Astrophysics

Chandra is one of NASA's "great observatories" and was launched in 1999. In this talk, I will review Chandra's history and instruments and show highlights from an absolutely astonishing 25 years of science observations. 

A "30 ft orbiting X-ray...

Modern large-scale surveys have adopted “3x2pt" correlations as one of their key probes for extracting cosmological information. 3x2pt techniques combine gravitational lensing and clustering of (selected) large-scale structure tracers with the goal...

Understanding multiphase gas flows through the circumgalactic medium (CGM), the gas residing beyond a galaxy’s interstellar medium to the outskirts of its halo, is required to gain a complete picture of galaxy growth. Simulations can be used to gain...

Tayler instability of toroidal magnetic fields is broadly invoked as the main trigger for turbulence and angular momentum transport in stellar radiative zones. I will discuss a recent systematic revision of the linear stability analysis and present...

The Bahcall Lunch follows the astrophysics colloquium lecture. Registration is required by 4pm the previous Thursday so a meal can be provided. Email Amanda at cenker@ias.edu with questions.

Since the revolutionary discovery of gravitational wave (GW) emission from a binary black hole merger in 2015, the remarkable GW detectors LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA have detected at least ninety compact object mergers. These events are transforming...

Abstract: The detection of Gravitational Waves (GWs) from binary black hole coalescences offers a powerful tool for exploring the strong-field regime of General Relativity (GR). To ensure the reliability of these tests, it is essential to identify...

The next generation of radio interferometric arrays, such as the SKA and HERA, will provide unprecedented 21 cm signal data, offering a promising probe across cosmic time, especially during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). However, interpreting this...

The Bahcall Lunch follows the astrophysics colloquium lecture. Registration is required by 4pm the previous Thursday so a meal can be provided. Email Amanda at cenker@ias.edu with questions.