IAS/PU Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

The physics of astrophysical coronal heating and the origin of the slow solar wind remain compelling problems in heliospheric physics, and plasma astrophysics more generally. The NASA Parker Solar Probe mission was launched in late 2018 and has...

Galaxy clusters and cosmic filaments are the largest structures in the Universe. During mergers between clusters shocks and turbulence are driven in the intra-cluster-medium (ICM) and dissipate a fraction of their energy into particle acceleration...

It’s been a fantastic decade for black hole studies, highlighted by the 2017 and 2020 Nobel Prizes in Physics. Multiple Galactic Center research groups, the Event Horizon Telescope, and LIGO/Virgo continue to bring rapid-fire new observations to...

In this talk, I will give the 2020 summary of the 6.5 meter James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the near--mid-IR sequel to both Hubble and Spitzer. All hardware has been built, and is in the final stages of testing for its launch scheduled in October...

One of the key objectives of modern astrophysics is to understand the formation and evolution galaxies. In this regard, the Milky Way is a critical testing ground for our theories of galaxy formation. However, dissecting the assembly history of the...

 

Debris disks are signposts of mature planetary systems, and resolved images of dust grains act like test particles that trace the dynamics of embedded planets. I will describe ongoing efforts with the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array...

Why do many stars host close-in chains of super-Earths? Why are eccentric gas giants found in some inner planetary systems? What determines which of these outcomes will occur around a particular star? I will present a possible framework for...

Spektr-RG spacecraft with Russian (ART-XC) and German (eRosita) X-Ray telescopes was launched on July 13th of 2019 from Baykonur. During the flight to the L2 point of the Sun-Earth system, SRG performed calibrations and detailed long duration...

I will discuss insights from analytic and numerical models of galactic chemical evolution and observations of Milky Way elemental abundances from the SDSS APOGEE survey. Under generic model assumptions, abundances and abundance ratios approach an...

In the solar system as elsewhere, we learn most from the unexpected. I will describe three recent observational projects challenging existing ideas about solar system objects, and provoking new ones. The freaks are an interstellar object (‘Oumuamua)...