Astrophysics Seminars

The Event Horizon Telescope image of the supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87 is dominated by a bright, unresolved ring. General relativity predicts that embedded within this image lies a thin ``photon ring," which is composed of an infinite...

The prime Kepler mission provided high-precision photometric light curves for 10^5 stars continuously over 4 years. While the search for exoplanetary transits in these data was originally focused on signals with periods less than about a year...

In science and engineering many problems can be described as optimization problems. Many of these problems are somewhat vaguely defined and are best solved by clever heuristics. But also, many are very precisely defined and are best solved by...

The dynamics of circumplanetary disks (CPDs), mini disks formed around protoplanets embedded in their natal protoplanetary disks, is expected to regulate how the planets accrete solids and gas, as well as how satellite systems are formed. Previous...

Recent, remarkable images made by the EHT collaboration exhibit a ring of emission, presumably orbiting a six billion solar mass black hole. It is proposed that what is observed is not a gas torus but an extensive “ ergomagnetosphere" that connects...

The discoveries of gravitational waves from binary black hole and binary neutron star coalescences suggest these sources will be observed in large numbers by advanced detectors. Thanks to these observations, individual systems and the underlying...

A microquasar is a black hole X-ray binary with outflowing jets. Conventional theory predicts alignment between three axes of a microquasar system: the black hole spin axis, the jet axis, and the rotational axis of the inner disk regions. However...

Upcoming surveys will map the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization with unprecedented precision. These observations will allow for huge strides forward toward well established scientific targets and will create...

CHIME will use Intensity Mapping of the 21cm line of neutral hydrogen to map large-scale structure between redshifts of 0.8 and 2.5. By measuring Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) we will place constraints on the dark energy equation of state as it...

Multi-messenger astronomy coupling gravitational waves and light was born with the detection of the first neutron star merger, GW170817. This discovery signaled a wealth of firsts in physics and astronomy and represents only the tip of the iceberg...