Past Colloquia
From voids to clusters: HI imaging surveys of galaxies in different environments
Cody Hall
Jacqueline van Gorkom (Columbia)
November 16, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
Our understanding of the formation and evolution of galaxies and the large scale structure has advanced enormously over the last decade, thanks to an impressive synergy between theoretical and observational efforts. While the growth of the dark matter component seems well understood, the physics of…
Nature vs Nurture: Investigating the role of the environment in the assembly of galaxy stellar mass
Cody Hall
Tracy Webb (McGill)
November 09, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
Astrophysics is making important advancements in our understanding of the origin of structure in the universe – over all scales. Nevertheless, a comprehensive description of galaxy evolution remains elusive due to the complex baryonic physics involved and the inherent challenges of studying high-redshift galaxy populations….
Fueling Cosmic Star Formation: The Molecular Interstellar Medium in High-Redshift Starburst Galaxies
Cody Hall
Dominik A. Riechers (Cornell)
November 02, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
Submillimeter galaxies (SMGs) are thought to represent the link between high-redshift star-forming galaxies and passive early type galaxies, with the huge merger driven bursts consuming up most of the available gas and driving the morphological transition to a spheroid. These hyper-luminous high-z galaxies commonly trace…
Connecting Primordial Physics and Cosmological Observations
Cody Hall
Daniel Green (Stanford)
October 26, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
Inflation provides a compelling explanation of the observed features of the universe on cosmological scales. Yet, given the vast number of models, it may not be clear what precisely these observations tell us about the epoch of inflation. In this colloquium, I will explain how…
Star Formation in Extreme Environments near Supermassive Black Holes and in Massive Star Clusters
Cody Hall
Jessica Lu (U of Hawaii)
October 19, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
The formation of stars is a fundamental astrophysical process; and yet we still debate whether it varies with environment. Milky Way young star clusters range in mass over four orders of magnitude; but, the best-studied star forming regions, such as Taurus and Orion, represent only…
The Early Growth of Galaxies
Cody Hall
David Law (Toronto)
October 12, 2012
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…
Finding Fast
Cody Hall, AB 107
Stefan Osłowski (Swinburne Institute of Technology)
October 11, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
While majority of the enigmatic Fast Radio Bursts have been detected with the single-dish Parkes Observatory radio telescope, new instruments are entering the search.Much progress has been made with interferometric discoveries of FRBs, with the UTMOST project leading the way. On the other hand, the…
Early Science Results from The Pan-STARRS Wide Field Imaging Survey (Karl W. Kamper Memorial Lecture)
Cody Hall
Nick Kaiser (U of Hawaii)
October 05, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
Pan-STARRS is a distributed aperture wide-field optical/NIR imaging system featuring 1.8m diameter telescopes with 1.4 billion pixel detectors. The first telescope PS1 has been fully operational and relentlessly surveying the sky for almost 3 years and is delivering median image quality of 1.1″ FWHM. By…
Exploring 10 Gyr of galaxy evolution using CANDELS
Cody Hall
Eric Bell (U of Michigan)
September 28, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
Models of galaxy formation in a cosmological context correctly predict, at least qualitatively, the existence of disk-dominated and spheroid-dominated galaxies at the present day. The same models, including prescriptions for gas cooling, star formation and stellar feedback incorrectly predict that all galaxies should be forming…
Gas and Star Formation in Nearby Galaxies: New Results From the Herschel Space Observatory
Cody Hall
Christine Wilson (McMaster U)
September 21, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
The availability of new instruments and telescopes is making it possible to study large, well-selected samples of nearby galaxies at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. These observations trace the cold, dense gas and dust which is the fuel for star formation. I will discuss new results…