IAS/PU Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Supernovae, tidal disruption events and merging neutron stars can provide a wealth of physical insights from nuclear physics to cosmology; they can teach us about the creation of the elements, the formation of compact objects, accretion processes...

Over a five-year period, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) will spectroscopically classify nearly 40 million galaxies and quasars over 1/3 of the sky and to redshifts z 3.5. The DESI collaboration has completed measurements of the...

The possibility that some of the black holes in the universe have a non-stellar origin and that they play a significant role in cosmology - including being some or all of the dark matter - is both timely and intriguing. I will review the status of...

Stellar streams form as dwarf galaxies and globular clusters tidally disrupt around their host galaxy. To date, more than 100 streams have been detected around our Galaxy. In this talk, I will begin with an overview of how streams form, how they can...

There is a revolution afoot in our understanding of supermassive black holes (SMBHs), that is reshaping our view of their formation, growth and influence on cosmic architecture. This talk will spotlight three recent breakthroughs that have enriched...

Neutrinos are the second most abundant particle in the known Universe yet they remain mysterious. While they played an important role in the early Universe, today they contribute at most 1-2% of the energy budget and leave only faint signatures. A...

Planetary systems are shaped as much by destructive processes --- N-body instabilities, catastrophic impacts, and atmospheric loss --- as by accretionary ones. We examine the histories of violence written in: (a) the orbital architectures of super...

The recent breakthrough in the detection of gravitational waves (GWs) from merging black hole (BH) and neutron star (NS) binaries by advanced LIGO/Virgo has generated renewed interest in understanding the formation mechanisms of merging compact...