I'm a research astronomer at the INAF-Observatory of Capodimonte Naples.
My research interests are: galaxy dynamics and dark matter, extragalactic astronomy, N-body simulations and cosmology.
The topic I've devoted most of my research activity since my PhD thesis has been the use of Planetary Nebulae (PNe) as tracers of the stellar kinematics in galaxies and the intracluster stellar population in galaxy clusters.
Since 2003 I'm a permanent member of the Planetary Nebula Spectrograph (PN.S) team which I started collaborating with as a Marie Curie Fellow at the Kapetyn Institute, Groningen.
From 2005 to 2008 I've led a project funded with an European Reintegration Grant by CORDIS within FP6, aimed at the study of the galaxy and cluster galaxy structure with PNe.
Since 2010 I'm PI of the DAMAE project funded by Regione Campania (Legge 5, 2007), aimed at measuring the Dark Matter content of elliptical galaxies and exploring Alternative Theories of Gravity.
NEWS
Central dark matter trends in early-type galaxies from strong lensing, dynamics and stellar populations, Tortora, C., Napolitano, N. R., Romanowsky, A. J., Jetzer, P., 2010, ApJL, in press, ArXiv e-prints, arXiv:1007.3988
The central dark matter content of early-type galaxies: scaling relations and connections with star formation histories, Napolitano, N. R., Romanowsky, A. J., & Tortora, C., 2010, MNRAS, 405, 2351, ArXiv e-prints, arXiv:1003.1716
Color and stellar population gradients in galaxies. Correlation with mass, Tortora, C.; Napolitano, N. R.; Cardone, V. F.; Capaccioli, M.; Jetzer, Ph.; Molinaro, R., 2010, MNRAS, in press, ArXiv e-prints, arXiv:1004.4896
Central mass-to-light ratios and dark matter fractions in early-type galaxies, Tortora, C., Napolitano, N. R., Romanowsky, A. J., Capaccioli, M., & Covone, G., 2009, MNRAS, 396, 1132; arXiv version
The Planetary Nebula Spectrograph elliptical galaxy survey: the dark matter in NGC 4494, Napolitano, N. R., Romanowsky, A. J., Coccato, L., Capaccioli, M., Douglas, N. G., Noordermeer, E., Gerhard, O., Arnaboldi, M., de Lorenzi, F., Kuijken, K., Merrifield, M. R., O'Sullivan, E., Cortesi, A., Das, P., & Freeman, K. C., 2009, MNRAS, 393, 329; arXiv version
Kinematic properties of early-type galaxy haloes using planetary nebulae, Coccato, L., Gerhard, O., Arnaboldi, M., Das, P., Douglas, N. G., Kuijken, K., Merrifield, M. R., Napolitano, N. R., Noordermeer, E., Romanowsky, A. J., Capaccioli, M., Cortesi, A., de Lorenzi, F., & Freeman, K. C., 2009, MNRAS, 394, 1249
Gauging the Dark Matter Fraction in an L* S0 Galaxy at z = 0.47 Through Gravitational Lensing from Deep Hubble Space Telescope/Advanced Camera for Surveys Imaging, Covone, G., Paolillo, M., Napolitano, N. R., Capaccioli, M., Longo, G., Kneib, J.-P., Jullo, E., Richard, J., Khovanskaya, O., Sazhin, M., Grogin, N. A., & Schreier, E., 2009, ApJ, 691, 531
