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// ["Date","Name","Affiliation","Title","Abstract","Day","Time"]
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February[0]  = ["7 ", "Rachel Bezanson ", "Princeton         ", "The Surprisingly Complex Lives of Massive Galaxies", "Massive galaxies reside in the densest and most evolved regions of the Universe, yet we are only beginning to understand their formation history. Once thought to be relics of a much earlier epoch, the most massive local galaxies are red and dead ellipticals, with little ongoing star formation or organized rotation. In the last decade, observations of their assumed progenitors have demonstrated that the evolutionary histories of massive galaxies have been far from static. Instead, billions of years ago, massive galaxies were morphologically different: compact, possibly with more disk-like structures, and on-going star formation. The details of this observed evolution can place constraints on the physical processes that have driven massive galaxy evolution through cosmic time. I will discuss on-going observational studies of the structure, dynamics, and compositions of massive high-redshift galaxies. Specifically, I will highlight preliminary results from the LEGA-C spectroscopic survey of 0.6 \< z \< 1 massive galaxies. Finally, I will outline prospects for further understanding of the history of these intriguing objects with next generation observatories and instruments.", "", ""];
February[1]  = ["14", "Desika Narayanan", "Haverford/UFlorida", "Three Problems in Trying to Form Galaxies (and how ISM Physics can Save Us)", "Building a comprehensive picture for the evolution of galaxies from early times through present epoch requires understanding a huge dynamic range of physical processes. With observations ranging from detections of galaxies less than a billion years after the Big Bang to stellar and molecular cloud mass spectra in the Milky Way, the challenge has been to develop a concordance theory for galaxy formation than simultaneously explains this diverse range of observed galaxy properties across cosmic epoch. At the heart of many of the central questions in the astrophysics of galaxy evolution lies the physics of the interstellar medium, and galactic-scale star formation. In this talk, I will describe how understanding the complex interplay between small scale star formation physics and global galaxy evolution processes can lead to considerable insight in long-standing problems in both fields.", "", ""];
February[2]  = ["21", "Josh Winn       ", "Princeton         ", "The obliquities of planet-hosting stars", "In the Solar system, the planets follow orbits that are aligned with the Sun's equatorial plane to within about 7 degrees. But what about planets around other stars? Many techniques are now available to measure the obliquities of planet-hosting stars, ranging from an effect predicted in the 19th century to several techniques relying on data from the Kepler space telescope. Many exoplanetary systems show good alignment, as in the Solar system. We have also found many planets on highly inclined orbits, and even retrograde orbits. I will explain the observing techniques, present the patterns that have emerged from the data, and discuss the theories that have been proposed to explain these results.", "", ""];
February[3]  = ["28", "Wendy Freedman  ", "Chicago           ", "Increasing Accuracy and Increasing Tension in H<sub>0</sub>", "The accuracy in the direct measurement of distances to galaxies has continued to improve dramatically over the past decade. Local measurements of the Hubble constant based on Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescope observations of astrophysical standard candles -- Cepheids and Type Ia supernovae -- have converged on a value of about 73 km/sec/Mpc with an uncertainty of 2-3%. At the same time, estimates assuming a Lambda-CDM standard model and fitting highly precise measurements of cosmic microwave background fluctuations have yielded a value of Ho = 67 km/sec/Mpc. The two methods disagree at approximately the 3-sigma level. The reason for this discrepancy is not understood at present, and new data have only increased the tension. If real, the disagreement could be signaling missing physics in the standard model; for example, additional dark radiation. Major efforts are ongoing to improve further the accuracy in the local measurements, including developing other techniques to test the Cepheid distance scale. In the near future JWST and Gaia will provide a path to measuring Ho to 1%, comparable to the precision in CMB measurements.", "", ""];
March[0]     = ["7 ", "Mike McDonald   ", "MIT               ", "Galaxy Cluster Evolution over the Past 10 Billion Years", "In recent years, the number of known galaxy clusters has grown dramatically, thanks in large part to the success of surveys utilizing the Sunyaev Zel'dovich effect. In particular, surveys like the South Pole Telescope 2500 deg^2 survey have discovered hundreds of distant clusters, allowing us to trace for the first time the evolution of clusters from shortly after their collapse (z~2) to present day (z~0). In this talk, I will highlight recent efforts to understand the observed evolution in the most massive clusters, in terms of the large-scale hot intracluster gas, the cooling gas in the very center of the cluster, the most massive central galaxy, and the supermassive black hole at the very center. In addition, I will attempt summarize the current state of galaxy cluster surveys and briefly discuss the potential of next-generation surveys.", "", ""];
March[1]     = ["14", "Nathan Schwadron", "UNH               ", "Opening a New Window on Our Global Heliosphere - IBEX, the Voyagers, and the next steps in exploring this vast frontier", "The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) was the first mission to explore the global heliosphere and in concert with Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 is discovering a fundamentally new and uncharted physical domain of the outer heliosphere. IBEX observes enhanced Energetic Neutral Atoms emission from a narrow “ribbon” likely centered on the local interstellar medium (LISM) magnetic field direction. The enigmatic IBEX ribbon was an unanticipated discovery demonstrating that much of what we know or think we understand about the outer heliosphere needs to be revised. Further, IBEX has improved knowledge of the local interstellar velocity based on interstellar atom measurements. These new determinations are found to be consistent with the interstellar modulation of high energy (TeV) cosmic rays revealed in global anisotropy maps of ground-based high-energy cosmic-ray instruments (Milagro, Asγ and IceCube). The next quantum leap enabled by the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), recommended as the next Solar Terrestrial Probe Mission by the Solar and Space Science Decadal Survey, will open new windows on the frontier of Heliophysics at a time when the space environment is rapidly evolving. IMAP, like ACE before it, will be a keystone of the Heliophysics System Observatory by providing comprehensive cosmic ray, energetic particle, pickup ion, suprathermal ion, neutral atom, solar wind, solar wind heavy ion, and magnetic field observations to diagnose the changing space environment and understand the fundamental origins of particle acceleration. In this talk, we will review recent discoveries of IBEX and their relation to measurements by Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. We will discuss new analyses of IBEX measurements of interstellar neutral matter, which reveal the influences of interstellar structure influenced by the external interstellar magnetic field.", "", ""];
March[2]     = ["21", "Lisa Kewley     ", "ANU               ", "Galaxy Formation and Evolution in 3D", "Tracing matter and chemical elements in the Universe is critical for understanding the formation of the first galaxies, the formation and growth of supermassive black holes, and ultimately the evolution of galaxies like our Milky Way. Throughout the history of the universe, large-scale gas flows have moulded the arms of spiral galaxies, formed the bulges of the most massive galaxies in the universe, fed supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies, fueled generation upon generation of new stars, and enriched the intergalactic medium with metals. The physics and impact of these processes can now be traced through new efficient, wide-field 3D integral field spectrographs. We use multi-object integral field spectroscopy to build the largest local sample of galaxies with wide 3-dimensional imaging spectroscopy. We combine our local results with insights into the early universe probed through gravitational lensing and adaptive optics. I will present the latest results from our large local and high-z 3D surveys to understand the relationship between gas inflows, galactic-scale outflows, star-formation, chemical enrichment, and active galactic nuclei in galaxies. I will finish by discussing how this field will be transformed in the JWST and ELT era.", "", ""];
March[3]     = ["28", "Jessica Lu      ", "UC Berkeley       ", "Black Holes, Big and Small - A Laser-Guided Adaptive Optics View", "Black holes come in at least two varieties. Supermassive black holes lay at the centers of galaxies and, while not theoretically predicted, have been definitively proven to exist using observations of stars' orbits at the heart of the Milky Way. Stellar mass black holes are predicted to exist in large numbers -- 100 million in our Galaxy alone -- but only two dozen have been found, nearly all accreting from a companion star. I will present past, current, and upcoming experiments that utilize the power of laser-guide star adaptive optics to hunt for individual stellar mass black holes and study how the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center impacts its environment. These projects require high precision measurements of stars' positions and brightness, which has led to a number of novel developments in image modeling for adaptive optics that I will discuss. I will also present first on-sky results from the 'imaka project, which is a new adaptive optics system with the widest-ever field of view.", "", ""];
April[0]     = ["4 ", "Richard French  ", "Wellesley College ", "Highlights of the Cassini Mission to Saturn from the Cassini Radio Science Team", "The Cassini mission to Saturn continues to transform our understanding of this beautiful ringed planet and its entourage of moons. I'll provide an insider's view of the Cassini mission as the team leader of the Radio Science Team, and highlight some of the important science findings from our instrument over the course of the entire Cassini mission, spanning tests of general relativity, searches for gravitational waves, detection of internal oceans in Saturn's moons, measurement of the properties of the northern seas on Titan, and investigations of Saturn's rings and atmosphere. The exciting Grand Finale of the mission will begin on April 26, when the spacecraft will make a daring plunge between the rings and the planet to begin the final five months of up-close exploration of Saturn before Cassini's final crash into the planet on September 15.", "", ""];
April[1]     = ["11", "Tracy Slatyer   ", "MIT               ", "The Dark Side of the Cosmic Dawn", "Dark matter constitutes more than 5/6 of the matter in the universe, but its nature and interactions remain one of the great puzzles of fundamental physics. Dark matter collisions or decays, occurring throughout the universe's past, have the potential to produce high-energy particles; such particles may already have reshaped the history of our cosmos, leaving traces of their existence in ionization and heating of the intergalactic medium. I will discuss possible signatures of new dark matter physics in cosmological observations, from the cosmic dark ages to the epoch of reionization, and future directions in both theory and observation.", "", ""];
April[2]     = ["18", "Brad Cenko      ", "NASA Goddard      ", "Recent Observational Puzzles from Tidal Disruption Flares: Towards Viable Probes in the LSST Era", "I will present an overview of efforts across the electromagnetic spectrum to identify and study tidal disruption flares (TDFs), when a star wanders too close to a super-massive black hole and is torn apart by tidal forces. In particular I will focus on three unexpected surprises that challenge the most basic analytic picture of these events: 1) large inferred radii for the optical/UV-emitting material, indicating either circularization of the bound debris at large distances and/or significant reprocessing of the radiation from the inner accretion disk; 2) the ubiquity of outflows, detected at radio, X-ray, and UV wavelengths, ranging from speeds of 100 km/s to near the speed of light; and, 3) the peculiar atomic abundances observed in the UV and optical spectra of these objects. Understanding the nature of the broadband emission will be critical if we wish to ultimately utilize these events as probes of black hole mass in distant quiescent galaxies in the LSST era. Finally I will provide an introduction to upcoming and proposed wide-field surveys that will help us address these issues in the coming years.", "", ""];
April[3]     = ["24", "Kaitlin Kratter ", "Arizona           ", "Three puzzles in star and planet formation", "In the past 5 years, new observational facilities have provided remarkable data sets against which we can evaluate theories of star formation and planet formation. I will describe three different theoretical investigations motivated or corroborated by new observations. First I will discuss the formation of binary companions via disk fragmentation due to gravitational instability. I will illustrate how ALMA and careful statistical studies have begun to validate a long-held theoretical picture. Next, I will discuss the surprising high resolution ALMA images of protoplanetary disk asymmetries. I will show how careful numerical models can validate (or not) the interpretation of these images as evidence for the Rossby Wave Instability. Finally, I will discuss the dynamics of the Pluto-Charon circumbinary satellite system. The New Horizons space mission not only provides new insights into the formation of these bodies, but also provides a record of the Kuiper Belt and thus planet formation in the outer solar system.", "", ""];
May[0]       = ["2 ", "Dan Kasen       ", "UC Berkeley       ", "The glow of gravitational wave sources: Modeling compact object mergers and the production of the heavy elements", "The discovery of gravitational waves by advanced LIGO has sparked a worldwide effort to detect associated electromagnetic emission, which would localize the sources and illuminate the physics of compact object mergers. A merger involving two neutron stars (or a neutron star and a black hole) is likely to expel radioactive material that gives off an optical/infrared glow similar to, but dimmer than that of a supernova. I will describe our progressing theoretical understanding -- rooted in multi-physics numerical simulations -- of compact object mergers, and show how observations of radioactive emission can constrain interesting physics, such as the dynamics of mass ejection, the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements, and the properties of the final remnant (a hyper-massive neutron star or spinning black hole). Such models inform observational programs searching for LIGO counterparts, and ultimately may help address the long-standing question of the origin of the heaviest elements in the universe.", "", ""];