Past Colloquia
Massive star forming galaxies at the peak of the galaxy formation epoch
Cody Hall
Reinhard Genzel (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics & UC Berkeley)
April 20, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
I will discuss the results of three major programs of studying star formation, cold gas, feedback and dynamics of massive ‘normal’ star forming galaxies near the peak of the epoch of galaxy formation (z~1-3). Our observations, carried out with the IRAM Plateau de Bure interferometer…
Hot Jupiters: Problems and Opportunities
MP 134
John Johnson (Caltech)
April 11, 2012
15:00 - 16:00
Some of the best studied exoplanets are the hot Jupiters: Jovian planets with mercurial orbits (P < 10 days). These strange planets have played an outsized role in exoplanetary science. This is not because they are common—only 1% of stars have one—but because they are…
Confronting Star-formation Models with Magnetic-field Observations
Cody Hall
Huabai Li (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy)
March 30, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
Self gravity, turbulence and magnetic fields (B-fields) certainly all play a role in the star-formation process, which transforms just a small fraction of the mass of molecular clouds into stars. How exactly these forces interact with each other to regulate star formation is, however, still…
Star Formation in the Multiphase Interstellar Medium of Galaxies
Cody Hall
Chris McKee (UC Berkeley)
March 29, 2012
15:00 - 16:00
Star formation is at the nexus of astrophysics: stars are believed to be responsible for the re-ionization of the universe, they created all the heavy elements, they control the formation and evolution of galaxies and the formation of stars naturally leads to the formation of planets….
The PTF Open Cluster Survey: Tracking the Evolution of Rotation and Activity on the Lower Main Sequence
Cody Hall
Marcel Agüeros (Columbia U)
March 23, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
A star’s age is one of its most fundamental parameters. It is also, for isolated field stars, notoriously difficult to measure. While we have known for 40 years of the existence of a relation between a star’s age, rotation, and magnetic activity, observational limitations have…
Unifying the Many Faces of Neutron Stars: The High Magnetic Field Connection
Cody Hall
Victoria Kaspi (McGill University)
March 16, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
Neutron stars show a bewildering array of observational properties which range from mild-mannered, faint pulsations to unpredictable blasts of X-rays and gamma-rays that can occasionally but briefly outshine the entire Galaxy in these bands. From the dramatic magnetars to the generally calmer radio pulsars, from…
Gravitational waves, promises and challenges to fulfill them
Cody Hall
Luis Lehner (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics & University of Guelph)
March 09, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
Soon gravitational waves will provide a completely new way to understand our universe. To fully exploit this opportunity efforts –and expertise– beyond gravity are required. This talk has then two purposes: One, to review some few examples of what has been understood from the theoretical…
The nature of cosmic explosions: recent progress
Cody Hall
Avishay Gal-Yam (Weizmann Institute of Science)
February 17, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
Cosmic explosions mark the violent deaths of stars. While the emission from the explosion itself (manifesting, e.g., as a supernova) is often very bright and can be studied in detail, understanding the nature of the progenitor systems of these events is more difficult, as these…
Young Planets Caught at Formation
Cody Hall
Adam Kraus (U. Hawaii)
February 09, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
Young and directly-imaged exoplanets offer critical tests of planet-formation models that can’t be matched by RV and transit surveys of mature stars. However, these targets have been extremely elusive to date, with no exoplanets younger than ~10-20 Myr and only a handful of directly-imaged planets…
The Time Domain Renaissance: From Gamma-Ray Bursts to Advanced LIGO
Cody Hall
Brad Cenko (Berkeley)
February 06, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
With convergence of both science (i.e., community interests) and technology (the advent of new facilities enabled by Moore’s Law), time-domain exploration of the sky promises to be a frontier pursuit in the coming decade. In this talk I will review two recent results from our efforts to characterize variability…