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Past Colloquia

Revealing Planet Formation through High-Contrast Imaging of Exoplanets and Circumstellar Debris

Cody Hall

Michael Fitzgerald (UCLA)

November 14, 2014
14:00 - 15:00

The past two decades have seen major advances in our understanding of the formation of planetary systems beyond our own.  To date, the techniques that have detected the vast majority of planets around other stars are most sensitive to planets close to their host stars,…

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How to Make Massive Stars

Cody Hall

Qizhou Zhang (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

November 07, 2014
14:00 - 15:00

Massive stars dominate the appearance and the evolution of galaxies. Despite their prominent role in shaping on the dynamics and chemistry of interstellar medium, their birth is still poorly understood. In the Milky Way, most young massive stars are found in parsec-scale molecular clumps with…

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The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) and Its Successor, APOGEE-2

Cody Hall

Steven R. Majewski (University of Virginia)

October 31, 2014
14:00 - 15:00

The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), one of the programs in Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III), has now completed its three year survey of our galaxy.  APOGEE is producing a large catalog of high resolution (R ~ 22,500), high quality (S/N >…

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Using quasars or CMB to pick the basis in Bell Tests

Cody Hall

Jason Gallicchio (KICP, University of Chicago)

October 24, 2014
14:00 - 15:00

I’ll discuss a practical scheme to use photons from causally disconnected cosmic sources to set the detectors in an experimental test of Bell’s inequality. In current experiments, with settings determined by quantum random number generators, only a small amount of correlation between detector settings and…

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CAFTON and PEARL: Using FTIR Spectroscopy to Probe Earth’s Atmosphere

Cody Hall

Kimberly Strong (Physics & School of the Environment, UofT)

October 17, 2014
14:00 - 15:00

Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy provides a powerful tool for probing the terrestrial atmosphere. Solar absorption FTIR spectroscopy can be used to measure atmospheric abundances of tropospheric and stratospheric trace gases, while emission spectroscopy also provides information about clouds and the radiation budget.  In this…

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Particle Astrophysics at the Highest Energies with the Greenland Neutrino Observatory (GNO)

Cody Hall

Abigail Vieregg (University of Chicago)

October 10, 2014
14:00 - 15:00

Ultra-high energy neutrino astronomy sits at the boundary between particle physics and astrophysics.  Through neutrino astrophysics, we can probe the nature of the ultra-high energy universe in a unique way, and test our understanding of particle physics at energies much greater than those achievable at…

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Incredible explosions and LCOGT

Cody Hall

Andy Howell (LCOGT)

October 03, 2014
14:00 - 15:00

In the past few years new classes of supernovae have been discovered that are both brighter and fainter than previously thought possible.  The superluminous supernovae have luminosities 100 times greater than a core-collapse supernova, and their origin is a mystery.  I will present data on…

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Fomalhaut b as a Dust Cloud: Frequent Collisions within the Fomalhaut Debris Disk

Cody Hall

Samantha Lawler (University of Victoria)

September 26, 2014
14:00 - 15:00

Fomalhaut hosts a beautiful debris disk ring and a directly imaged planet candidate, Fomalhaut b, which seems to continually defy expectations.  Originally thought to be a Jovian-mass planet constraining the ring, its unexpected spectral properties and highly eccentric, possibly ring-crossing orbit have completely ruled out…

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What We Can Learn from Planets in Binary Systems

Cody Hall

Kaitlin Kratter (University of Arizona)

September 19, 2014
14:00 - 15:00

Exoplanet surveys have revealed a surprising array of planetary systems hosted by binary stars. The diversity and architecture of these systems provides insight into the fundamentals of planet formation relevant for a wide range of systems. Moreover, these planets provide an important final boundary condition…

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Can We Trust Galaxy Stellar Mass Estimates?

Cody Hall

Dennis Zaritsky (University of Arizona)

September 12, 2014
14:00 - 15:00

Walter Baade, late in his career, was asked if he would choose a career in astrophysics if he had to do it all over again. He replied yes, but only if he could be assured that the ratio of total to selective dust extinction was…

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