Galaxies mark the nexus between the "micro" scales of individual
stars and black holes, and the "macro" scales of the "cosmic web",
the large scale structure in which galaxies are embedded. Modeling
the physics of galaxy formation is therefore one...
Intrinsic alignments of galaxy shapes with cosmological
large-scale structure include a great deal of information about
galaxy formation and evolution in a cosmological context, while
also serving as a contaminant to weak gravitational lensing...
The physical mechanism behind the acceleration of the universe
remains one of the great mysteries of modern cosmology. Given the
proliferation of dark energy models on the market, an obvious
question is: How can we rule out whole classes of dark...
Infrared observations from Spitzer Space Telescope and Herschel
Space Observatory are used to study the interstellar dust in M31. A
physical dust model is used to map the dust surface density,
dust/gas ratio, starlight heating intensity, and the...
The advent of wide-field synoptic imaging has re-invigorated the
venerable field of time domain astronomy. Our framework of optical
transients no longer has a wide six-magnitude luminosity "gap"
between the brightest novae and faintest supernovae...
A classic problem posed by long gamma ray bursts (GRB) is that
the energy output requires gravitational energy release so deep
within the host star that the prompt gamma rays should, upon naive
consideration, have been obscured. It is suggested that...
In recent decades, physicists and astronomers have discovered two
beautiful Standard Models, one for the quantum world of extremely
short distances, and one for the universe as a whole. Both models
have had spectacular success, but there are also...
On March 21, 2013, the most detailed map of the infant universe
to date was publicly released, showing relic radiation from the Big
Bang, imprinted when the universe was just 380,000 years old. This
was the first release of cosmological data from...
Galaxies are the visible building blocks of the Universe,
astrophysical laboratories that have profoundly informed our
knowledge of cosmology and nature. Black holes—once a bizarre
mathematical consequence of Einstein’s relativity theory—are
now...
