2022
A&A Colloquium: Chihway Chang (University of Chicago)
3:30–4:30 pm ERC 161. For zoom info contact Laticia Rebeles @ lrebeles@oddjob.uchicago.edu
Cosmology from the Large-Scale Structure with Cosmic Surveys
The LCDM model has been extraordinarily successful, yet we know that it must fail at some point, and that we will learn something new when it does. In the past 20 years, the cosmology community has worked hard to make ever more precise measurements of the LCDM parameters using large datasets from cosmic surveys. In this talk I will focus on one particular area of this effort using large-scale structure (galaxy clustering and weak gravitational lensing) to constrain cosmology. With the advance of modern galaxy surveys such as the Dark Energy Survey (DES), we are now at a point where the canonical approach is systematics-limited and there is significant challenges going forward for us to maximally exploit the information in the next generation of galaxy surveys such as the Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). I will present some of the efforts we are embarking to overcome this potential bottleneck with an eye on the unprecedented datasets on the horizon.
Astro Tuesday: Dimitrios Tanoglidis and Patricio Gallardo
12:00–1:00 pm ERC 401 & zoom
Dimitrios Tanoglidis “Bayesian Neural Networks, or Neural Networks that can say ‘I don’t know’!” and Patricio Gallardo “A story of a pandemic in two acts: optical design for CMB-S4 and measuring galaxy clusters motions”
KICP seminar: Yueying Ni (Carnegie Mellon University)
12:00–1:00 pm ERC 301B
Yueying Ni (Carnegie Mellon University) “Cosmological simulations from the cosmic web to supermassive black holes”
KICP colloquium: Stephanie Wissel (Pennsylvania State University)
3:30–4:30 pm ERC 161
Stephanie Wissel (Pennsylvania State University) “Tuning into the Highest Energy Cosmic Neutrino”
Astro Tuesday: Congyao Zhang and Insung Jang
12:00–1:00 pm Zoom
Congyao Zhang “Giant Shock Waves in Galaxy Clusters” and Insung Jang “Stellar outskirts of NGC 300: an exceptionally extended disk or an abnormally massive halo?”
A&A Colloquium: Carlos Vargas (University of Arizona)
3:30–4:30 pm TBD
Why I Stopped Waiting for Someone Else to Map the Warm-hot Circumgalactic Medium
For over half a century, observational astrophysics has been eager to successfully detect and map the most massive baryonic component of galaxies: warm-hot phase coronal gas extending into the circumgalactic medium (CGM). Despite its importance to galaxy evolution, this phase of gas is entirely unmapped in the nearby universe. Morphological characteristics, such as the presence, size, and extent of filamentary or cloud-like structures, are impossible to determine through pencil-beam absorption line studies. The evolution of galaxies relies heavily on the properties of gaseous halos, indicating an urgent need to map and measure these understudied regions. In the last decade, high-efficiency reflective coatings for UV optics have experienced improvements in reflectivity per bounce and overall coating stability in the far UV (FUV). Detector technology sensitive to FUV wavelengths has seen steady development of Microchannel Plate (MCP) detector technology. In parallel with these advances in UV technology, SmallSat missions with serious science objectives—which did not exist a decade ago—have emerged as a promising platform for high-impact science, an opportunity for more adventurous experiments and investigations. In this talk, I present Aspera (PI C. Vargas): a FUV SmallSat mission to detect and map warm-hot phase gas emission in nearby galaxies for the first time. The Aspera mission is designed to target the O VI emission line doublet from highly ionized oxygen, located at ll=1032, 1038 Å rest frame. Aspera combines a simple spectroscopic optical design using advances in highly-reflective FUV-coated optics with advanced UV MCP detectors to optimize throughput and sensitivity. Aspera will build multiple days of exposure time on each individual target to ensure spectroscopic detection of O VI emission and produce 2D morphological maps and direct measurements of physical conditions such as kinematics. The Aspera mission was selected for funding in the inaugural 2020 NASA Astrophysics Pioneers Program ($20M) in January of 2021.
Astro Tuesday: Nora Bailey (UChicago) and Anastasia Sokolenko (UChicago)
12:00–1:00 pm Zoom
Nora Bailey (UChicago) “Planetary Period Ratio Sculpting Near Second-Order Mean-Motion Resonances” and Anastasia Sokolenko (UChicago) “Intergalactic medium as a probe of fundamental physics”
KICP seminar: Daniel Gilman (University of Toronto)
12:00–1:00 pm Zoom
Daniel Gilman (University of Toronto) “Fundamental dark matter physics with strong gravitational lenses”
KICP colloquium: Daniel Scolnic (Duke University)
3:30–4:30 pm Zoom
Daniel Scolnic (Duke University) “New Results from the Pantheon+ and SH0ES Teams on Measuring the Hubble Constant”
Astro Tuesday: Abigail Lee (UChicago) and David Zegeye (UChicago)
12:00–1:00 pm Zoom
Abigail Lee (UChicago) “Using Carbon Stars as Standard Candles: Establishing the Foundations for an Independent Measurement of the Hubble Constant” and David Zegeye (UChicago) “The Square Kilometer Array as a Cosmic Microwave Background experiment”