Astrophysics

Machine learning has found increasing use in astronomy over the last few years. In this talk, instead of discussing machine learning itself, I will discuss how a mathematical tool borrowed from machine learning - auto-differentiation - can be put to...

What governs whether large-scale planetary habitability is sustained through time? Lakes, valley networks, groundwaters, hydrothermal systems, and chemically open-system weathering once existed on Mars. The suite of aqueous environments preserved in...

Soon after the launch of the ESA Solar Orbiter in February 2020 it was suggested that the spacecraft would have flown through the ion and dust tails of comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) just after perihelion, while its nucleus was at 0.25 Astronomical Units...

Abstract: Guided by the principles of effective field theory, I will discuss three consecutive avenues to constrain physics beyond General Relativity with black-hole observations.

1) Shadows: Without specifying any particular gravitational dynamics...

Abstract 1: In recent years, weak lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) has emerged as a powerful tool to probe fundamental physics. The prime target of CMB lensing surveys is the lensing potential, which is reconstructed from observed...

Each week, we hold a relatively informal seminar/discussion series with an emphasis on extra-galactic and large-scale structure astrophysics.

During Galread a leader/visitor presents a recent paper to the discussion group. The PDF of the paper is...

I will present the cosmological weak lensing results from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) using its first three years of data, taken on the 4m Blanco telescope at CTIO. This analysis spans the full DES footprint, more than 4000 sq. deg. of sky, with...

Over last six years, the LIGO-Virgo detections of gravitational waves from compact binary mergers have underlined their promise as an independent and powerful tool to explore the Universe. Nevertheless, the electromagnetic observations of the...