Joint IAS Princeton University Astrophysics Colloquium

Oct
21
2025

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

What happens when you put sky surveys in the microwave
Gilbert Holder
11:00am|Bloomberg Lecture Hall

Surveys of the mm-wave sky are great resources for astrophysics and cosmology. Sources that have been studied include solar system objects, flaring stars, accreting black holes, dusty star forming galaxies, and galaxy clusters, while cosmological...

Oct
07
2025

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Fundamental Cosmology from Galaxy Surveys at Low and High Redshif
Mikhail Ivanov
11:00am|Wolfensohn Hall

I will present a program of extracting cosmological information by combining effective field theory (EFT) techniques with data from spectroscopic galaxy surveys. I will highlight previous successes of this program and share recent results, including...

Sep
30
2025

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

On the razor's edge: Instabilities of black holes and other ultracompact objects
William East
11:00am|Wolfensohn Hall

Recent breakthroughs in gravitational wave and electromagnetic observations have given better and better insights into black holes and extreme gravity. While one usually thinks of black holes as the unyielding final state of gravitational collapse...

Sep
23
2025

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Results from the first part of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA's fourth observing run
Salvatore Vitale
11:00am|Wolfensohn Hall

LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA have recently announced the discovery of over 200 new compact binary mergers in low latency during their fourth observing run (O4), a majority of which are stellar-mass binary black hole mergers. The first segment of this run...

Sep
09
2025

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Discovering, Weighing, and Characterizing Giant Exoplanets and Brown Dwarfs
Tim Brandt
11:00am|Wolfensohn Hall

I will present a combination of three observational techniques—astrometry, radial velocity, and direct imaging—to discover, weigh, and characterize massive exoplanets and brown dwarfs.  Only a few exoplanets have both measured masses (from radial...

Apr
29
2025

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

The Dragonfly Project: From Diffuse Galaxies to the Cosmic Web
Pieter van Dokkum
11:00am|Peyton Hall, Auditorium, Princeton University

The Dragonfly project is developing a new class of telescopes optimized for low surface brightness astronomy. Originally designed to test the ΛCDM prediction that galaxies are embedded in extended tidal debris fields, Dragonfly combines the light...

Apr
22
2025

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Unveiling Hot Gas Kinematics in Galaxy Clusters with XRISM: Stormy Weather, Multiple Cascades, and Calm Outskirts
Irina Zhuravleva
11:00am|Peyton Hall, Auditorium, Princeton University

The recent launch of the XRISM observatory has opened a new era in high-energy astrophysics, providing high-resolution X-ray spectra of various X-ray sources, including the long-awaited spectra of extended X-ray sources like clusters of galaxies...

Apr
15
2025

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Decoding the cosmos
Hiranya Peiris
11:00am|Peyton Hall, Auditorium, Princeton University

Cosmology is undergoing a data revolution. Surveys such as the imminent Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) to be conducted by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will deliver huge galaxy catalogues that provide critical tools for understanding the...

Apr
08
2025

Institute for Advanced Study / Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

New frontiers in transient astrophysics: gravitational-wave multi-messenger sources and r-process nucleosynthesis
Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz
11:00am|Peyton Hall, Auditorium, Princeton University

The detection of GW170817 enabled us to track down and watch the cataclysm event in multiple wavelengths of light, allowing us to scrutinize the source of these cosmic ripples for the first time. This discovery provided the first solid evidence that...