Wednesday, November 6, 2013


Current Position:
JINA Post-Doc Fellowship (USA),
in collaboration with INAF (Astronomical Observatory of Turin)
and Department of Physics, University of Turin (Italy)
-- until the end of 2013 --

Contact Details:
email bisterzo@to.infn.it
sarabisterzo@gmail.com


Research Fields:
Since the beginning of my research activity I have been involved in stellar
evolution and nucleosynthesis, focusing my works on the study of the
origin of heavy elements produced through slow neutron capture process (the
s-process).
The aim of the research is to develop and implement theoretical models of
asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars with low initial mass. In order to obtain
self-consistent AGB models and allow a continuously update research, a close
collaboration between theoreticians, observers and nuclear physicists is needed.
Nucleosynthesis AGB models are based on a wide nuclear network of reaction rates
measured experimentally in laboratories, and extrapolated at stellar energy.
The results have to be tested against spectroscopic observations in peculiar
stars of different stellar populations and isotopic anomalies measured in
presolar SiC grains.
The growing number of observations is assured by the ongoing survey projects
at high-resolution spectroscopy, and by the increasingly sophisticated laboratory
techniques developed to study meteorites.
The main goal is to reduce the large uncertainties still affecting stellar
models.


Key words:
stellar nucleosynthesis, nuclear astrophysics, asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars,
s-process, Galactic chemical evolution

Publication List (see CV):
32 referred journal articles,
624 citations,
h-index=14;
see http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

The most recent publications:
Bisterzo2010
Bisterzo2011
Bisterzo2012 
Review2011 

Research Experiences:
Theoretical contributions
• Nucleosynthesis of the s-process in low mass stars during the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) phase.
• Galactic chemical evolution models.

Experimental contributions
• Experimental measurement of the neutron capture cross section
209Bi(n, γ)210Bi(g) reaction with 3.7 MV Van de Graaff accelerator at FZK (Germany).
• Theoretical interpretations of cross section measurements.

Others
• During 2012 I was involved in the coordination of a degree thesis (title: “Chemical Evolution of Dwarf
Spheroidal Galaxies”).
• During 2008 – 2009 I was involved in the coordination of a degree thesis (title: “Galactic chemical
evolution”) and a PhD Thesis (title: “Barium and Post-AGB stars”).
• Lectures, Posters and Seminars at international conferences (see CV).

Referee experiences
• ApJ Letter in 2011, ApJ and MNRAS in 2013


Collaborators:

Nucleosynthesis models
Dr. Sergio Cristallo and Dr. Oscar Straniero (INAF, Teramo, Italy)
Prof. Roberto Gallino, (University of Turin, Italy)
Prof. John Lattanzio and Dott. Maria Lugaro - Monash University, Australia

Galactic chemical evolution models
Dr. Claudia Travaglio (Astronomical Observatory of Torino, Italy)

Nuclear physics
Forschungszentrum Karlsrhue, Karlsrhue (F. Kaeppeler)
GSI Darmstadt (M. Heil, R. Reifarth, N. Winkler)
CERN (n_TOF), Switzerland (N-TOF COLLABORATION)
Accelerator mass spectrometry at VERA Wien, Austria ( T. Wallner, W. Kutschera)

Spectroscopic Observations
NAO, Tokyo (Japan), SUBARU telescope, (W. Aoki)
“Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University (T. Beers)
McDonald Obs., Univ. of Texas (C. Sneden, I. Roederer, A. Frebel)
Keck Telescope (Carnegie Obs. Pasadena)  (G. Preston, I. Ivans) 

Presolar grains in Meteorites
Enrico Fermi Institute, and University of Chicago, Chicago (A. Davis)
Washington University in Saint Louis (E. Zinner,  S. Amari)
Max-Planck-Insitute fuer Chemie, Mainz (P. Hoppe. U. Ott)
Carnegie, Washington D.C. (L. Nittler)



Short Biography:

After my Physics Degree (July 2004), I started my PhD in November 2004 at
the Physics Department of the University of Turin.
I spent the second year of my PhD at KIT (Germany), where I was responsible
of my own nuclear experiment. This allowed me to extend the skills to learning
new experimental techniques and achieving the knowledges in nuclear cross
section measurements.
From 1st November 2007 to 31th October 2009, I was granted a 2-years MIUR
 research fellowship. On the 20th December 2007, I obtained my PhD degree.

Afterwards, I obtained a 2-years renewal of the MIUR research fellowship
 (up to 31th October 2011), with the co-financial support of KIT (Germany) and
Monash University (Australia).
From 1st January to 31th May 2011, I was involved in a collaboration project
with Monash University, and in March 2011 I was a visitor at Monash.
On the 1th January 2012, I started a new research Post-Doc position supported
by JINA (USA), in collaboration with INAF (Astronomical Observatory of
Turin). This is my current position up to the end of 2013.

My research experience is attested by publications in referred journals,
participation at several international conferences with
talk presentations (Europe, Japan, and Australia), invited talks (Germany;
the Netherlands; Australia; France), referee activities (ApJL and ApJ) and PhD/Degree
thesis supervising experiences (2007-2008; 2011-2012). See CV for more information.