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Past Colloquia

Dwarf Galaxies and Their Black Holes

Zoom

Jenny Greene, Princeton

October 06, 2021
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Because they are dark-matter dominated, dwarf galaxies provide some of the most stringent tests of our cold dark matter model. Specifically, Lambda CDM makes predictions about the number, shape, and spatial distributions of the faint friends of massive galaxies. I will present results from the…

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Colloquium with Prof. Adam Hincks and Prof. Marten van Kerkwijk

Zoom

Adam Hincks and Marten van Kerkwijk, University of Toronto

September 29, 2021
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

A Cosmic Filament Illuminated by the Cosmic Microwave Background – by Prof. Adam Hincks Only a small fraction of baryons today are found in galaxies. In fact, for many years ~30–40% of the baryonic matter predicted to exist by early universe cosmology were unaccounted for…

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Colloquium with Renée Hložek and Ting Li

Zoom

Renée Hložek and Ting Li, University of Toronto

September 22, 2021
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Can astronomical methods help detect signs of neurodegeneration? – by Prof. Renée Hložek Structures in the brain look like structures in the sky: the natural world contains self-similarity that can be exploited to allow for learning across disciplines. While imaging data in the two fields…

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The quest of measuring star-formation histories to elucidate the first galaxies

Zoom

Sandro Tacchella, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology

September 15, 2021
11:00 am - 12:00 pm

The last great unknown of the cosmic history is when, why and how the first galaxies formed after the Big Bang. These galaxies played an important role in re-ionizing the universe and are also an important tracer of early structure formation. I will present new results on…

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Studying star formation from the stratosphere

Zoom

Laura Fissel, Queen's University

April 14, 2021
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

An important mystery in astrophysics is why the conversion of interstellar gas into stars is such an inefficient process.  We typically observe of order 1% the star formation rate expected from a free-fall gravitational collapse of molecular gas clouds. This low efficiency is likely due to regulation from a combination of turbulent gas motions,…

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Expanding the gravitational-wave spectrum

Zoom

Sarah Burke-Spolaor, University of West Virginia

April 07, 2021
2:00pm - 3:00pm

We are seeking both electromagnetic and gravitational waves from binary supermassive black holes, the biggest, discrete binary systems in the Universe. When galaxies merge, these giant binaries can form. During their inspiral and coalescence phases, they will produce intense gravitational radiation, which we expect to…

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Advancing the Astronomical Inclusion Revolution

Zoom

Dara Norman, NOIRLab

March 31, 2021
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

The field of Astronomy and Astrophysics has seen major changes in the last couple of decades. There have been discoveries that have evolved our understanding of the Universe. The development of new methods and gathering of datasets have expanded topical areas of the field in…

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Shaping the future of weak-lensing cosmology with the Roman Space Telescope

Zoom

Dr. Jenna Freudenburg, DADDAA

March 24, 2021
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

In the past decade, our understanding of the standard model of cosmology has been shaped by constraints on Lambda-CDM from so-called Stage III surveys, such as the Dark Energy Survey. In the 2020s, a wealth of new data from Stage IV surveys – including the…

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The End of all Worlds

Zoom

Boris Gaensicke, University of Warwick

March 17, 2021
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Many of the known planets – in the solar system Mars and beyond – will survive the post main-sequence evolution of their host stars into white dwarfs. Later interactions scatter asteroids, moons, and possibly entire planets deep into the gravitational potential of the white dwarf,…

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A New Era of Interferometry with GRAVITY

Zoom

Frank Eisenhauer, Max Planck Institute

March 10, 2021
11:00 am - 12:00 pm

The GRAVITY instrument has enabled major steps forward in infrared interferometry, by phase-referenced imaging at milli-arcsecond resolution, with a sensitivity increase by factor thousands, 30-100 micro-arcsecond astrometry, and few micro-arcsecond differential spectro-astrometry. We give an overview of the technology behind GRAVITY and highlight the game-changing…

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