Astrophysics Seminars

Jan
29
2013

Institute for Advanced Study Astrophysics Seminar

Making Moons (and Why Venus has None)
David Stevenson
11:00am|Bloomberg Hall Astrophysics Library
ABSTRACT: This talk will be in two parts. The first will be a general summary of why, when and how planets might be expected to have companions (one or more moons or even a large binary companion). The second part will focus on giant impacts as a...
Dec
11
2012

Institute for Advanced Study Astrophysics Seminar

The Effects and Importance of Galaxy Merging in a Cosmological Context
Eric Bell
11:00am|Bloomberg Hall Astrophysics Library
Mergers between dark matter halos, and the galaxies in them, are a central feature of Lambda CDM. In this talk, I explore the role of galaxy merging in setting the properties of galaxies, in particular the properties of non-star forming (quiescent)...
Dec
04
2012

Institute for Advanced Study Astrophysics Seminar

Cusps, Cores and Baryons: Or How Cold Dark Matter Is the Worst Model of Galaxy Formation, Except for All the Others
Fabio Governato
11:00am|Bloomberg Hall Astrophysics Library
I will show results from cosmological simulations of galaxy formation where repeated gas outflows remove low angular momentum gas and transfer energy to the DM. This process solves three long lasting problems in galaxy formation: the...
Nov
29
2012

Institute for Advanced Study Informal Astrophysics Seminar

Examining the Interior Structure of Transiting Planets: From Exo-Jupiters to Kepler's Super-Earths
Jonathan Fortney
11:00am|Bloomberg Hall, Astrophysics Library
ABSTRACT: We have now reached the point in studying transiting planets that we can begin to examine the Jupiter-class planets as a class of astrophysical objects. At the same time, thanks to Kepler, the number of transiting planets below 10 Earth...
Nov
27
2012

Institute for Advanced Study Astrophysics Seminar

Platonic Orbits, Streaming Lattices, Time-Delay Interferometers, and Low Frequency Gravitational Wave Telescopes
Latham Boyle
11:00am|Bloomberg Hall Astrophysics Library
I will present several interesting problems that arise when thinking about how to design gravitational wave telescopes. In describing the solutions to these problems, I will try to convey why I think some of them may be of interest well beyond the...
Nov
16
2012

Institute for Advanced Study Informal Astrophysics Seminar - NOTE DAY

The Explosion Mechanism of Core-Collapse Supernovae and its Observational Signatures
Ondrej Pejcha
11:00am|Bloomberg Hall, Astrophysics Library
Many massive stars explode as core-collapse supernovae. Supernova simulations show that the shock wave accompanying formation of the proto-neutron star evolves into a quasi-static accretion shock and it proves difficult to revive its outward...