Joint IAS Princeton University Astrophysics Colloquium

Apr
23
2024

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

A Golden Age of Asteroseismology with Kepler and TESS
Tim Bedding
11:00am|Peyton Hall Auditorium

Asteroseismology uses the natural oscillation modes of stars to study their interiors. The wonderfully precise measurements by NASA's Kepler and TESS missions are ideal data sources for the technique. These space telescopes have been monitoring the...

Apr
16
2024

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Radiatively-cooled Magnetic Reconnection Experiments
Jack Hare
11:00am|Peyton Hall Auditorium

Abstract: In extreme astrophysical systems, such as black hole coronae and pulsar magnetospheres, the process of magnetic reconnection is significantly modified by strong radiative cooling. This cooling removes internal energy faster than it is...

Apr
09
2024

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

The Cost of Brightening Night Skies on Ground-Based Astronomy
Aparna Venkatesan
11:00am|Peyton Hall Auditorium

Dramatic rises in ground-based light pollution in recent years as well as increasingly congested low-Earth orbits are leading to brightening night skies worldwide, with consequences reaching far beyond this decade. I share calculations of the...

Apr
02
2024

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

How well can we estimate stellar ages?
Jamie Tayar
11:00am|Peyton Hall Auditorium

Good estimations of stellar ages are important for a wide range of science cases, from understanding the evolution and habitability of exoplanetary systems to tracking back the cosmic history of our own and other galaxies. These ages, however, are...

Mar
26
2024

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Early r-process enrichment in globular clusters
Evan Kirby
11:00am|Peyton Hall Auditorium

Stars in nearly all globular clusters show complex relations among the abundances of light elements (up to Na).  Many also show anti-correlations of Mg and Al.  Until now, only one cluster (M15) conclusively showed any star-to-star variation in...

Mar
19
2024

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

A "Cloud-Scale" View of the Matter Cycle in Galaxies
Adam Leroy
11:00am|Peyton Hall Auditorium

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...

Mar
05
2024

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Planet Nine from Outer Space
Matt Brown
11:00am|Peyton Hall Auditorium

Astronomers have been predicting and searching for planets beyond Neptune for almost 180 years. In all previous cases the predictions were based on bad data, bad physics, or both, and the predictions turned out to be wrong. In 2016, we joined this ...

Feb
27
2024

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Towards EeV neutrino astronomy with GRAND
Kumiko Kotera
11:00am|Peyton Hall Auditorium

We are living exciting times: we are now able to probe the most violent events of the Universe with diverse messengers (cosmic rays, neutrinos, photons and gravitational waves). One challenge to complete the multi-messenger picture resides in the...

Feb
20
2024

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Finding Relativistic Stellar Explosions as Fast Optical Transients.
Anna Ho
11:00am|Peyton Hall Auditorium

For the last half-century, relativistic outflows accompanying the final collapse of massive stars have predominantly been detected via high-energy emission, as long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Yet, it has long been hypothesized that GRBs are...

Feb
13
2024

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Measurements of the Expansion Rate of the Universe and the Lingering Hubble Tension
Dan Scolnic
11:00am|Peyton Hall Auditorium

The standard model of cosmology has passed every test over the last twenty years. Yet it remains unsatisfactory, with 95% of the universe being dark components, whose nature we did not understand. Now, there are possible ‘cracks’ in the model, as...