mattia libralato GMT20240606 093326 Recording 1792x1120

Poetry in (proper) motion: a glimpse into the internal kinematics of globular clusters with HST
Mattia Libralato (INAF - OAPD)
Thursday 06/06/2024 @ 11:30, Sala Antonio Sollima (IV piano Battiferro)
Over the past twenty years, new photometric and spectroscopic data have radically changed our picture of Galactic globular clusters (GCs). We went from thinking we knew everything there was to know about these ancient fossils to now not even having models to explain how they could have possibly formed. We have recently started to combine the wealth of information available in the HST archive to compute high-precision proper motions with the goal of analyzing the internal motions within GCs. The internal kinematics can provide key elements about how GCs formed and have evolved, and we have only begun to scratch the surface of what they can tell us. In this talk, I discuss some still-open questions about GCs and why PMs are the most-effective way to constrain formation and dynamical evolution of GCs. I present the observational findings on the internal kinematics of GCs thanks to HST high-precision proper motions, focusing both on GCs as a whole and on their multiple stellar populations. Finally, I present the role of future generations of telescopes in this research field.