Astrophysics

In recent years, two entirely new classes of planetesimals have been discovered in the solar system: interstellar interlopers and dark comets.  These still-enigmatic objects are challenging our understanding of the behavior and properties of comets...

The CMS and ATLAS experiments at the CERN LHC have the unique potential to (possibly) directly produce dark matter in proton-proton collisions and study its properties. Many searches for dark matter have been carried out, mostly focused on Mono-X...

The Bahcall Lunch follow the astrophysics colloquium lecture. Registration is required by 6pm the previous Thursday so a meal can be provided. Email Amanda at cenker@ias.edu with questions.

Note: Change of location to Rubenstein Room 5

The births and mergers of neutron stars and black holes, the most exotic objects in the universe, can launch the fastest cosmic jets (gamma-ray bursts; GRBs) and shake the very fabric of space-time with gravitational waves. GW170817, the merger of...

While upcoming cosmological surveys promise to map the universe with unprecedented precision, the challenge remains on how to optimally extract information from this wealth of data. We introduce Neural Quantile Estimation (NQE), a novel Simulation...

Gravitational wave observations of strongly gravitating systems allow us not only to probe black holes and neutron stars, but also have the potential to uncover new fundamental physics. Boson stars, a particular representative of a larger class of...

Simulation-based inference (SBI) is a promising approach to leverage cosmological simulations and extract information from the non-Gaussian, non-linear scales that cannot be modeled analytically. However, scaling SBI to the volumes and resolutions...

Abstract: In four-dimensional asymptotically flat spacetimes, the infinite tower of soft graviton modes is known to generate a w(1+infinity) symmetry algebra at tree-level.  In this talk, I will review this symmetry and demonstrate that it acts non...