12:00–1:00 pm ERC 501
Host: Jeff McMahon
Claire Guepin "Searching for very-high-energy neutrinos with EUSO-SPB2"
Decades after the first detection of ultra-high-energy (UHE, >1 EeV) cosmic rays, their origin still eludes us. The detection of very-high-energy (VHE, > 10 PeV) neutrinos will help identify some of the UHE cosmic-ray sources, as VHE neutrinos can be produced by the interaction of UHE cosmic rays. Their production in astrophysical environments is predicted by a large variety of models, and a significant effort is made to develop new detection techniques and perform the first detections. Suborbital and space-based optical Cherenkov detectors will be able to detect secondary signals produced by the interaction of VHE tau neutrinos with the Earth’s crust. The super-pressure balloon mission EUSO-SPB2 is a precursor for a next generation space observatory for multi-messenger astrophysics. We will discuss the on-going effort for VHE neutrino searches during its upcoming flight.
Michael Zhang "What emission spectra tell us (or don't) about exoplanet atmospheres"
A few months ago, I talked about how transmission spectra reveal an exoplanet atmosphere's composition—or more precisely, how they do not. Fundamental atmospheric properties, like whether the atmosphere is 90% H/He or 0%, often remain shrouded in mystery despite hundreds of hours of observations by the world's best telescopes. Are emission spectra any more sensitive to the properties we actually care about? Or is there a neat mathematical equivalence between transmission and emission spectroscopy that foils the latter as much as it screws up the former? You can probably take a good guess based on Murphy's Law, but come on Tuesday to find out!
