Astrophysics Seminars

The classical perspective of astrophysical discs models them as being flat, circular and coplanar. However, a wealth of observational evidence has highlighted the ubiquity of warped geometries in a variety of contexts. This has motivated theoretical...

This is an exciting time for stellar astrophysics as high-cadence time domain surveys (Gaia, PTF, ZTF, ATLAS, Kepler, TESS, and, in the near future, the Vera Rubin Observatory) are revolutionizing the landscape of stellar studies by allowing the...

The cosmic microwave background is a sensitive probe of early-Universe physics, and yet fundamental constants at recombination can differ from their present day values due to degeneracies in the standard cosmological model. Such scenarios have been...

Fast inward migration of planetary cores embedded in gaseous disks is a common problem in the current planet formation paradigm. Even though dust is ubiquitous in protoplanetary disks, its dynamical role in the migration history of planetary embryos...

Driven by gravity, galaxies continuously grow through accretion of smaller systems. Stellar streams are nice illustrations of this hierarchical build-up, but the accreted stars quickly disperse. I will present advanced dynamical models that can...

Data from ESA’s Gaia mission is already revolutionizing Galactic astronomy, providing an unprecedented view of the Solar neighborhood and beyond. However, while it provides us a great opportunity to transform our understanding of the Milky Way, it...

Weak gravitational lensing imprints a coherent distortion onto the observed shapes of distant galaxies. At the image level, this gravitational shear is degenerate with the intrinsic shape of galaxies, and the weak lensing signal-to-noise from an...

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) provide an exciting opportunity to study supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in quiescent galaxies and the stellar populations and dynamics in galactic nuclei. They test the limits of black hole accretion by regularly...