Past Colloquia
A Flood of Exotic Globular Cluster Pulsar Discoveries
Cody Hall
Scott Ransom
November 29, 2023
2:00pm - 3:00pm
In the past five years, the number of known globular clusterpulsars, most of them of the millisecond variety, has nearly doubled, to atotal of over 300. The main reasons were the commissioning of theextremely sensitive FAST and MeerKAT radio telescopes, and increasedcomputing power applied to…
Exploring the Changing Sky: The Vera Rubin Observatory and the LSST Discovery Alliance
Michael Wood-Vasey University of Pittsburgh Board Chair, LSST Discovery Alliance
November 22, 2023
2:00pm - 3:00pm
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is an 8.4-m telescope with a 10 square degree field of view camera that will observe the visible southern sky every 3 days as part of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). The LSST movie of the sky…
Our Lonely Sun: How Multiple Star Systems Form (or don’t)
Cody Hall
Stella Offner, University of Texas at Austin
November 15, 2023
2:00pm - 3:00pm
Abstract: Most stars are born with one or more stellar companions. Observational advances over the last decade have enabled high-resolution, interferometric studies of forming multiple systems and statistical surveys of multiplicity in star-forming regions. These have yielded new insights into how such systems form and how multiplicity…
Accreting massive black holes and QUVIK a Czech UV space telescope
Cody Hall
Norbert Werner,
November 08, 2023
2:00pm - 3:00pm
Most galaxies comparable to or larger than the mass of the Milky Way host hot, X-ray emitting atmospheres and accreting supermassive black holes. I will present results based on radio and X-ray observations, which indicate that in massive early-type galaxies, the central radio sources are…
Sub-clusters and Gas and Binaries, oh my: Star Cluster Formation is Messy
Cody Hall
Alison Sills, McMaster University
November 01, 2023
2:00pm - 3:00pm
Stars are primarily formed in clustered environments in giant molecular clouds. Stars are also primarily found in binary or higher order multiple systems. This hierarchy of binaries inside clusters, particularly at early times, means that binary systems interact with other stars from the first moments…
Reconstructing the physics of transients using machine learning
Cody Hall
Wolfgang Kerzendorf, Michigan State University
October 25, 2023
2:00pm - 3:00pm
Supernova explosions are some of the most energetic and luminous events in the universe, andunderstanding them is crucial for many areas of astrophysics. One way to gain insight into the physicalprocesses involved in these explosions is through supernova tomography, which involves reconstructinga spatially resolved explosion…
How Black Holes Shine
Cody Hall
Prof. Bart Ripperda, CITA, University of Toronto
October 18, 2023
2pm - 3pm
Astrophysical black holes are surrounded by accretion disks, jets, and coronae consisting of magnetized relativistic plasma. They produce observable high-energy radiation from nearby the event horizon and it is currently unclear how this emission is exactly produced. The radiation typically has a non-thermal component, implying…
Mind the Gap: The far-infrared gap and Canadian milestones on the Far-Infrared astrophysical roadmap
Cody Hall
Prof. Locke Spencer, University of Lethbridge
October 11, 2023
2:00pm - 3:00pm
Abstract: Over half of the energy emitted by the Universe appears in the relatively unexplored Far-Infrared (Far-IR) spectral region, which is virtually opaque from the ground and must be observed by space-borne instrumentation. The dominant limiting factor of many current open questions in astrophysics is…
The Quantitative Reasoning Skills and Numerical Affect of Astronomy Students
Cody Hall
Kate Follette, Amherst College
October 04, 2023
2:00pm - 3:00pm
Much of the dialogue surrounding effective pedagogy for college-level general education astronomy courses has been focused on how best to engender “science literacy”, yet students cannot be scientifically literate without also being quantitatively literate. Basic numerical skills such as graph reading, proportional reasoning, and estimation are tools that…
From Pixels to Parameters
Cody Hall
Prof. Stephen Portillo, Concordia University
September 27, 2023
2:00pm - 3:00pm
Much of astronomy uses pixelized data, but the size and complexity of these data often strain the capability of existing data analysis techniques. I will present algorithms built on advances in statistics and machine learning that allow more science to be done with the same…