Past Colloquia
Looking through the Epoch of Reionization window with the Murchison Widefield Array
Cody Hall
Miguel Morales (Washington)
February 21, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
Measurement of the spatial distribution of neutral hydrogen via the redshifted 21 cm line promises to transform our knowledge of the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). In my talk I will give an accessible introduction to this new field, discuss how we plan to observe the…
Dwarf Galaxies: The Nexus of Dark Matter and Chemical Evolution
Cody Hall
Evan Kirby (UC Irvine)
February 18, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
The Local Group’s dwarf galaxies are near enough for exquisitely detailed, resolved stellar spectroscopy and diverse enough to conduct experiments on dark matter and chemical evolution. I have collected medium-resolution spectra for thousands of stars in many dwarf galaxies in the Local Group. Innovative techniques…
How to Build a Big Galaxy
Cody Hall
Adam Muzzin (Leiden)
February 12, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
The most massive galaxies in the universe are rare, but because of this, their formation history imposes some of the strongest constraints on our models of galaxy formation. In the local universe, massive galaxies like M87 appear relatively dull, with elliptical morphologies, old stars, and…
The E-Nova Project: A Multi-Wavelength Initiative to Probe Mass Ejection in Novae
Cody Hall
Laura Chomiuk (Michigan State U)
February 07, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
When imagining a nuclear explosion, we often picture strong, spherical shock waves, like a bomb or supernova; however, nature’s most common thermonuclear explosions look nothing like this, showing delayed and multiple phases of mass ejection that can last for months after the nuclear fuel is ignited. These…
The chemo-dynamical structure of the Milky Way
Cody Hall
Jo Bovy (IAS)
February 03, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
Observations of the structure and dynamics of different stellar populations in the Milky Way’s disk provide a unique perspective on disk formation, evolution, and dynamics. I will review our current knowledge of the chemo-orbital structure of the disk and its implications for our understanding of…
Baryonic physics in galaxy evolution as seen by the CALIFA survey
Cody Hall
Jakob Walcher (Potsdam)
January 31, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
Ironically, while the predictions on the dark side of the cosmological “concordance” model LambdaCDM are well understood theoretically, many open questions in cosmology and galaxy evolution revolve around the difficult physics of the luminous, baryonic matter. The Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area Survey (CALIFA)…
Terrestrial Aftermath of Moon-forming Impact to Plate tectonics and habitability
Reichman Family Lecture Hall (ES1050)
Norman Sleep (Stanford)
January 24, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
Earth’s mantle was mostly molten after the Moon-forming impact. We assume that Earth had total CO2 and water inventories comparable to the modern ones. These volatiles entered the atmosphere, which soon became opaque and radiated at the runaway greenhouse threshold. The Moon caused strong Earth…
Assessing the Role of Stellar Feedback from Small to Large Scales
Cody Hall
Laura Lopez (MIT)
January 22, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
Stellar feedback has a profound influence in many astrophysical phenomena, yet it is often cited as one of the biggest uncertainties in galaxy formation models today. This uncertainty stems from a dearth of observational constraints as well as the great dynamic range between the small…
Galaxy Kinematics through Integral Field Spectroscopy
Cody Hall
David Law (Dunlap Institute)
January 15, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
In the young universe, galaxies were blobby conglomerations of stars whose irregular structures were products of their dynamically violent environments. Over time, star formation in these systems declined as the gas fraction dropped, and galaxies evolved into the spiral and elliptical structures with which we…
Radio Polarimetry and the Magnetic Universe
Cody Hall
Bryan Gaensler (CAASTRO / The University of Sydney)
January 10, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
A remarkable discovery made by 20th century astronomers was that the Universe is threaded with magnetic fields. Furthermore, these magnetic fields typically do not have a random, tangled, morphology, but are surprisingly organised and coherent. However, the processes that create and then sustain this large-scale…