Past Events

2021

Open group seminar: Shivam Pandey (UPenn)

2:30–3:30 pm ERC 401

Shivam Pandey (UPenn) “Perturbation theory for non-linear galaxy biasing in photometric galaxy surveys”

Dec 9

KICP seminar: Maria Vincenzi (Duke)

12:00–1:00 pm ERC 401

Maria Vincenzi (Duke) “Present and future of SN Ia cosmology: from the Dark Energy Survey to the Vera Rubin Observatory”

Dec 9

Webinar: SH0ES team with new H0 results and Pantheon updates

11:00 am–12:00 pm ERC 401

SH0ES team Webinar with new H0 results and Pantheon updates

Dec 9

KICP Colloquium: Will Farr (Stony Brook University)

3:30–4:30 pm ERC 161

Will Farr (Stony Brook University) “Ringing Black Hole Bells and Other Exciting Recent Results in Gravitational Wave Astronomy”

Dec 8
Dec 3

Open group seminar: Rohan Naidu (Harvard)

2:00–3:00 pm ERC 517

Rohan Naidu (Harvard) “Unraveling the Galactic Stellar Halo with the H3 Survey”

Dec 2

KICP seminar: Carles Sanchez (Penn)

12:00–1:00 pm ERC 401

Carles Sanchez (Penn) “Pushing the limits of the Dark Energy Survey: Selecting and characterizing high redshift galaxy samples for optimal CMB lensing cross-correlations”

Dec 2

A&A Colloquium: Anna-Christina Eilers (MIT)

3:30–4:30 pm ERC 161

The Growth of Supermassive Black Holes in the Early Universe

The existence of luminous quasars hosting supermassive black holes within the first billion years of cosmic history challenges our understanding of black hole growth. An important piece of the puzzle is the lifetime of quasars - the time that galaxies shine as active quasars and during which the bulk of the black hole growth occurs - but to date its value remains uncertain by several orders of magnitude. I will present a new method to obtain constraints on the lifetime of quasars based on the sizes of ionized regions around quasars known as proximity zones. These proximity zones act as a “quasar clock” and enable us to study the co-evolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies from a new perspective. Surprisingly, our results indicate that black holes might be able to grow several orders of magnitude faster than previously thought, which provides a potential solution to the long-standing puzzle of the rapid black hole assembly in the early universe. I will further show how future observations with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will enable new insights into galaxy-quasar co-evolution across cosmic time.

Dec 1

Open group seminar: Christoph Welling (Friedrich-Alexander University)

2:00–3:00 pm ERC 401

Christoph Welling (Friedrich-Alexander University) “Finding EeV neutrinos with RNO-G”

Nov 30

Open group seminar: Gillian Beltz-Mohrmann (Vanderbilt University)

1:00–2:00 pm ERC 401

Gillian Beltz-Mohrmann (Vanderbilt University)“Developing an Accurate Probe of the Galaxy-Halo Connection”

Nov 29