.Astrophys. 128, 1983. SAX (Satellite for Astronomy X) was presented to National Space Plan by Livio Scarsi et al., following an AO for an Italian national scientific mission in 1981. SAX was in competition with OCSA presented by R. Giacconi. A senior committee (E. Amaldi, G. Occhialini, B.Rossi) selected SAX in 1982 for a launch planned in 1988 by a Shuttle with the PAM (Paylod Assisted Module) provided by the Italian IRIS. The program has been cancelled at mid 1987 due to the Challenger disaster (January 1986). Due to the strong and resolute activity of Livio Scarsi, the mission has been re- oriented towards an Expendable Launch Vehicle. SAX, now BeppoSAX, so named in honour of Giuseppe “Beppo” Occhialini, “maestro” of Livio has been launched on April, 30, 1996 at 04:31 GMT, with an Atlas-Centaur. Livio Scarsi leaded the mission until the end, 6 years up to April 30, 2002. BeppoSAX Launch: 30 April 1996 04:31 GMT BeppoSAX The scientific payload: • LECS, Low Energy Concentrator Spectrometer (0.1 – 10 keV), by SSD/ESA-ESTEC • MECS, three units, Medium Energy Concentrator Spectrometer (1.3-10 keV), by IFCTR (Milan) and IFCAI (Palermo) • HPGSPC, High Pressure Gas Scintillation Proportional Counter (4-120 keV), by IFCAI (Palermo) • PDS, Phoswich Detector System (15-300 keV) and its lateral shields as GRBM (60-600 keV), by TESRE (Bologna) and IAS (Roma) • WFC, two units, Wide Field Camera (2-30 keV), by SRON, Netherland. Special features: BeppoSAX was the first X-ray mission with a scientific payload covering more than three decades of energy with a relatively large effective area, medium energy resolution and imaging capabilities in the range of 0.1-10 keV. BeppoSAX scientific highligths The large energy band (0.1-200 keV), the imaging capability (in the range 0.1-10 keV), the presence of narrow field instruments < ~1° together with wide field instruments ~ 40° allowed to perform: • broad band spectral observation of different classes of X-ray sources, • spatial resolved spectroscopy, • time/phase resolved spectroscopy, • detection of transient phenomena with WFC and studying them with the most sensitive NFI, • first arc-minutes position of GRBs. Position determination on rapid scale time, • first X-ray follow-up observations and monitoring of the GRBs. Beppo-SAX has been operated as an observatory. Hundreds of scientists in the world observed the x-ray sky with BeppoSAX and more than 1500 scientific publications have appeared in the literature. These BeppoSAX MECS images and the plot to the right show the luminosity evolution of the Soft X-ray Transient Aql X-1, a binary system including a neutron star and a "normal" K star. The detection of Aql X-1 in outburst by the RXTE satellite (green points) triggered a series of BeppoSAX observations (red points) which allowed the investigators for the first time to follow the X-ray emission evolution down to a quiescence phase. Courtesy of S. Campana, Brera Observatory, Milano-Mera Time dependent spectral behaviour of the binary system 4U 1630-472 Courtesy of A.
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