Past Colloquia
Peculiar Transients as Probes of Stellar Evolution and Mass Loss
Cody Hall
Maria Drout (The Carnegie Observatories/Dunlap Institute)
October 14, 2016
14:00 - 15:00
The recent advent of wide-field time-domain surveys has launched an upheaval in field of stellar evolution. These surveys are uncovering new types of astronomical transients that not only challenge existing models for supernova explosions but also our understanding of what physical processes can occur during…
Gravitational Wave Observations: Status and Future Planning
Cody Hall
Sheila Rowan (University of Glasgow)
October 07, 2016
14:00 - 15:00
In September 2015 the twin ‘Advanced LIGO’ observatories allowed the first direct detection of gravitational waves from astrophysical sources. The waves detected originated from the collision and merger of two black holes 1.3 billion light years from earth. This detection marked the start of new…
Exoplanets Hidden by Stellar Activity
Cody Hall
Elodie Hebrard (York University)
September 30, 2016
14:00 - 15:00
The detection extra-solar planets through radial-velocity searches is likely limited by the intrinsic magnetic activity of the host stars. The correlated « noise » that arises from their natural radial-velocity variability (jitter) can easily mimic and hide the orbital signals of super-Earth and Earth-mass exoplanets,…
Mapping Hot Gas in the Universe using the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect
Cody Hall
Eiichiro Komatsu (Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Germany)
September 23, 2016
14:00 - 15:00
Hot, thermal electrons in galaxy clusters up-scatter the cosmic microwave background photons, making clusters visible in the microwave sky. This effect, known as the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, has been detected routinely toward individual galaxy clusters. Since the SZ effect is proportional to a projected thermal pressure…
A UV to Far-IR Spectroscopic view of Shocks and Turbulence in Dense Galaxy Environments: From Stephan’s Quintet to Proto-clouds at z = 10
Cody Hall
Dr. Phil Appleton, NASA Herschel Science Center, IPAC, Caltech
June 24, 2016
14:00 - 15:00
Abstract: One interesting result from the cryogenic mission of the Spitzer Space telescope was the discovery of a class of extragalactic sources that exhibited powerful warm molecular hydrogen lines that are likely caused by powerful shocks and turbulence. One example is the massive group-wide warm H2…
Juno: Revealing Jupiter’s Interior” – NASA’s Juno Mission to Jupiter: What’s Inside the Giant Planet?
Cody Hall
Fran Bagenal (University of Colorado) Keynote Lecturer
June 17, 2016
14:00 - 15:00
Juno’s principal goal is to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter. Underneath its dense cloud cover, Jupiter safeguards secrets to the fundamental processes and conditions that governed our solar system during its formation. As our primary example of a giant planet, Jupiter can also provide critical knowledge for…
Early Reionization Science from 21 cm Experiments and the Path Towards a New Cosmological Probe
Cody Hall
Jonathan Pober (Brown University)
June 10, 2016
14:00 - 15:00
Abstract: 21 cm cosmology — the concept of using radio telescopes to observe the highly redshifted 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen on cosmological scales — is a field on the verge of a breakthrough. The technique is faced with the significant challenge of recovering…
The Impact of Stellar Feedback on Molecular Clouds
Cody Hall
Stella Offner (University of Massachusetts)
June 03, 2016
14:00 - 15:00
Low-mass stars influence their surroundings through a variety of feedback processes. However, because they are less energetic than high-mass stars, their contributions are often ignored. In this talk, I will discuss numerical simulations including protostellar outflows and winds from main sequence B-type stars. I will…
The Cosmic Abundance of Molecular Gas – The CO Power Spectrum Survey
Cody Hall
Dan Marrone (Univeristy of Arizona)
May 27, 2016
14:00 - 15:00
The cool, molecular phase of the interstellar medium is the fuel that enables the formation of new stars. In the early universe, large gas reservoirs dominated the baryonic mass of galaxies and enabled a cosmic star formation density that peaked at 10 times the current…
The Gravitational-Wave Universe seen with Pulsar Timing Arrays
Cody Hall
Chiara Mingarelli (CalTech)
May 20, 2016
14:00 - 15:00
Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) are currently the only way to search for gravitational radiation in the nanohertz band. Sources of interest include gravitational wave (GW) backgrounds generated by supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) and processes in the early universe such as relic GWs and cosmic…