2021
KICP Seminar: Vincent Vennin (APC, Paris University)
12:00–1:00 pm Zoom
Vincent Vennin (APC, Paris University) “Quantum diffusion during cosmic inflation”
KICP Colloquium: Matthew Becker (ANL)
3:30–4:30 pm Zoom
Matthew Becker (ANL) “Weak Lensing Shear Measurements in DES Y3 and Beyond!”
KICP Seminar: Gregory Mosby (NASA)
12:00–1:00 pm Zoom Room
Gregory Mosby, NASA, “Simplifying the analysis of galaxy star formation histories and near-infrared detectors”
Astronomy and Astrophysics Virtual Open House, 2021
Through March 5, 2021 Zoom
Astronomy and Astrophysics Virtual Open House, 2021
A&A Colloquium: Luis Ho (Peking University)
3:30–4:30 pm Zoom - for link, please contact Laticia Rebeles, lrebeles@oddjob.uchicago.edu
“The Impact of Quasars on the Interstellar Medium and Star Formation in Galaxies”
AGN feedback is often invoked in galaxy evolution, as a key physical mechanism to self-regulate star formation and black hole accretion. Is this mechanism truly effective? How to tell? I will describe a series of new experiments designed to use the ISM properties of quasar host galaxies to test the efficiency of AGN feedback. I will also introduce new methods to estimate the star formation rate and star formation efficiency in quasar host galaxies, which impact models of galaxy quenching. The ISM and star formation properties of quasars provide key insights into the role that black holes play in the lifecycle of galaxies.
Physics Colloquium: Cora Dvorkin (Harvard University)
3:30–4:30 pm Zoom
Cora Dvorkin, Harvard University, “Discovering New Physics with Cosmological Data Sets”
KICP Seminar: Pranava Teja Surukuchi (Yale university)
12:00–1:00 pm Zoom
Pranava Teja Surukuchi, Yale university, “Direct Measurement of Neutrino Mass with the Project”
A&A Colloquium: Kate Alexander (Northwestern University)
3:30–4:30 pm Zoom
“Cosmic Extremes: Time-Domain Astrophysics in a Multi-Messenger World”
Time-domain astrophysics provides a unique opportunity to study the most extreme physical processes in the Universe, including the deaths of massive stars, the destruction and creation of compact objects like neutron stars and black holes, and the tidal disruption of stars by supermassive black holes. I will discuss my recent and ongoing work to reveal the formation and structure of relativistic jets and outflows in the most extreme astrophysical transients, including gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and tidal disruption events (TDEs). I will further show that radio data provide the best constraints on the immediate environments of these transients, probing models of black hole growth and accretion (TDEs) and stellar evolution models (GRBs). Finally, I will discuss the bright future of time-domain astrophysics. With the pioneering detections of gravitational waves, astronomers and physicists have gained a new, complementary tool to study compact object mergers, with implications for fields as wide-ranging as general relativity, nuclear physics, cosmology, and shock physics. Collaboration with LIGO and its successor gravitational wave observatories will enable precision constraints on merger physics, while wide-field surveys like DES and Rubin Observatory’s LSST will provide the first large samples of rare, relativistic events and move transient science into the statistical realm. Simultaneously, new radio interferometers like the ngVLA and the Square Kilometer Array together with high-cadence survey experiments like CMB-S4 are poised to transform radio astronomy, revealing the radio sky in unprecedented depth and leading to the discovery of relativistic transient populations in the radio band.
KICP Seminar: Djuna Croon (TRIUMF)
12:00–1:00 pm Zoom
Djuna Croon, TRIUMF, “New Physics and the Black Hole Mass Gap”
A&A Colloquium: Diana Powell (University of California, Santa Cruz)
3:30–4:30 pm Zoom
Connecting Planet Formation & Characterization
A fundamental understanding of planetary histories and characteristics requires an empirical connection between planet formation and evolved planets—a long-sought goal of astrophysics. This connection is now increasingly possible due to simultaneous revolutions in the observations of protoplanetary disks and exoplanet atmospheres. A key step towards relating these observations of different evolutionary stages is to characterize the composition of material in protoplanetary disks and relate these properties to the atmospheric composition of planets. In this talk, I will discuss initial steps that I have taken towards this goal. I will provide evidence that protoplanetary disks are more than an order of magnitude more massive than previously appreciated, that the detailed properties of clouds shape observations of substellar atmospheres, and that the physics of modeling clouds gives a new understanding of the compositional distribution in protoplanetary disks. I will conclude by discussing avenues for relating planetary properties to the compositional mass inventory in protoplanetary disks as a function of time in order to develop the observationally validated framework required to compositionally relate evolved planets to planet formation.