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Past Colloquia

The Growth of the Most Massive Galaxies in the Highest Density Regions: Evidence for In-Situ Star Formation in SpARCS Brightest Cluster Galaxies

Cody Hall

Tracy Webb (McGill University)

April 29, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

The most massive galaxies in the local universe reside at the centres of galaxy clusters. Often called Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs), they exhibit, as a class, highly uniform properties and are distinct from the general galaxy population. This suggests formation processes which are themselves distinct…

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How to identify a habitable planet? Thinking inside (and a bit outside) the box

Cody Hall

Lisa Kaltenegger (Cornell, Carl Sagan Institute)

April 22, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

Abstract: Among the thousand of exoplanets detected, several are within the so-called Habitable Zone and some of them are called “the most Earth-like”. But what is the data behind those claims? The talk will discuss several important topics in the search for other habitable worlds….

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Asteroseismology Reveals Strong Magnetic Fields in the Cores of Red Giant Stars

Cody Hall

Jim Fuller (Caltech)

April 15, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

Internal stellar magnetic fields are inaccessible to direct observations and little is known about their amplitude, geometry and evolution. I will discuss how strong magnetic fields in the cores of red giant stars can be identified with asteroseismology. The fields manifest themselves via depressed dipole…

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Dreams of Streams: Exploring the stellar outskirts of nearby galaxies

Cody Hall

Daniel Dale (University Wyoming)

April 08, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

I will review highlights from the Spitzer Extended Disk Galaxy Exploration Science (EDGES) survey, a Warm Mission program to obtain sensitive infrared imaging for 92 nearby galaxies.  Highlights will include the radial trends in their star formation histories as well as characterizations of their outermost…

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Rogue Waves on Pulsating White Dwarf Stars

Cody Hall

JJ Hermes (U. of North Carolina)

April 01, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

While it has been an efficient planet-discovery machine, the unblinking photometry of the Kepler space telescope has also revolutionized the way we look at pulsating stars. I will discuss some of the rapid advances Kepler has enabled in our understanding of white dwarf stars, including…

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Extrasolar Storms: Cloud Physics and Atmospheric Dynamics in Brown Dwarfs and Exoplanets

Cody Hall

Daniel Apai (University of Arizon)

March 18, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

Observations of directly imaged and transiting exoplanets and brown dwarfs reveal the wide-spread presence of condensate clouds. These clouds profoundly influence the energy transport through ultracool atmospheres and impact their pressure-temperature profiles. Yet, the structure and properties of these cloud layers remain mostly unknown and…

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Direct imaging of extrasolar planets and the Gemini Planet Imager

Cody Hall

Bruce Macintosh (Stanford)

March 11, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

Abstract: While thousands of extrasolar planets and candidates have now been detected, but almost all through indirect methods such as transit photometry or radial velocity. Though statistically powerful, these techniques provide in most cases just a basic measurement of an object’s size and orbital parameters,…

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Convection in Cool Stars, as Revealed through Stellar Brightness Variations

Cody Hall

Fabienne Bastien (Penn State)

March 04, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

Abstract: As a result of the high precision and cadence of surveys like MOST, CoRoT, and Kepler, we may now directly observe the very low-level light variations arising from stellar granulation in cool stars. Here, we discuss how this enables us to more accurately determine…

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Ilse Cleeves (Harvard)

Cody Hall

Ilse Cleeves (Harvard)

February 26, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

details to follow

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Clustering Redshifts: A New Era of Distance Measurement

Cody Hall

Mubdi Rahman, John Hopkins University

February 19, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

Measuring the true distance of objects seen on the celestial sphere is a challenge that has plagued astronomy from its earliest days. The classical solution to this problem for extragalactic systems has been measuring the regression velocity through spectroscopy to determine a redshift-related distance. However…

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