2019
Chalk Talk: Ting Li (Fermilab/KICP) & Huanqing Chen (UChicago)
12:00–1:00 pm ERC 501
Ting Li (Fermilab/KICP): “S5-HVS1: A 1700 km/s hyper velocity star discovered by the Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey”
&
Huanqing Chen “Quasars in Cosmic Reionization”
Thanksgiving Break
All day
Milky Way Discussion Group
2:00–3:00 pm ERC 419
KICP Open Group Seminar: Jonathan Blazek, EPFL
3:30–4:30 pm ERC 401
Jonathan Blazek, EPFL, “Fun with Intrinsic Alignments: Exploring Beyond LCDM with Cosmological Surveys”
A&A Cookies, Coffee and Conversation
2:30–3:30 pm Hubble Lounge (ERC 501)
KICP seminar: Pitam Mitra, University of Washington
12:00–1:00 pm ERC 401
Pitam Mitra, University of Washington, “Single electron charge resolution with the first prototypes of DAMIC-M skipper CCD’s”
A&A Colloquium: Raffaella Margutti, Northwestern University
3:30–4:30 pm ERC 161
“Discovery frontiers in the new era of Time Domain Multi-Messenger Astrophysics”
New and improved observational facilities are sampling the night sky with unprecedented temporal cadence and sensitivity across the electromagnetic spectrum. This exercise led to the discovery of new types of astronomical transients and revolutionized our understanding of phenomena that we thought we already knew. In this talk I will review some very recent developments in the field that resulted from the capability to acquire a true panchromatic view of the most extreme stellar deaths in nature, including the new class of fast and blue optical transients and extreme episodes of mass-loss in the years leading up to stellar death.
IDEA -- Inclusion, Diversity and Equity in Astronomy meeting (Astronomy & Astrophysics | KICP)
11:30 am–1:00 pm ERC 583
Astro Lunch Seminar: Kareem El-Badry, University of California- Berkeley
12:00–1:00 pm ERC 576
“Wide binaries as probes of star formation and dynamical evolution”
Population statistics of wide binaries encode the end state of turbulent core fragmentation and can thus constrain aspects of the star formation process that are theoretically poorly understood. Because the orbits of wide binaries are fragile, they are also sensitive probes of the dynamical history of a stellar population. The Gaia mission has recently revolutionized the wide binary field, making it possible to assemble large, homogenous, and pure catalogs of binaries with a well-understood selection function. I will discuss several recent discoveries enabled by Gaia, focusing in particular on the unexpected discovery of an excess population of equal-mass “twin” binaries at wide separations that challenges our understanding of the star formation process. I will also discuss tests of gravity in the low-acceleration regime with wide binaries.