Past Colloquia
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…
Exploring the Dark Side of the Universe
Cody Hall
Chris Fassnacht (UC Davis)
September 14, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
In this talk I will show how the powerful combination of gravitational lensing and sensitive, high-resolution imaging can provide direct observational tests of galaxy formation scenarios under the cold dark matter paradigm as well as interesting constraints on cosmology. In particular, I will discuss the…
Beyond Bulge-Disk Decomposition: The True Nature of S0 Galaxies
Cody Hall
Michael Merrifield (University of Nottingham)
September 14, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
Perhaps the most basic defining feature of a galaxy is that its starlight is typically divided between disk and spheroidal components. From the earliest studies, the way the light was split between these components formed a key element of the way in which galaxies were…
Magnetized Atmospheres of Hot Exoplanets
Cody Hall
Kristen Menou (Columbia U)
September 04, 2012
15:00 - 16:00
Comparative planetology now encompasses a large set of extrasolar planets. Direct observational constraints on the atmospheres of several very hot exoplanets have become available. I will report on various efforts to interpret these observations in terms of atmospheric responses to unusual forcing conditions. In particular,…
The first steps of planet formation across the stellar mass range
Cody Hall
Gijs Mulders (University of Amsterdam)
June 18, 2012
14:00 - 15:00
Protoplanetary disks are thought to be the main sites of planet formation, and to understand how planets form we need to understand the physical processes in these disks. One of these physical processes is turbulent mixing, which is the main driver of disk accretion. It…