Joint IAS Princeton University Astrophysics Colloquium

Apr
19
2022

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

The Atmosphere-Interior Connection of Super-Earths and Sub-Neptunes: From Formation and Evolution to Observations
Hilke Schlichting
11:00am|Virtual and PU, Peyton Hall Auditorium

The discovery of thousands of new planetary candidates over the last decade has revolutionized the field of planet formation. One of Kepler's key findings is that the most abundant planets in our galaxy, observed to date, are larger than Earth but...

Apr
12
2022

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

The Wild West of Nuclear Transients
Suvi Gezari
11:00am|Virtual and PU, Peyton Hall Auditorium

Central massive black holes will reveal themselves in a galaxy when they flicker and flare as they feed on gas and stars. We are conducting a systematic study of nuclear transients in the Zwicky Transient Facility alert stream, and have assembled...

Apr
05
2022

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

The Baryon Cycle in Dwarf-Dwarf Mergers: Fueling Hierarchical Assembly
Sabrina Stierwalt
11:00am|Virtual and PU, Peyton Hall Auditorium

Both cosmological simulations and observations of the ultraviolet luminosity function suggest dwarf galaxies are the dominant population at high redshifts and that the galaxy merger rate per unit volume is dominated by low mass galaxies. However...

Mar
29
2022

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Searching for axion-like particles with X-ray observations of galaxy clusters.
Christopher Reynolds
11:00am|Virtual and PU, Peyton Hall Auditorium

There has been a surge of interest within the particle-physics and dark matter communities in axions and axion-like particles (ALPs). These particles result from a possible extensions to the Standard Model that may solve the Strong-CP problem, and...

Mar
22
2022

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

The birth of the first massive galaxies and black holes
Eduardo Bañados
11:00am|Virtual and PU, Peyton Hall Auditorium

We are the first generation of human beings able to directly observe and study the cosmic era when the first galaxies and black holes formed. Quasars are among the most luminous sources known and can be studied in detail even during the first...

Mar
15
2022

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Satellite Swarms vs. Astronomy and the Night Sky
James Lowenthal
11:00am|Virtual and PU, Peyton Hall Auditorium

New technology and a lack of regulation are allowing massive swarms, or "constellations", of low-Earth communications satellites such as SpaceX's Starlinks to be launched at relatively low cost, leading to a dramatic rise in the number of satellites...

Mar
01
2022

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Pathways to Earth-Mass Planets with Precision Spectroscopy
Suvrath Mahadevan
11:00am|Virtual and PU, Peyton Hall Auditorium

Modern astronomical spectrometers are approaching the exquisite sensitivity to detect the signature of an Earth-mass planet around stars like the Sun. I shall discuss the challenges involved in making these difficult measurements with the Doppler...

Feb
22
2022

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Cosmic Ray Acceleration by Magnetic Reconnection: Probing Extreme Energies and the Origin of Gamma-Ray and Neutrino Emission from Black Holes and Relativistic Jets of Active Galaxies
Elisabete M. de Gouveia Dal Pino
11:00am|Virtual and PU, Peyton Hall Auditorium

Relativistic Jets emanating from Black Holes (BH) of active galaxies are believed to be among the most extreme particle accelerators and very high energy (VHE) emitters in the universe. Only lately, combining theory, numerical simulations and...

Feb
15
2022

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Title: Learning Symbolic Equations with Deep Learning
Shirley Ho
11:00am|Virtual and PU, Peyton Hall Auditorium

We develop a general approach to "interpret" what a network has learned by introducing strong inductive biases. In particular, we focus on Graph Neural Networks.
The technique works as follows: we first encourage sparse latent representations when...

Feb
08
2022

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

The Chiral Universe
Stephon Alexander
11:00am|Virtual and PU, Peyton Hall Auditorium

Among a handful of mysteries in the LambdaCDM paradigm of cosmology, I focus on three: Dark Matter, Baryogenesis and the origin of structure. I then provide a pedagogical introduction to Chiral Gravity and show how these three mysteries may be...