Astrophysics

TBA

Intrigued by the recent Thirty Meter Telescope protests on Mauna Kea in Hawai‘i, I launched on a historical study of how astronomy came to the mountain, based on the observatories’ own archives, most of which had never been studied. These documents...

The Milky Way contains of order 10^8 stellar-mass black holes (BHs). Yet, fewer than 100 BH candidates are known, and only about 20 are dynamically confirmed. Our view of the BH population has been shaped almost entirely by observations of X-ray...

Abstract: Understanding how to characterize quantum chaotic dynamics is a longstanding question.

In this colloquium, I will discuss recent developments that identify Free Probability --  a generalization of probability theory to non-commuting objects...

There have been remote observations of the solar atmosphere for centuries, and in situ measurements of the heliosphere for almost 60 years. Computer simulation capabilities have vastly improved, and simulation techniques of the coupling between the...

The Bahcall Lunch follows the astrophysics colloquium lecture. 

The gas-star formation-feedback "matter cycle" acts in many ways as the engine of galaxy evolution. Over the last decade, the PHANGS surveys have carried out surveys across the electromagnetic spectrum aimed at resolving galaxies into the...

Tidal effects serve as a useful tool to study compact objects. In this talk, I will present how the worldline effective field theory (EFT) can be applied to examine the tidal responses of compact objects. This approach offers a robust framework for...