Past Events | Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics

2021

KICP Seminar: Sophie Schroeder (Niels Bohr Institute)

12:00–1:00 pm ERC 401

Sophie Schroeder (Niels Bohr Institute) “Open questions in formation of compact binary star systems”

Oct 14

A&A Colloquium: Cole Miller (University of Maryland)

3:30–4:30 pm ERC 161

A NICER path to neutron star radii

Precise and reliable measurements of neutron star radii are essential to our understanding of cold, catalyzed matter beyond nuclear saturation density. Recently, NASA’s Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) satellite has provided high-quality data sets that have yielded measurements of the mass (M=1.44+-0.15 Msun) and radius (R=13+1.2-1.0 km) of the 206 Hz pulsar PSR J0030+0451, and of the radius (R=13.7+2.6-1.5 km) of the M=2.08+-0.07 Msun, 346 Hz pulsar PSR J0740+6620. I will discuss our group’s work on these pulsars and will in particular discuss the assumptions that have gone into our analyses, to help the assessment of our results. I will also discuss the implications of our results for the properties of the dense matter in the cores of neutron stars.

Oct 13

A&A seminar: Ani Chiti (KICP) & Rebecca Deising (UChicago)

12:00–1:00 pm ERC 401

This coming Tuesday we will have our first science talks in the Tuesday Lunch series.

Oct 12

KICP postdocs symposium

3:30–4:30 pm ERC 161

We will have a postdoc jamboree to celebrate KICP and kick off our in person talks. This will consist of four 10+5 minutes talks. Please join us.

Oct 6

Particle Theory Seminar: Austin Joyce (UChicago)

1:30–2:30 pm MCP 201

Particle Theory Seminar: Austin Joyce, UChicago, “Can you stretch a black hole?”

Oct 6

A&A Colloquium: Leslie Rogers (University of Chicago)

3:30–4:30 pm ERC 161

Glimpsing the Compositions of Sub-Neptune-Size Worlds

Sub-Neptune and super-Earth-size planets are a new category of astrophysical objects. Though absent from the Solar System, exoplanet transit, radial velocity, and microlensing surveys have revealed that they are a dominant outcome of planet formation found in abundance around other stars. The nature of these planets is not well understood. In the sub-Neptune size range a large variety of planet bulk compositions are a priori possible, including terrestrial super-Earths, mini-Neptunes with hydrogen-helium envelopes, and water-worlds with several tens of percent water by mass. In this talk, I will present recent results from my group aimed at disentangling the relative contributions from various compositional scenarios to the observed population of planets and understanding the nature and origin of these enigmatic sub-Neptune-size worlds.

Sep 29