Search

The writer has been the last student who graduated with Beppo few years before his retirement. His thesis: "The energy spectrum of cosmic-ray electrons (CRE)" [1] was inspired by Beppo's obsession for the origin of CRs. The thesis was focused on the calculation of the diffusion equation that could account for all forms of energy losses suffered by electrons in their interstellar journey, aimed at constraining the primary electron spectrum from the spectrum observed within the solar cavity. The idea was to find observational constraints to models of CR acceleration by supernovae and their remnants. CRE and radio astronomy are adjacent fields of research because CRE lose energy via the synchrotron mechanism on galactic magnetic fields, producing radio waves. So, even when I eventually became a radio astronomer at the Leiden Sterrewacht, working on radio galaxies, I kept wondering about the origin of cosmic rays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The plethora of high redshift multifrequency surveys currently under way, that were extensively illustrated at this meeting will shortly provide us with a sequence of "fossil" galaxies, eventually disclosing the secret of their evolution, much as fossil organisms guided paleontologists tracing the evolution of species. Meanwhile we wish to remind to both theorists and to observers that the characterization of local galaxies, representing the boundary condition at z=0 of any evolutionary model, is not yet fully achieved. With this purpose we conceived an extensive observational campaign aimed at providing the phenomenology of local galaxies in the broadest possible frequency range. We took observations and collected data from the literature for over 3600 local (z<0.03) galaxies, mainly members to rich clusters, spending a large effort in making the literature data as homogeneous as possible with our own. The data cover the range from 2000 Å (UV) to the centimetric radio domain. The Web site "GOLDmine" (Galaxy On Line Database Milano Network) [10] is designed to provide world-wide access to this massive data-set on local galaxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]