2022
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”
Open group seminar: David Zegeye (UChicago) and Tom Crawford (UChicago)
10:30–11:30 am Zoom
David Zegeye (UChicago) and Tom Crawford (UChicago) will discuss CMBS4+SKA in the context of detecting CMB spectral anisotropy
KICP seminar: Julian Muñoz (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
12:00–1:00 pm Zoom
Julian Muñoz (Harvard & Smithsonian) “Cosmic Dawn: The next frontier in cosmology”
A&A Colloquium: Damiano Caprioli (University of Chicago)
3:30–4:30 pm Zoom - Please contact Laticia at lrebeles@oddjob.uchicago.edu for info
The Non-thermal Universe
Non-thermal particles are ubiquitous in the Universe: we can detect them at Earth as cosmic rays, probe them in-situ with spacecraft in the heliosphere, and observe their emission from galactic and extra-galactic objects over a vast range of frequencies spanning from radio to gamma-rays. I present some paradigmatic examples of how ab-initio plasma simulations can be used to further our understanding of particle acceleration and transport, and eventually the non-thermal phenomenology of several astrophysical objects. Moreover, I illustrate how cosmic rays and magnetic fields can play a crucial role in the interstellar medium and hence in galactic dynamics and evolution.
Astro Tuesday: Ilaria Lonoce (UChicago) and Madison Brady (UChicago)
12:00–1:00 pm Zoom
Ilaria Lonoce (UChicago) “The stellar initial mass function and its challenging measurement” and Madison Brady (UChicago) “Assessing /TESS/‘s Yield Around Nearby M Dwarfs”
KICP colloquium: Mariangela Lisanti (Princeton University)
3:30–4:30 pm Zoom
Mariangela Lisanti (Princeton University) “Galactic Probes of Dark-Sector Physics”