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//January[0]=["15","","","","","",""];

//January[1]=["22","","","","","",""];

January[0]=["29","David Stevenson","Caltech","Making Moons (and why Venus has None)","This talk will be in two parts. The first will be a general summary of why, when and how planets might be expected to have companions (one or more moons or even a large binary companion). The second part will focus on giant impacts as a natural moon-forming process, the way it may explain our Moon as a late event in planet accretion and the way in which a similar but earlier process for Venus might have led to that planet losing its moon and ending up with slow rotation.","",""];

February[0]=["5","Piero Madau","UCSC","Cosmological Zoom-In Simulations: Connecting the Dark and Light Side of Galaxy Formation","","",""];

February[1]=["12","Jason X. Prochaska","UCO/Lick Observatory/UCSC","Quasars Probing Quasars","I will discuss the Quasars Probing Quasars survey which is a spectroscopic campaign of close, z>2 quasar pairs discovered in SDSS, BOSS, and dedicated follow-up programs. Emphasis of this talk will be on using these pairs to study the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of the massive z~2 galaxies 'tagged' by an active quasar.   The results constrain the processes of inflow and outflow onto these massive galaxies, formation scenarios for the intragroup medium, and models for the radiative emission (and feedback effects) of bright AGN.","",""];

February[2]=["19","Robert Kirshner","CfA","SN Ia: even better standard candles in the infrared","","",""];

February[3]=["26","Puragra Guhathakurta","UCO/Lick Observatory/UCSC","The Andromeda Galaxy and its Satellites: A Close-up View of Galaxy Formation","","",""];

March[0]=["5","Boaz Katz","IAS","Type Ia Supernovae are head-on collisions of white dwarfs in triple systems","","Speaker changed",""];

March[1]=["12","Todd Tripp","U Mass","Cold Accretion, Hot Feedback, and the Bimodal Metallicity Distribution in the Circumgalactic Media of Galaxies at z < 1","Theoretical studies have raised a number of important questions about the roles of gas inflows (accretion) and outflows (feedback) in galaxy evolution.  Unfortunately, galactic gas flows are likely to have low densities and hence are difficult to observe with most techniques. However, QSO absorption lines provide sensitive observational probes of galactic flows, and the recent deployment of the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on HST has greatly expanded this capability by opening access to QSO absorbers in the low-z Universe (where the absorber-galaxy connections can really be studied in detail).  This talk will present results from several large HST+COS programs to study galactic flows and missing baryons, including (1) statistical comparisons of the gaseous halos of star-forming galaxies vs. early-type (red and dead) galaxies (2) unambiguous evidence of massive (and escaping) galactic winds from poststarburst galaxies, (3) observations of cool and pristine (low-metallicity) gas in the halos of high-metallicity star-forming galaxies, and (4) first results on the physical conditions of circumgalactic gases.","",""];

March[2]=["19","James Lloyd","Cornell","Super-Earth or Super-Venus?","The rapid growth in discovery of transiting planets has resulted not only in an abundance of known extrasolar planets, but planets for which interior composition may be inferred by density and atmospheric composition inferred by absorption spectroscopy.  Transit searches that focus on the smallest main sequence stars, M dwarf stars, can discover the smallest planets, such as the planet GJ 1214b that has been inferred to be a water-world based on evidence for low density and lack of a Hydrogen/Helium atmosphere.  Low mass stars, however, experience an extended pre-main sequence phase of increased luminosity powered by gravitational contraction and characterized by  activity with substantial X-ray emission.  The X-ray heating of the atmosphere of GJ 1214b during the first 0.5 Gyr of its history should have depleted it of a large fraction of its primordial Hydrogen, ruling out scenarios for a low density, Hydrogen or water rich composition.   De-hydrogenation of ice-rich planet with near-solar relative composition of elements heavier than Helium would leave behind a rocky core surrounded by an envelope of nearly pure carbon dioxide.   The low density and low atmospheric scale height of GJ 1214b can both be explained with a rocky core surrounded by a thick carbon dioxide envelope.  This process can in principle also create a carbon dioxide ocean, which due to the abundance of M dwarf stars may be the most common liquid in the Universe.","",""];

March[3]=["26","Matthias Steinmetz","AIP","The Wobbly Galaxy: kinematics north and south with RAVE","The RAVE survey is the largest systematic spectroscopic survey of the Milky Way performed to date. As of March 2013, almost 600 000 spectra for nearly 500 000 stars have been taken. At a resolution of R=7500 in the CA triplet region, RAVE spectra allow to measure radial velocities, stellar parameters, abundances of several chemical elements, and, combined with photometric information, fairly precise distances. Combined with proper motions, the RAVE survey can be used to study in detail stellar kinematics in the extended solar neighbourhood (solar suburb). We examine the mean velocity components in 3D between an R of 6 and 10 kpc and a Z of -2 to 2 kpc, concentrating on North-South differences. We confirm the recently discovered gradient in mean Galactocentric radial velocity, VR, finding that the gradient is more marked below the plane, with a Z gradient also present. The vertical velocity, VZ, also shows clear structure, with indications of a rarefaction-compression pattern, suggestive of wave-like behaviour.  The complex three-dimensional structure of velocity space presents challenges for future modelling of the Galactic disk, with the Galactic bar, spiral arms and excitation of wave-like structures all probably playing a role.","",""];

April[0]=["2","Priyamvada Natarajan","Yale","The crisis in fueling the brightest quasars at all epochs","","",""];

April[1]=["9","Chris McKee","Berkeley","The Role of Magnetic Fields in Star Formation","Magnetic forces in the diffuse interstellar medium are much greater than the forces due to self-gravitation, thereby precluding star formation there. Historically, it has been conjectured that ambipolar diffusion, in which neutral molecules contract relative to the magnetized ions, is essential for allowing gravitational forces to exceed magnetic forces in star-forming clouds. However, observations of magnetic field strengths in molecular cloud cores have failed to find evidence of cores that are magnetically dominated. I shall report on ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of a region in a turbulent molecular cloud and compare them directly with Zeeman observations of the line-of-sight magnetic field in molecular clouds. The simulations provide the total field strength and show how tangling of the field lines reduces the field measured by the Zeeman effect. Magnetic fields are so effective at extracting angular momentum from the gas accreting onto a protostar that many simulations have found that protostellar (and therefore protoplanetary) disks cannot form in the presence of observed interstellar magnetic fields. In a high-resolution simulation of the formation of a massive star in a turbulent, magnetized medium, we find that rotating protostellar disks can indeed form in the presence of magnetic fields. I conclude that ideal MHD in the presence of turbulence is not ideal.","",""];

April[2]=["16","Simon White","MPA","Planck results on the baryon content of dark matter halos","Stacking of data from the Planck satellite allows the mean Sunyaev-Zeldovich decrement of dark matter halos to be measured over a range of more than two orders of magnitude in mass. Surprisingly, the results indicate that the amount of baryons present is close to the mean cosmic baryon fraction down to scales only slightly above that of our own Milky Way's halo. This corresponds to about a quarter of all the baryons in the low redshift universe.","",""];

April[3]=["23","Eric Ford","U Florida","Eccentricities & Inclinations in Kepler's Planetary Systems","","",""];

April[4]=["30","Victoria Kaspi","McGill","The Hunt for Millisecond Pulsars","","",""];

May[0]=["7","Dimitar Sasselov","CfA","Exoplanet Theory in a Decade of Transits","Abstract: Recent lessons learned from exploring bulk compositions and atmospheres of solid planets and the prospects to connect them to experiments in alternative biochemistries.","",""];

May[1]=["14","No speaker","","","","Moved to Thursday",""];

May[2]=["21","Isaac Held","NOAA/Princeton Geosciences","A hierarchy of models for studying atmospheric dynamics and climate change","A hierarchy of atmospheric models of increasing complexity is essential to attempts at understanding the Earth's climate and future climate change.  Some examples of elements of this hierarchy and examples of their use will be provided, including 1) a dry ideal gas on a rotating sphere, helpful in analyzing analyzing the poleward shift of the basic climatic zones with climate change, 2) a dry model with a passive water-like variable, useful for thinking about controls on the distribution of relative humidity and the strength of water vapor feedback, and 3) an otherwise comprehensive model but with a homogeneous saturated surface, used in studies of the factors that control the frequency and distribution of tropical cyclones.","",""];



September[0]=["17","Fred K.Y. Lo","NRAO","Mega-maser Cosmology Project","Accurate measurements of H0 - the current expansion rate of the Universe, provide critical independent constraints on dark energy, spatial curvature of the Universe, neutrino physics, and validity of general relativity. The recent Planck results highlight the necessity of an independent determination of H0 at high accuracy. The Mega-maser Cosmology Project (MCP) aims to determine the Hubble Constant at high accuracy by measuring the angular-diameter distance to galaxies in the Hubble Flow. The MCP has been observing ~10 mega-maser disks in Sy2 galaxies suitable for such distance determination. A geometric distance measurement to NGC 6264, a galaxy at 140 Mpc, via micro-arc-second astrometry of its circum-nuclear mega-maser disk, has been demonstrated. The current status of the MCP measurements of H0, and future prospects, will be described. The MCP also provides accurate determination of the central black-hole mass in mega-maser galaxies. The large intrinsic scatter of BH masses in a narrow range of the velocity dispersion of the mega-maser galaxy bulges adds to the observational richness of the well-known M-sigma relation of BH mass and the spherical component of galaxies. The relationship of the thin Keplerian accretion disks delineated by the mega-masers with the obscuring material of the AGN will be briefly discussed. An update on ALMA will also be given.","",""];

September[1]=["24","Edo Berger","Harvard","The Progenitors of Short Gamma-ray Bursts and the Electromagnetic Counterparts of Gravitational Wave Sources","","",""];

October[0]=["1","Joseph Silk","Johns Hopkins/Oxford","Unleashing Feedback: Galaxies and AGN","","",""];
October[1]=["8","Paul Schechter","MIT","Aberrations produced by telescopes and by galaxies","Astronomers have given two independent sets of names to a single set of phenomena -- the aberrations of images by telescopes and by non-uniform mass distributions.  One such phenomenon is called astigmatism when it arises in telescopes and shear when it is caused by a galaxy or a cluster of galaxies.  Likewise coma is the same phenomenon as gravitational 1-flexion.  Not surprisingly, measurements of different gravitational lensing phenomena are vulnerable to different telescope aberrations.  The origin of telescope aberrations and the patterns that they exhibit across a wide field will be briefly described.  A case will be made for the use of 1-flexion and 3-flexion in studying the shapes of dark matter halos.","",""];
October[2]=["15","Rosemary Wyse","Johns Hopkins","Insights into the Galaxy from the RAVE Survey","","",""];
October[3]=["22","Glenn Starkman","CWRU","How the CMB Challenges Standard Cosmology","The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is our most important source of information about the early universe. Many of its features are in good agreement with the predictions of the so-called standard model of cosmology -- the Lambda Cold Dark Matter Inflationary Big Bang. However, the large-angle fluctuations of the microwave background exhibit several statistically significant anomalies compared to the predictions of the standard model. On the one hand, if we look at the whole sky the lowest multipoles seem to be correlated both with each other and with the geometry of the solar system. On the other hand, when we look just at the part of the sky that we most trust . the part outside the galactic plane - there is a dramatic lack of large angle correlations. So much so that no choice of theoretical powerspectrum can explain it if the alms are, as inflation predicts, Gaussian random statistically isotropic variables of zero mean.","",""];
October[4]=["29","Steven Kahn","Stanford","LSST Project Office and SLAC/Stanford","The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is a large-aperture, wide-field, ground-based telescope designed to take deep images of the entire southern sky in six optical colors every few nights.  The resulting database can be used to address a wide variety of outstanding questions in astronomy and fundamental cosmology.  On the basis of its broad scientific reach and advanced state of technical readiness, LSST was ranked as the highest priority new large ground-based facility in the most recent decadal survey in astronomy and astrophysics.  The project is now slated to move into construction in 2014.  I will provide an update on the technical status of LSST, and then concentrate on the use of this facility to constrain the properties of dark energy.","",""];

November[0]=["5","Janna Levin","Columbia","Black Hole Battery","Although intrinsically dark, a black hole can potentially act as a battery in an electromagnetic circuit with a neutron star . a battery that can potential power great luminosities.","",""];
November[1]=["12","Adam Riess","Johns Hopkins/STScI","The Hubble Constant and Dark Energy from Cepheids, Supernovae and Parallax","","",""];
November[2]=["19","Christian Ott","Caltech","New Aspects of Core-Collapse Supernova Theory","","",""];
November[3]=["26","Alexey Vikhlinin","CfA","Science Horizons & Technology Challenges in X-ray Astronomy Beyond Chandra","A successor to Chandra X-ray observatory will need to at least maintain its excellent angular resolution while massively expanding the throughput. I will discuss a concept and enabling technologies for such a mission, SMART-X, which would feature large-area, 0.5 arcsec resolution grazing incidence adjustable X-ray mirrors; high-throughput critical transmission gratings, an X-ray micro calorimeter; and CMOS-based imager in the focal plane. Science application include observations of growth of supermassive black holes since redshifts of ~10, ultra-deep surveys overs 10's of square degrees, galaxy assembly at z=2-3, as well as new opportunities in the high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy and time domain.","",""];

December[0]=["3","Gregory Gabadadze","NYU","Massive Gravity and Cosmology","","",""];
December[1]=["10","Todd Thompson","OSU","Feedback Processes in Rapidly Star-Forming Galaxies","","",""];