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October[0]=["01","All","HEAP","Jamboree","We ask each of the faculty members, postdocs, and students to submit one slide on their recent or ongoing research or on their research interests. The seminar will be composed of 1-2min talks by everyone (a.k.a. machine gun talks or lightning talks). This provides an opportunity for people to know the current activities in the astronomy and high-energy groups, and it also serves as an introduction of the groups to the newly coming students.","Gail Zasowski","","",""]

October[1]=["08", "Rachael L. Beaton", "Princeton, Hubble/Carnegie-Princeton Fellow", "Engineering the Cosmological Measurements with Old Stellar Populations", "The local expansion rate of the Universe, the Hubble constant, is one of the fundamental parameters in our current concordance cosmology and one that anchors the expansion history of the Universe. The resolution of the historical factor-of-two controversy in the Hubble constant nearly two decades ago (e.g., the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project; Freedman et al. 2001) has evolved into a >4.0-sigma tension between the traditional Cepheid-distance ladder measurements (Riess et al. 2019) and that inferred from modeling anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB; Planck Collaboration et al. 2018). At the heart of the tension, is not only a difference in method but also a fundamental difference in how the techniques are anchored either in very local measurements (distance latter at z~0) or in the standard cosmological model (CMB at z~1100). <br/><br/>As part of the Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program, I participated in a 3-year project to measure the Hubble constant using the distance ladder with techniques independent of the classical Cepheid path by using the Tip of the Red Giant Branch (TRGB). I will motivate this form of the distance ladder using the history of the Hubble constant as a guide. I will discuss how we make the TRGB-measurements and the challenges that we solved in our program. Ultimately, our program produced a value intermediate between that of Cepheids and the CMB, suggestive of unresolved systematics in the Cepheid distance scale. I will address recent controversy over the zero-point of the TRGB-ladder that suggests there are real differences between the Cepheid and TRGB-based calibrations of Supernova Type-Ia. To close, I will show how the TRGB, especially used at infrared wavelengths, presents a uniquely powerful long-term distance-measurement technique in application to a number of cosmological problems. I will summarize the progress of my team to address the short-term challenges of the IR-TRGB in anticipation of JWST, the Vera Rubin Observatory, Roman Space Telescope, and ELTs.", "Sten Hasselquist", "", "", ""]

October[2] = ["29", "Adrian M. Price-Whelan", "Flatiron Institute", "Mapping Dark Matter in the Milky Way with Stellar Streams", "The Milky Way is currently the only galaxy in which we can study the detailed kinematics of large numbers of individual stars, as enabled by large stellar surveys like the Gaia Mission. Our Galaxy therefore provides a unique laboratory to test predictions made by astrophysical models of dark matter and galaxy assembly. Stellar streams, formed from the disruption of stellar systems as they orbit, are key tracers of mass and interactions with substructure, enabling us to study these predictions in a galactic environment. However, many poorly-understood physical processes imprint on the phase-space structures of streams, biasing current results and complicating interpretation of stream data. I will discuss recent results both on understanding the effects of time dependence on streams and on characterizing and interpreting data for known streams. I will then connect this recent work with our ultimate goal of mapping the dark matter distribution in the Milky Way to test astrophysical predictions of dark matter theories using stellar streams.", "Joel Brownstein", "", "", ""] 

November[0]=["12", "J. Ted Mackereth", "Toronto", "Linking insights into the Galactic disc, bulge and halo for a holistic approach to constraining the assembly of the Milky Way", "Until recently, the limited extent of Galactic survey data has meant that we have commonly considered the components of the Milky Way in isolation from one another, concentrating on the bulge, bar, halo or disc, all of which are commonly divided into their own sub-components. The recent deluge of data from Galactic surveys (e.g Gaia, APOGEE, GALAH) has revealed a more complete view of our galaxy, and in turn warrants us now to make links between these components. In this talk I will propose that gaining strong constraints on the assembly history of the Milky Way is perhaps the most crucial step toward using Milky Way data to test general galaxy formation models. I will show that these constraints can be attained through this more <i>holistic</i> view of the Galaxy, presenting novel results on the Galactic disc, bulge/bar and halo, and how they connect to provide deeper insights into the assembly of the Milky Way. I will propose how and why cosmological simulations provide the best means to test models which are built in this way, and how we can leverage these to provide strong predictions for the appearance of Milky Way analogues and their progenitors in local galaxy surveys and future high redshift studies, placing constraints on the assembly of structure and galaxy formation in general, using data in the near and far-field. Finally I will show new results enabled by precision asteroseismology, that reveal the detailed chronology of events in the assembly history Milky Way.", "Gail Zasowski", "", "", ""]

November[1]=["19", "Jeremy Tinker", "NYU", "The Aemulus Project: Precision Tools for the Next Cosmological Revolution", "Current and future galaxy surveys are producing data at a rate that is outpacing our ability to fully utilize these data. New techniques are required to realize the potential these datasets have in understanding out universe. The Aemulus Project is focused on creating such tools and techniques through novel uses of numerical simulations. I will describe the design of the Aemulus Project, and how it uses simulations to make predictions for myriad data and observables. I will focus on analyzing galaxy clustering at non-linear scales using redshift space anisotropies to test the <i>concordance cosmology</i>, created by CMB data. This analysis shows significant tension with current CMB constraints, a tension in agreement with other independent tests.", "Kyle Dawson", "", "", ""]

December[0]=["03", "Lam Hui", "Columbia", "Wave Dark Matter", "A dark matter candidate lighter than about 100 eV exhibits wave behavior in a typical galactic environment. Examples include the QCD axion as well as other axion-like-particles. We review the particle physics motivations, and discuss experimental and observational implications of the wave dynamics, including interference substructures, vortices, soliton condensation and black hole hair.", "Zheng Zheng", "", "", ""]

January[0]=["21", "Nafis Rezwan Khan Chowdhury", "IFIC Valencia", "Neutrinos beneath the waves: In search of Non-Standard Neutrino Interactions", "The ANTARES neutrino telescope and its next-generation successor, KM3NeT, located at the abyss of the Mediterranean sea, have been designed to study neutrinos (and antineutrinos) from a variety of sources over a wide range of energies and path lengths. One of the primary focuses of these experiments is to observe the Earth matter effects stemming from the energy and zenith angle dependence of atmospheric neutrinos in the multi-GeV range. The study of atmospheric neutrinos is instrumental in addressing some of the outstanding issues in neutrino oscillation physics, especially the fundamental question of the neutrino mass ordering, as well as probing new physics scenarios beyond the Standard Model (SM) In this talk, I will present the physics (ORCA in what follows) to measure sub-dominant effects in atmospheric neutrino oscillations vis-a-vis Neutrino Non-Standard Interactions (NSIs). A likelihood-based search for NSIs with 10 years of atmospheric muon-neutrino data recorded with ANTARES will be reported and sensitivity projections for ORCA based on realistic detector simulations will be shown. The phenomenological consequence of NSIs on the neutrino mass ordering (NMO) measurement at ORCA will be addressed as well. Remarkably, the bounds obtained with ANTARES in the NSI /mu - /tao sector represent the most stringent limits to date.", "Carsten Rott", "", "", ""]

February[0]=["02", "Kareem El-Badry", "UC Berkeley", "Better together: binary stars as probes of stellar evolution and fundamental physics", "Binary stars are foundational to modern astrophysics. They underpin precision measurements of stellar structure, age, and composition; they provide the most stringent tests of general relativity, they make possible the study of faint and rare objects such as black holes and neutron stars, and they are the progenitors of gravitational wave sources. The components of binaries often interact, dramatically changing their evolution and giving rise to a spectacular zoo of astrophysical phenomenology. To understand stars -- particularly massive stars -- it is necessary to understand binaries. Large-scale stellar surveys such as Gaia, TESS, and SDSS-V are transforming the binary field, making possible both comprehensive population demographics and the discovery of rare objects. I will discuss new insights gleaned from surveys in recent years, including the creation of stripped-envelope stars following binary mass transfer, the formation of equal-mass <em>twin</em> binaries in circumbinary disks, the metallicity-dependence of the binary fraction, and the discovery of planets in binaries. I will focus in particular on the search for dormant stellar-mass black holes in binaries, discussing recent candidates and the path forward to characterizing the detached black hole population.", "Kyle Dawson", "*Tue", "", ""]

February[1]=["04", "Simon Birrer", "Stanford University", "Shedding light on dark matter and dark energy", "Evidence from different cosmological probes have lead to the establishment of the dark matter and dark energy paradigm. The fundamental physical origin of these phenomena remain unknown to date. Challenging this model with high-precision measurements is key in guiding theoretical models.  In my talk, I will describe how we use the phenomena of strong gravitational to constrain the physical nature of dark matter and dark energy. I will describe the lensing observables and the analysis techniques we have developed to quantify the small scale structure of the universe and to measure the expansion rate of the Universe. I will present the recent results in both domains and look in the near future and highlight the prospects of different probes with increasing sample size, analysis techniques and advances in instrumentation.", "Kyle Dawson", "", "", ""]

February[2]=["09", "Jamie Tayar", "University of Hawai'i", "Reenvisioning Stellar Physics in the Era of Large Surveys", "Stellar models are used for a wide range of purposes from characterizing extrasolar planets to untangling the history of our own and other galaxies. Unfortunately, there are still significant uncertainties in the physics of these models, and inconsistencies with recent observations.  I will discuss how we model stellar interiors, and what that means for our ability to accurately and precisely estimate stellar parameters. I will also show that large photometric and spectroscopic surveys have significantly improved our understanding of stellar convection, rotation, and mixing in the past few years. Finally, I will discuss how this improved physical understanding impacts the utility of stellar models, including the estimation of stellar ages, and the prospects for future improvements.", "Kyle Dawson", "*Tue", "", ""]

February[3]=["11", "Kate Grier", "University of Arizona", "Quasars and Supermassive Black Holes: Uncovering Mysteries with Variability and Reverberation Mapping", "Supermassive black holes, with masses that range from tens of thousands to billions of times the mass of our Sun, are thought to be present in nearly every galaxy in the Universe and may affect the growth and evolution of these galaxies. To understand how supermassive black holes interact with their host galaxies, we require accurate measurements of supermassive black hole masses in galaxies across the entire universe, as well as an understanding of their physical environments. We obtain this information by observing objects called active galactic nuclei, or quasars, which have supermassive black holes with large amounts of matter falling into them. These sources are highly variable, and we can use their variability to both measure their masses and learn about the physical environment very close to the black holes. We do this by examining the time delays between continuum flux variations and the response of distant gas as it reprocesses the ionizing radiation into emission lines which thus seem to “reverberate,”  echoing the continuum variations; this technique is called reverberation mapping. In my talk, I will discuss supermassive black holes, active galactic nuclei/quasars, and the use of time variability -- primarily the technique of reverberation mapping -- to learn about these phenomena. I will focus specifically on my recent and planned work on large-scale reverberation-mapping projects using data from large surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which have allowed us to investigate large numbers of quasars at much greater distances than ever before.", "Kyle Dawson", "", "", ""]

February[4]=["18", "Ana Bonaca", "Harvard-Smithsonian CfA", "The Milky Way as the frontier laboratory for cosmology", "The Milky Way is a stepping stone to understanding galaxies and the universe. Being a typical galaxy, inferring events in its history helps to develop the overall theory of galaxy formation. Further, since the effects of dark matter are observable in individual stars, the Milky Way provides an excellent setting for testing the nature of dark matter. So far, the progress on these fundamental topics has been made predominantly by studying the spatial distribution of different stellar populations. Now, Gaia is revolutionizing the way we view our Galaxy by delivering precise proper motions, currently being complemented by the SDSS-V and DESI radial velocities. With 3D positions and velocities that these datasets provide for millions of stars, I plan to constrain the assembly history of the Milky Way and the structure of its dark matter halo. In this talk, I will discuss how I will employ thin stellar streams, the least massive accretion events, to ultimately determine the complete merger history of the Milky Way and measure the abundance of dark-matter substructures in its halo.", "Kyle Dawson", "", "", ""]

February[5]=["25", "Tanmoy Laskar", "University of Bath", "Extreme astrophysics with relativistic transients", "As the most energetic explosions in the Universe, relativistic astrophysical transients provide a unique opportunity to explore physics at extreme energy scales that are otherwise impossible to investigate in Earth-bound laboratories. I will demonstrate the power of multi-wavelength observations, combined with theoretical modelling, in teasing apart the physics of relativistic transients. Shining a special spotlight on radio wavelengths, I will describe how pushing the boundaries of observational efforts is leading to new insights into these extreme events. Today's case studies will include: (i) probing high-redshift gamma-ray bursts in search for explosions from the first stars, (ii) exploring magnetized central engines in short-duration gamma-ray bursts, and (iii) investigating the composition of relativistic jets with ALMA. I will describe the multi-messenger revolution currently underway in time-domain astrophysics, and conclude with future prospects in this rapidly evolving, data-driven field.", "Kyle Dawson", "*Early", "", ""]

March[0]=["04", "Yao-Yuan Mao", "Rutgers University", "Fundamental Physics of Dark Matter from Dwarf Galaxy Surveys", "A better understanding of the complex galaxy formation, in particular the coevolution of galaxies and dark matter halos, will directly enable us to translate astrophysical observations into solid constraints on the physical properties of dark matter. I will describe recent advances in modeling this galaxy-halo coevolution, and how these models, together with galaxy surveys, can jointly inform us about galaxy formation and dark matter physics. I will then turn the focus to the population of dwarf galaxies, which are abundant in number and rich in their dark components, serving an excellent probe of dark matter. I will show recent results from the SAGA Survey, a spectroscopic survey that searches for satellite dwarf galaxies in nearby Milky Way-like systems, and demonstrate how these results put our own Milky Way in a cosmological context and provide constraints on the galaxy-halo coevolution. Finally I will discuss how the technique and data from the SAGA Survey can be applied to ongoing and upcoming surveys, such as DESI and Rubin LSST, enabling us to identify a much larger population of dwarf galaxies in coming years to reveal the fundamental physics of dark matter.", "Kyle Dawson", "", "", ""]

March[1]=["18", "Konstantin Belov", "UCLA / NASA", "Discovery of the First Fast Radio Burst from a Local Magnetar.", "Millisecond-duration fast radio bursts (FRBs) were first discovered in 2007. Ever since a lot of effort has been devoted to associate them with known objects which were all thought to be extragalactic.  The leading candidates are magnetars, which are a class of a neutron star with the surface magnetic fields in excess of 10^14 G. Many high-energy phenomena can be powered by a decay of such a strong magnetic field.  In this talk we present the discovery of a millisecond-duration radio burst from the Galactic magnetar SGR 1935+2154 by the CRABS/STARE2 radio array on 28 April 2020.   CRABS/STARE2 radio telescope consists of 3 wide field-of-view sensors operating in 1281-1468 MHz frequency range. The sensors are located at Owens Valley Radio Observatory and at Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California, and at the Telescope Array site near Delta, Utah. The telescope was fully commissioned in November of 2019.  The detected FRB has a fluence of 1.5 ± 0.3 Mega-Jansky milliseconds. The isotropic-equivalent energy released in this event is ~4000 times greater than in any Galactic radio burst previously observed on similar timescales and only 40 times less energetic than the weakest extragalactic FRB observed to date. Due to the coincidence with an X-ray burst, the FRB emission models that describe synchrotron masers or electromagnetic pulses powered by magnetar bursts and giant flares become the most favorable. The discovery of the FRB from SGR 1935+2154 implies that active magnetars can produce FRBs at extragalactic distances.", "Doug Bergman", "", "", ""]

March[2]=["25", "Mikhail Ivanov", "NYU Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics", "Fundamental Cosmology from Galaxy Clustering", "Recent advances in large-scale structure (LSS) theory have opened up new avenues for probing fundamental physics with the cosmic web. Future galaxy surveys will soon map the Universe with unprecedented sub-percent precision. I will present tools that can be used to explore LSS at this precision frontier and to capture information which is not accessible with conventional techniques. I will outline a program of extracting cosmological information from the shape of the galaxy power spectra and bispectra. Then I will share the results of my independent analysis of the public data from the Baryon acoustic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. These results include the first-ever measurements of fundamental cosmological parameters—including the Hubble constant - from the galaxy power spectrum shape. Finally, I will present a realistic parameter constraint forecast for the upcoming surveys and discuss future research directions.", "Joel Brownstein", "", "", ""]

April[0]=["01", "Clara Sousa-Silva", "Harvard-Smithsonian CfA", "Finding an Alien Biosphere with Computational Chemistry", "At the edge of our present scientific frontier lies the question: Can we identify the signs of life on an exoplanet? Establishing whether a planet is habitable, or inhabited, relies both on the observation of an exoplanet atmosphere and, crucially, its subsequent interpretation. This interpretation requires knowledge of the spectral behavior of every significant atmospheric molecule. However, though thousands of molecular candidates can contribute towards the spectrum of an atmosphere, data exist for only a few hundred gases. Among these, only a fraction have complete spectra (e.g. ammonia, water). This deep incompleteness in the knowledge of molecular spectra presents a pressing vulnerability in the atmospheric study of planets; there exists a strong possibility of mis-assignment, false positives, and false negatives in the detection of molecules.  The work presented here combines structural organic chemistry and quantum mechanics to obtain the necessary tools for the interpretation of astrophysical spectra and, ultimately, the detection of life on an exoplanet. Whether alien life will produce familiar gases (e.g., oxygen) or exotic biosignatures (e.g., phosphine), painting a confident picture of a potential biosphere will require a holistic interpretation of an atmosphere and its molecules. In this talk Clara will describe ongoing efforts to create a computational toolkit for deciphering exoplanet atmospheres, and ultimately to detect a biosphere through the identification of volatile molecules, in particular those that might be produced by non-Earth-like life.", "Joel Brownstein", "", "", ""]

April[1]=["08", "Laura Nuttall", "Univ. of Portsmouth", "Current and future prospects in gravitational-wave astrophysics", "To date fifty gravitational-wave signals have been detected by the LIGO and Virgo detectors, with the majority of these signals being from the merger of black holes. Observations from the first half of the LIGO-Virgo third observing run, which concluded in March 2020, have revealed a black hole in the pair-instability mass gap, the heaviest neutron star binary and, likely, the lightest black hole. And there is more data yet to come from the second half of the third observing run! None of this would have been possible without the technological advancements that went into constructing the second-generation gravitational-wave interferometers, Advanced LIGO and Virgo. As the detectors are upgraded to design sensitivity, the future observing runs of Advanced LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA promise to open the gravitational-wave sky even further. In this colloquium I will discuss the workings of the LIGO detectors, some of our most recent observations and the exciting observing prospects over the next five years.", "Joel Brownstein", "*Early", "", ""]

April[2]=["15", "Angela Berti", "Univ. of Utah", "Galactic conformity, assembly bias, and the galaxy-halo connection", "The halo model of galaxy evolution assumes all properties of a galaxy are determined statistically by the mass of its host halo. While this assumption yields predictions that largely agree with observations, the full picture of the galaxy-halo connection is incomplete without assembly bias. Halo assembly bias refers to the dependence of present-day halo clustering on factors besides mass, such as a halo's age and assembly history, and is predicted by cosmological simulations. Probes of galaxy assembly bias include galactic conformity and the differential clustering of star-forming and quiescent central galaxies at fixed stellar mass. In this talk I will explain why two-halo galactic conformity is likely not a real effect, and demonstrate that efforts to refine galaxy evolution models should instead focus on correlations between halo accretion history and galaxy properties such as star formation rate. I will conclude with a brief overview of my current work  incorporation assembly bias into modeling systematics of DESI samples for galaxy science applications.", "Kyle Dawson", "", "", ""]
 
April[3]=["22", "Benjamin Bose", "Univ. of Geneva", "The next big test of ΛCDM: How to use the non-linear scales of cosmic structure", "The standard model of cosmology, ΛCDM, has remained largely consistent with most astronomical observations, yielding few clues on how to address the issues of its required dark sector. One exciting opportunity to uncover ways forward are the yet under-utilised non-linear scales of cosmic structure formation. Next generation galaxy surveys promise miniscule errors on key observables in this range of scales, leaving even the tiniest deviations to ΛCDM no where to hide. But accurate observations require accurate models if biased pictures of gravity and cosmology are to be avoided. In this talk I describe a promising framework to model the dark matter power spectrum at the required accuracy, while accounting for possible deviations to ΛCDM.", "Joel Brownstein", "*Early", "", ""]

June[0]=["03", "Julie Rolla", "The Ohio State University", "Applications of Genetic Algorithms in Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Astrophysics", "Genetic algorithms (GAs) borrow from biology the concepts of mutation and selection to determine solutions to complex problems more efficiently than traditional techniques. In this talk I will present ongoing research exploring the use of GAs in ultra-high energy (UHE) neutrino searches to create higher sensitivity antenna designs and to improve the classification of background noise. The GENETIS project aims to leverage GAs to optimize the science outcomes of detectors in high-dimensional parameter space in astrophysics experiments. GENETIS has developed a genetic algorithm that integrates multiple pieces of software to optimize asymmetric bicone antennas to radio impulses from UHE neutrino interactions while considering real-world constraints. By integrating the XFdtd finite-difference time domain modeling program with simulations of neutrino experiments, fitness scores are generated based on neutrino sensitivities. I will report on advancements to the algorithm, steps taken to improve the software, the latest results from the evolutions, and the future roadmap for manufacturing and deployment. Additionally, preliminary results are presented on the use of GAs to classify backgrounds for large data sets in ARA via the Karoo software, which has been used in LIGO signal classifications. This work lays the foundation for continued research and development of GA applications in astrophysics and other fields." , "Carsten Rott", "*2pm", "", ""]