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Past Colloquia

Toward a Holistic View of Star Formation

Cody Hall

Rob Gutermuth (UMASS Amherst)

February 12, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

Abstract: Our general picture of the process of forming stars from molecular clouds has held together quite well for the past few decades, but a detailed, predictive theory of star formation remains frustratingly out of reach. What determines the clustering of newborn stars? What sets…

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An Astronomical Time Machine: Light Echoes from Historic Supernovae and Eruptions

Cody Hall

Armin Rest (Space Telescope Science Institute)

February 05, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

Tycho Brahe’s observations of a supernova (SN) in 1572 challenged the teachings of Aristotle that the celestial realm was unchanging. We have discovered a way to see the same light that Tycho saw 440 years ago by observing SN light that only now reaches Earth…

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Stellar Magnetic Fields and Stellar Evolution

Cody Hall

Gregg Wade (RMC/Queens University)

January 29, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

All stars are natural magnets, thanks to the dynamic, electrically conductive gases that compose them. And because the magnetic fields of stars can be very strong, they represent a basic physical ingredient in the theory of stellar structure and evolution. In recently years it has…

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Satellite galaxies and the baryon cycle

Cody Hall

Michael Balogh, University of Waterloo

January 22, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

Abstract: Late-time galaxy evolution is driven by a variety of non-linear processes such as radiative cooling, supernova feedback and AGN accretion, which together act to largely decouple baryonic structure growth from that of the dark matter.  It remains a formidable challenge to untangle these processes…

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Probing Gravity: Galaxies, CMB Lensing, and Intensity Mapping

Cody Hall

Anthony Pullen (Carnegie Mellon)

January 15, 2016
14:00 - 15:00

We discuss recent work exploring the use of large-scale structure to probe gravity.  We first consider using CMB lensing and galaxy surveys to probe E_G, the ratio between curvature and velocity perturbations. This quantity is independent of galaxy clustering bias and is distinct for various…

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Sean McGee (Birmingham)

Cody Hall

Sean McGee (University of Birmingham)

December 18, 2015
14:00 - 15:00

details to follow

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Probing the Dark Halo of the Milky Way

Cody Hall

Nitya Kallivayalil (University of Virginia): Kamper Lecture

December 11, 2015
14:00 - 15:00

The Local Group, the regime in which detailed star-by-star studies can be done, is becoming a major testbed for the concordance Lambda (Dark Energy) + Cold Dark Matter model of our Universe. The dwarf galaxies of the Local Group, in particular, pose a variety of…

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The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

Cody Hall

Steven M. Kahn (Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

December 04, 2015
14:00 - 15:00

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is a large aperture, wide-field, ground-based telescope designed to provide a deep multicolor imaging survey of the entire southern hemisphere of sky every few nights.  As such, it will enable a wide variety of scientific investigations, all using a…

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Imaging the Invisible with the Little Canadian Radio Telescope that Could

Cody Hall

Jo-Anne Brown (University of Calgary)

November 27, 2015
14:00 - 15:00

Magnetic fields are an important constituent in the interstellar medium, but unlike gas, dust, and cosmic rays, they do not radiate, and consequently cannot be observed directly.  Instead, observers identify signatures of the field in an effort to piece together its topology.  Determining the structure of…

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Constraining the Physics of Satellite Quenching

Cody Hall

Mike Cooper (University of Californina Irvine)

November 20, 2015
14:00 - 15:00

Despite remarkable success at modeling the evolution of massive galaxies over cosmic time, modern hydrodynamic and semi-analytic models of galaxy formation fail to reproduce the properties of low-mass galaxies. This shortcoming in our theoretical picture is  largely driven by an inability to understand the physics…

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