IAS/PU Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Millimeter-wave surveys of the sky have the potential for yielding a wealth of information about our universe from the first instants of its existence to our own solar system. I will describe how modern measurements of the cosmic microwave...

What governs whether large-scale planetary habitability is sustained through time? Lakes, valley networks, groundwaters, hydrothermal systems, and chemically open-system weathering once existed on Mars. The suite of aqueous environments preserved in...

I will present the cosmological weak lensing results from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) using its first three years of data, taken on the 4m Blanco telescope at CTIO. This analysis spans the full DES footprint, more than 4000 sq. deg. of sky, with...

Astrometry from Gaia, deep variability surveys and large-area Galactic spectroscopic surveys are enabling novel probes into white dwarf astrophysics, and in particular are allowing us to tackle anew the search for ultra-compact binaries containing...

GW170817 heralded the opening of multimessenger astronomy. To predict or interpret gravitational wave sources, numerical modeling, in particular, numerical relativity is a unique and viable tool. In this talk, I will present the current status of...

Magnetism has been in the forefront in our understandings of protoplanetary disks (PPD) and planet formation. With the prevalence of disk substructures, a major observational revolution over the past few years, PPDs are now considered as “planet...

Cosmic rays, the relativistic component of diffuse astrophysical plasma, exchange energy and momentum with the thermal gas collisionlessly, mediated by the ambient magnetic field. Some but not all models of this interaction show that cosmic rays can...

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) have been implicated as a large reservoir of reactive carbon in the interstellar medium since the 1980s. PAHs have been widely attributed as the carriers of the unidentified infrared bands where their...

The Gaia mission and its data releases are driving a revolution in our understanding of the Milky Way and its constituents. In this talk, I will highlight a few of the results stemming from the analysis of the truly spectacular datasets produced so...