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// Month[i]=["date","Speaker","Institution","Title","Abstract","Host","Special Time Notes","Special Time Notes"];
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September[0]=["02","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.","Yue Zhao","","",""]

September[1]=["09","Aarran Shaw","Nevada","New results on magnetic cataclysmic variables","Cataclysmic variables (CVs) are interacting binaries in which a white dwarf is accreting matter from a main sequence companion. A common subclass of CVs are the so-called magnetic CVs, in which the white dwarf is highly magnetic, such that the accretion disk is disrupted and matter instead flows along the field lines on to the surface of the white dwarf. Though CVs, both magnetic and non-magnetic, have been well-studied for decades, they are still proving to be important for answering open questions about binary evolution, accretion physics and even cosmology. Here I will discuss some recent results regarding magnetic CVs, in particular focusing on a recent large hard X-ray survey of magnetic CVs with NuSTAR. In addition I will introduce the recent discovery of some systems transitioning to unusual low-flux states, which could shine a light on the changing accretion mechanisms at work in these sources.","Daniel Wik","","",""]

September[2]=["16","Sarah Moran","NASA/Ames","Peering at Hazy Worlds Near and Far Through Laboratory Experiments","Photochemical hazes are found across the Solar System and in exoplanetary atmospheres, with important effects on atmospheric chemistry and subsequent possible impacts on observations. These affect current observatories like Hubble, future observatories like JWST, as well as potential upcoming planetary missions. I will present results of the composition of haze particles produced from exoplanet and Triton laboratory studies in the JHU PHAZER laboratory. With high resolution mass spectrometry, we detected many complex molecular species in the haze particles, including those with prebiotic applications. I will also discuss the implications of these chemical measurements as they compare to existing atmospheric models of exoplanets. Our experimental exoplanetary haze analogues exhibit diverse physical properties, which may help us understand their role as potential cloud condensation nuclei and their role in subsequent atmospheric evolution. Finally, I will discuss how we can apply what we’ve learned from the laboratory into atmospheric models for existing and future observations of sub-Neptune-sized exoplanets as well as Neptune's moon, Triton.","Kyle Dawson","","",""]

September[3]=["23","Michael Fedderke","Johns Hopkins","Bridging the microhertz gap with asteroids: opportunities and challenges for gravitational wave detection","The science case for a broad program of gravitational wave (GW) detection across all frequency bands is exceptionally strong. At present, there is a dearth of coverage by existing and proposed searches in the GW frequency band lying between the peak sensitivities of PTAs and LISA, roughly 0.1-100 microhertz. In this talk, I will outline a conceptual mission proposal to access this band. I will demonstrate that a few carefully chosen asteroids which orbit in the inner Solar System can act as excellent naturally occurring gravitational test masses despite the environmental noise sources. As such, a GW detector can be constructed by ranging between these asteroids using optical or radio links. At low frequencies, I will discuss how gravity gradient noise arising from the combined motion of the other ~10<sup>6</sup> asteroids in the inner Solar System sharply cuts off the sensitivity of this proposal. Sensitivity in the middle of this band is mostly limited by various solar perturbations to the asteroid test masses, while the high-frequency sensitivity is limited by noise in the ranging link. The projected strain-sensitivity curve that I will present indicates significant potential reach in this frequency band for a mission of this type.","Yue Zhao","Zoom only","",""]

September[4]=["30","Ben Boizelle","BYU","Wrangling the Beast: Precision Supermassive Black Hole Mass Measurement With ALMA","AbstractWhile supermassive black holes (BHs) gravitationally dominate only the innermost regions of galaxies, their masses correlate with large-scale galaxy properties, hinting that BHs co-evolve with their host galaxies over the age of the universe. These correlations suggest a distinct evolutionary pathway for the most luminous galaxies; however, an incomplete census of >10^9 solar mass BHs (and large measurement uncertainties) prevent any definitive conclusions. While still useful in mapping out the circumnuclear region of these massive galaxies, I will demonstrate that warm molecular and ionized gas tracers tend to be turbulent probes. Emission-line observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) are opening a new avenue for studying BH demographics in nearby galaxies. I will present ongoing ALMA CO imaging that has resolved circularly-rotating molecular gas disks in the nuclei of a growing number of very luminous galaxies, providing ideal probes of their inner gravitational potentials. I will highlight results from recent gas-dynamical modeling efforts, which have enabled some of the most precise direct BH mass determinations to date and important cross-checks with other measurement techniques. I will also discuss the prospect of future telescopes like the next-generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) to expand on ALMA's revolutionary capabilities.","Anil Seth","","",""]


October[0]=["07","Patrick de Perio","TRIUMF","From Big to Huge: Pathway to Neutrino Discoveries","We live in a matter dominated world, so where did all the antimatter go? The Hyper-Kamiokande (Hyper-K) experiment in Japan aims to discover charge-parity violation (CPV) in neutrino oscillation, which could help explain this phenomenon. T2K and Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) are the current generation of successful campaigns to understand the properties of neutrino mixing, using a water Cherenkov detector whose physics reach also extends to studies of astrophysical neutrinos and searches for new physics through processes such as nucleon decay or dark matter annihilation. As the successor to T2K and Super-K, Hyper-K produces a 2.5 times higher intensity beam of neutrinos or antineutrinos directed towards a far detector 295 km away, which is about 8 times larger than Super-K. In this talk, I will highlight our efforts to mitigate systematic uncertainties to a level commensurate with this unprecedented statistical precision, necessary for the discovery of CPV.","Carsten Rott","Zoom only","",""]

October[1]=["14","","","FALL BREAK","","Host","","",""]

October[2]=["21","Jason Aufdenberg","Embry Riddle","Spica: its stars and nebula","B-type stars play a supporting role in ionizing the diffuse gas throughout our Milky Way Galaxy, yet direct observations of these stars' extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) spectra is limited by the same interstellar medium.  The large (20-full-moons wide on the sky), faint, H-alpha emission (at 656 nm) surrounding the binary star Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, can be used to indirectly constrain the Lyman continuum luminosity of the stars at wavelengths below 91 nm.  Early analysis suggested that stellar atmosphere models produced two times less EUV luminosity than required to account for the measured H-alpha surface brightness within the nebula. To more consistently model both the stellar and nebular emission we have developed model atmospheres for the binary which account for the effects of rotational and tidal distortion as input to photoionization models of the nebula.  In addition to putting constraints on the stellar and nebular parameters, we seek to constrain binary's apsidal motion, probing the primary star's interior, by fitting together over 100 years of radial velocity data, long-baseline interferometry, times-series photometry and absolute spectrophotometry from 93 nm to 1110 nm.","Tugdual LeBohec","","",""]

October[3]=["28","Juri Smirnov","Ohio State","Thermal Squeezeout of Dark Matter","I will present a detailed study of the confinement phase transition in a dark sector with a SU(N) gauge group and vector-like heavy quarks. I will focus on heavy quarks, such that their abundance freezes out before the phase transition and the phase transition is of first-order. During this phase transition the quarks are trapped inside contracting pockets of the deconfined phase and are compressed enough to interact at a significant rate, giving rise to a second stage of annihilation that can dramatically change the resulting dark matter abundance. The resulting dark matter candidates have masses above the 100 TeV-scale. I will comment on search strategies for such heavy relics.","Carsten Rott","Zoom only","",""]


November[0]=["04","Matthew Baumgart","Arizona State","Blueshift Tensor Fluctuations Universally","The strong constraints of conformal symmetry cause any nearly-conformal sector to blueshift tensor fluctuations in cosmology. Hidden sectors with approximate conformal symmetry, which may be quite large, are a well-motivated extension of physics beyond the Standard Models of particle physics and cosmology. They can therefore lead to a detectable shift in the tensor tilt for next-generation CMB and gravitational wave experiments. We compute the leading-order contribution to the in-in graviton two-point function from virtual loops in such sectors to demonstrate this universal effect. In units where a single conformally-coupled scalar is 1, limits from Stage-IV CMB experiments could bound the size of this extra sector to be smaller than about 10^15. This would be sufficient to rule out N-Naturalness as a complete resolution of the hierarchy problem.","Yue Zhao","","",""]

November[1]=["11","Zahra Tabrizi","Virginia Tech","EFT Constraints from Neutrino Experiments","We will discuss how to systematically study physics beyond the standard model (BSM) in the neutrino experiments within the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) framework. In this way, the analysis of the data can capture large classes of models, where the new degrees of freedom have masses well above the relevant energy of the experiment. Moreover, it allows us to compare several experiments in a unified framework and in a systematic way. Our proposed approach could be applied to several short- and long baseline neutrino experiments. We will show the results of this approach at the FASERv experiment, which will be soon installed 480 m downstream of the ATLAS interaction point, as well as the medium baseline reactor experiments Daya Bay and RENO. For some coupling structures, we find that these neutrino detectors will be able to constrain interactions that are almost three orders of magnitude weaker than the Standard Model weak interactions, implying that they will be indirectly probing new physics at the 10 TeV scale.","Yue Zhao","","",""]

November[2]=["18","Gustavo Marquez-Tavares","Maryland","Dark Sector Visible Signals in Neutron Star Mergers","Dark sectors are a very motivated target in the search for physics beyond the standard model and appear in many models of dark matter which explain the observed abundance. Due to their small couplings, dark sectors require new experimental strategies in order to be studied. In this talk I will present new ways to detect dark sectors through transient visible signals following a neutron star merger. Focusing on the visibly decaying dark photon scenario, I will show that the merger remnant can produce a very large flux of dark photons, and explore the visible signatures coming from their decays. The most promising signal is a bright and short burst of MeV photons produced by the decay products. This can be used to probe a large portion of unexplored parameter space, including much of the unconstrained parameter space for freeze-in dark matter models with interactions mediated by the dark photon","Yue Zhao","","",""]

November[3]=["25","","","THANKSGIVING","","Host","","",""]

November[4]=["30","Hitoshi Oshima","Toho University","Study of neutrino-nucleus interactions around the 1 GeV energy region using a nuclear emulsion  detector","One of the important topics in particle physics is a search for the CP violation in the lepton sector. Long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments searching for the CP violation, such as T2K and NOvA, are performed in the neutrino energy around 1 GeV. It is essential to understand neutrino-nucleus interactions for current and future neutrino oscillation experiments because the experimental precision will be limited by the uncertainties of neutrino interaction models. <br> <br> We have carried out a series of neutrino-nucleus interaction measurements using a nuclear emulsion detector as part of the NINJA experiment, which aims precise measurements of charged particles from neutrino interactions. Nuclear emulsion is suitable for performing high-precision measurements of the positions and angles of the charged particles since it provides a sub-μm spatial resolution. In the NINJA pilot run with a 65 kg iron target, protons and charged pions produced in neutrino-iron interactions are successfully detected, and we achieve the lowest momentum thresholds of the other neutrino detectors. In this talk, I will present the first results of cross-section measurement (PTEP 2021, 033C01 (2021)) and kinematical measurements of protons and pions from neutrino interactions on iron in the NINJA experiment.","Carsten Rott","Zoom only!","Tuesday!",""]

December[0]=["02","Johannes Lange","UCSC","Probing Cosmic Structure Growth with Full-Scale Cross-Survey Modeling","The canonical picture of cosmology, the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model, has been remarkably successful in explaining a large variety of different observations. However, in recent years, apparent tensions in this standard model have started to appear and spark interest in alternative cosmological models. Cosmic structure growth as probed by large-scale structure (LSS) galaxy surveys is one of the most sensitive probes of dark energy and physics beyond LCDM. I will summarize recent results from LSS surveys analyzing weak gravitational lensing, focussing on the possibility of a cosmological growth-of-structure tension. Afterwards, I will present ongoing efforts to maximize the information content we can extract from LSS surveys through full-scale cross-survey modeling. I will discuss how the &ldquo;lensing is low&rdquo; problem can illuminate our understanding of cosmic structure growth as well as galaxy formation and small-scale baryonic physics. Afterwards, I will present a full-scale cosmology study of the redshift-space galaxy correlation function. I show that such an analysis yields some of the tightest constraints on the cosmic growth rate of the Universe to date. Finally, I will discuss a few things to expect from the upcoming Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey.","Zheng Zheng","","",""]

December[1]=["09","Christina Gao","Fermilab","Title","Abstract","Yue Zhao","","",""]

December[2]=["16","","","WINTER BREAK","","Host","","",""]

December[3]=["23","","","WINTER BREAK","","Host","","",""]

December[4]=["30","","","WINTER BREAK","","Host","","",""]


January[0]=["06","Gillian Beltz-Mohrmann","Vanderbilt","Developing an Accurate Probe of the Galaxy-Halo Connection","The small-scale clustering of galaxies contains a wealth of information about galaxy formation and evolution, as well as large-scale structure formation and cosmology. Unlocking this information requires accurate and flexible models of small-scale galaxy clustering. As an alternative to running complex and computationally expensive hydrodynamic simulations, halo models provide a simple and computationally inexpensive way to investigate the connection between galaxies and their dark matter halos. In our recent work, we used the standard halo occupation distribution model to constrain the galaxy-halo connection in SDSS. By employing a fully numerical, mock-based modeling procedure, we were able to utilize a wide variety of galaxy clustering statistics beyond 2-point statistics. This allowed us to achieve tight constraints on our halo model parameters, which exhibited significant tension with the clustering of SDSS galaxies. This is consistent with results from our earlier work comparing halo models to hydrodynamic simulations, which suggested that the standard halo model struggles to accurately predict clustering when exotic effects are present. Motivated by these findings, we are currently working to expand this modeling procedure to include parameters for galaxy assembly bias in the halo model. Preliminary results of applying this model to the SDSS DR7 Mr < −19 sample indicate strong central galaxy assembly bias, but our best-fit model in this analysis still yields significant tension with the clustering of SDSS galaxies, suggesting that more freedom needs to be added to the model in future work. This work is the first example of using a fully numerical modeling procedure with a proper accounting of all systematic errors (including baryonic effects on the halo mass function) to constrain assembly bias in SDSS galaxies.","Zheng Zheng","Zoom only!","",""]

January[1]=["13","","","NO SEMINAR","","Host","","",""]

January[2]=["20","Cat Fielder","Pitt","Constraining the Milky Way’s Ultraviolet to Infrared SED with Gaussian Process Regression","AbstractImproving our knowledge of global Milky Way (MW) properties is critical for connecting the detailed measurements only possible from within our Galaxy to our understanding of the broader galaxy population. We train Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) models on SDSS galaxies to map from galaxy properties (stellar mass, apparent axis ratio, star formation rate, bulge- to-total ratio, disk scale length, and bar vote fraction) to UV (GALEX FUV/NUV), optical (SDSS ugriz) and IR (2MASS JHKs and WISE W1/W2/W3/W4) fluxes and uncertainties. With these models we estimate the photometric properties of the MW, resulting in a full UV-to-IR spectral energy distribution (SED) as it would be measured externally, viewed face-on. We confirm that the Milky Way lies in the green valley in optical diagnostic diagrams, but show for the first time that the MW is in the star-forming region in standard UV and IR diagnostics—characteristic of the population of red spiral galaxies. Although our GPR method predicts one band at a time, the resulting MW UV–IR SED is consistent with SEDs of local spirals with characteristics broadly similar to the MW, suggesting that these independent predictions can be combined reliably. Our UV–IR SED will be invaluable for reconstructing the MW’s star formation history using the same tools employed for external galaxies, allowing comparisons of results from in situ measurements to those from the methods used for extra-galactic objects.","Gail Zasowski","Zoom only!","",""]

January[3]=["27","","","RESERVED","","Host","","",""]


February[0]=["03","","","RESERVED","","Host","","",""]

February[1]=["10","","","RESERVED","","Host","","",""]

February[2]=["17","","","RESERVED","","Host","","",""]

February[3]=["24","","","RESERVED","","Host","","",""]


March[0]=["03","","","RESERVED","","Host","","",""]

March[1]=["10","","","SPRING BREAK","","Host","","",""]

March[2]=["17","","","RESERVED","","Host","","",""]

March[3]=["24","Aristotle Socrates","TextNow","From Black Holes to Big Data"," I made the transition from Academia to Big Data/Data Science seven years ago. A lot has changed since then. I'll share some of the details of my transition to the tech sector as well as how I've navigated the field since then. In addition, I'll describe some common problems that data teams face within tech companies and some useful methods in approaching these topics from both a technology and scientific point of view.","Zheng Zheng","Zoom only!","",""]

March[4]=["31","Aaron Smith","MIT","First results from the THESAN radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of the Epoch of Reionization","I will present results from the THESAN project, a suite of large volume (~100 cMpc)^3 cosmological radiation-hydrodynamic simulations that simultaneously model the large-scale statistical properties of the intergalactic medium (IGM) during reionization and the resolved characteristics of the galaxies responsible for it. THESAN offers a unique framework for high-redshift science by combining state-of-the-art galaxy formation (IllustrisTNG) and dust models with the Arepo-RT solver, with sufficient resolution to enable predictions down to the atomic cooling limit. The simulations have realistic ‘late’ reionization histories and galaxy properties that match available constraints, e.g. halo mass and luminosity relations. I will discuss applications from the first set of papers, including bubble size distributions that imprint unique signatures for 21 cm cosmology and multi-tracer line intensity mapping, rapid evolution of the mean free path of ionizing photons, and emergence of the Lyman-alpha forest. I will discuss the utility of Lyman-alpha emitting galaxies (LAEs) and red damping-wing transmission as probes of reionization, which reveal nontrivial trends across different galaxies, sightlines, and frequency bands that can be modeled in the framework of covering fractions. Overall, THESAN produces a realistic IGM and galaxy population, providing a robust framework for future analysis of the high-redshift Universe.","Zheng Zheng","","",""]


April[0]=["07","Wiebke Deierling","NCAR/Colorado","Cloud Electrification and Aviation Applications","Cloud electrification and resultant lightning can be both a threat and a useful tool for aviation. Previous studies have shown that microphysical and kinematic processes are tied to the development of charge regions inside deep convective storms and resultant lightning. However, not all aspects of these relationships are completely understood. This talk will focus on a couple of topics that are concerned with areas of cloud electrification that are not completely understood. Studying these not only help basic understanding of electrification of clouds but also have applications for aviation safety. <br> It is estimated that each aircraft gets struck by lightning at least once every year. Moreover, studies suggest that about 90% of these lightning strikes appear to be triggered in-flight by the aircraft itself. Such incidents can occur in clouds that naturally produce lightning, but also in cloud regions with lower electric fields, where natural lightning is infrequent or absent, such as in stratiform regions of Mesoscale Convective Systems (MCSs) or nimbostratus clouds. The electrification of some of these clouds are not well studied. In order to improve the understanding of the occurrence and atmospheric conditions of aircraft triggered lightning and ultimately understand operational impacts of lightning across the US an initial study has been done to investigate the frequency of occurrence of lightning strikes to aircraft and characterize atmospheric conditions that coincide and lead to in-flight triggered lightning strikes to aircraft. <br> Regarding relationships between storm kinematics and lightning characteristics, Bruning and McGorman (2013) investigated total lightning flash size spectra for two supercell storms and found the shape of their lightning flash energy spectrum to be similar to the turbulent kinetic energy spectra expected in thunderstorms. These findings suggest that turbulent storm kinematics may control lightning flash size and rate distribution behavior, as different parts of a thunderstorm may be associated with different flash characteristics. For example, high lightning activity associated with less extensive flashes was found within the storm’s intense updraft regions (and suspected higher turbulence), while less flash activity but with the most extensive flashes were found toward the anvil region where one expects an increasingly stratified kinematic structure. Towards further investigating relationships between in-cloud turbulence and total lightning flash rate and extent, ground-based Doppler weather radar and lightning data were used to investigate such relationships for non-severe New Mexico storms as well as severe Colorado storms. Ultimately, if relationships exist they may be used to help infer turbulence severity inside clouds in regions not covered by radar observations.","Carsten Rott","","",""]

April[1]=["14","Ben Sheff","Michigan","Higgsino Dark Matter Theory and its Experimental Probes","We examine a particularly compelling class of supersymmetric models with Higgsino-like thermal dark matter. In particular, this class of models has a split in energy scales between the Standard Model particles and the supersymmetric scalar masses motivated by the mass of the Higgs boson and by existing experimental bounds. While having very few input parameters, many of the supersymmetry breaking parameters are either described explicitly or through mediation of a conformal anomaly. We explore this space in terms of direct and indirect detection, along with electron electric dipole moment experiments, and show the available parameter space is almost entirely accessible to next generation experiments.","Yue Zhao","","",""]

April[2]=["21","Stephanie Wissel","Penn State","Multi-messenger neutrino astrophysics with current and future experiments","Neutrinos are the ideal messenger for high-energy astrophysics. Weakly interacting and uncharged, they propagate undeterred and unabsorbed through the universe. In the last decade, the IceCube experiment has brought us the discovery of a flux of high-energy, TeV-scale neutrinos and through a multi-messenger lens - the combined observations of neutrinos and other messengers like photons -  we are starting to see hints of energetic neutrino sources for the first time. At higher energies still, beyond the PeV scale, we can probe the most energetic sources of both neutrinos and cosmic rays, but current neutrino experiments become too small to observe a sizable flux. Instead, we can use embedded radio experiments which detect the coherent radio emission from neutrino interactions in ice using a sparse array of detectors to build up enormous neutrino targets. In this talk, will describe the Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G), an experiment currently being built in Greenland and how it will serve as a testbed for the radio array for the next generation of IceCube. ","Doug Bergman","","",""]

April[3]=["28","Gerrit Roellinghoff","SKKU","Search for Solar Atmospheric Neutrinos with the IceCube Neutrino Detector","Interactions between cosmic rays and the solar atmosphere are expected to result in the generation of particle showers, which produce gamma rays and neutrinos when decaying. Following recent evidence for high-energy gamma rays originating from the solar disk, a first search for high-energy neutrinos from the Sun with 7 years (2010-2017) of IceCube data was recently completed. No evidence of high-energy neutrino flux was observed and upper limits were set for multiple theoretical models. High-energy solar gamma ray correlation with solar activity observed by FermiLAT motivates a new search with IceCube data taken during the solar minimum, given that their production mechanisms are expected to be related. I will discuss previous results and present a new and improved search with 9 years of IceCube data for solar atmospheric neutrinos, looking at the time period of the solar minimum specifically.","Carsten Rott","","",""]

May[0]=["4","Jan-Willem van Holten","NIKHEF","Gravitational waves from post-keplerian binaries","The detection of gravitational waves from compact binary systems has opened up new field of astronomy. In this lecture I discuss the characteristics of these gravitational waves and the back reaction of the emission process on their sources, especially for non-relativistic systems such as binary neutron stars and white dwarfs, or black holes in the earlier stages of the emission process. The emission of transient wave signals from stellar scattering events is included in the discussion as well.","Tino Nyawelo","11 am! Wednesday!","",""]