Astrophysics Seminars

One of the best laboratories to study strong-field gravity is the inner 100s of kilometers around black holes and neutron stars in binary systems with low-mass stars like our Sun. The X-ray light curves of these systems show variability on...

Recent advances in large-scale structure (LSS) theory have opened up new avenues for probing fundamental physics with the cosmic web. Future galaxy surveys will soon map the Universe with unprecedented sub-percent precision. I will present tools...

In the Solar system, the planets follow orbits that are nearly aligned with the Sun's equatorial plane. What about planets around other stars? Many techniques are available to measure the obliquities of planet-hosting stars, ranging from an effect...

A better understanding of the complex galaxy formation, in particular the co-evolution of galaxies and dark matter halos, will directly enable us to translate astrophysical observations into solid constraints on the physical properties of dark...

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are short duration (~ms), very bright, radio transients. Their detection in 2007 was a major unexpected discovery in astronomy in decades. Hunting for FRBs and measuring their physical properties have become one of the...

Powerful extragalactic radio sources hosted in galaxies come in all shapes, sizes, powers, and presumably ages.  What might a young or nascent powerful radio source look like?  The class of compact powerful extragalactic radio sources are defined to...

Rapid neutron capture (r-process) nucleosynthesis is responsible for the production of roughly half of the elements in the Periodic Table more massive than Iron. The unusual conditions needed for a successful r-process, in particular the requisite...

Ultralight axions have gained great relevance in modern cosmology, becoming a promising candidate to describe the dark matter of the Universe. Axion models in which the scalar field potential includes only the quadratic term, usually referred as the...

Supported by new observational capabilities, some of our basic concepts in Milky Way research have changed over the last several years. Our growing appreciation of the central bar of the Milky Way, the radial migration of stars, the Galactic thick...

Black holes are never isolated in realistic astrophysical environments; instead, they are often perturbed by complicated external tidal fields. How does a black hole respond to these tidal perturbations? In this talk, I will discuss both the...