The Astrophysical Context of Gravitational Wave Events
Abstract: We live in an era of breakthrough discoveries in gravitational waves (GW) astronomy. Every month or so, such discoveries by LIGO/Virgo have been making headlines because these events’ nature has been far from the expectations. But why are we puzzled? And what is the road ahead for us to a deeper understanding? I discuss two of the puzzling events that LIGO has discovered: 1) The most massive binary black hole merger with masses above the pair-instability limit. After a deep dive into the physics of pair-instability supernova, I will discuss how a broader perspective on the host environment of binary black holes can hold the key to understanding the nature of such massive systems. 2) The most massive binary neutron star merger. I will present possible scenarios to explain why we have not detected such systems in the radio observations before and how the key to understanding these events might lie in the r-process enrichment in the early universe and magnetic field evolution of neutron stars. Through these two examples, I will conclude that the synergy of traditional electromagnetic-wave astronomy with gravitational wave astronomy is essential for gaining insights into the surprises that are being uncovered with these new observations.
**لطفا به روز و ساعت نامتعارف سمینار توجه فرمایید**
Allison Man
Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of British Columbia
The Rise and Fall of Star Formation in Galaxies
Abstract: Star formation and supermassive black hole growth were most active at cosmic noon (z~2). Massive galaxies appear to experience accelerated growth at early cosmic times, and eventually quench their star formation and become more bulge-dominated. Exactly why these transformations take place is unclear. Mergers and active galactic nuclei feedback are often invoked as explanations, but a consensus is yet to be reached. I will discuss how multi-wavelength observations of stellar populations and multiphase gas of distant galaxies can shed new light on the complex problem of galaxy evolution.
Abstract: The LambdaCDM model has been extraordinarily successful in describing the observed cosmos. There are however hints that this picture is missing serious pieces. In this talk, we discuss the various systematic approaches for the exploration of the beyond LCDM world.
School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics, Newcastle University
Nuw Cosmology beyond the average from one-point statistics
Abstract: Nonlinear gravitational collapse shaped the cosmic web and created a plethora of different density environments – from voids through filaments to galaxy groups. To realise the full potential of galaxy surveys, we need to dissect different density environments that are lumped together in traditional two-point statistics. This is particularly important for detecting extensions of LCDM including massive neutrinos (Nu), dynamical dark energy (w) and modified gravity. I will show how to extract additional information from the mildly nonlinear one-point statistics of matter densities and associated galaxy survey observables. We showed that using the lensing PDF jointly with the 2pt correlation could improve parameter constraints on nuLCDM/wCDM models by 40% when combined with Planck. Recently, we demonstrated the strong discriminating power of the matter PDF for modified gravity finding an up to sixfold increase of the detection significance compared to the power spectrum alone.
Inter-University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics (IUCAA)
Pune, India
The radial acceleration relation in a LCDM universe
Abstract: I will discuss some recent analytical insights into the nature of the `radial acceleration relation’ (RAR) between total and baryonic centripetal acceleration profiles of central galaxies in the Lambda-cold dark matter (LCDM) framework. Specifically, there is an intimate connection between the RAR and the physics of quasi-adiabatic relaxation of dark matter in the presence of baryons in the galaxy’s parent halo. Using analytical approximations and a realistic LCDM mock galaxy catalog, we have explored the sensitivity of the RAR in different acceleration regimes to quasi-adiabatic relaxation physics, halo mass and concentration, and the abundance of diffuse gas in the halo outskirts. These results cleanly demonstrate how the mean RAR and its scatter emerge from the interplay of dark matter and baryons in the LCDM paradigm. Time permitting, I will also discuss some new results demonstrating that LCDM predicts a statistical `external field effect’ in which the shape of the RAR of any galaxy correlates with the gravitational acceleration due to mass external to the galaxy, without any violation of the strong equivalence principle.
Department of Physics, Bu-Ali Sina (Avicenna) University
Warm inflation and string theory conjectures
Abstract: In early time cosmology, inflation is the most interesting scenario originating from effective field theory. It can answer some significant questions regarding hot big bang cosmology. Taking the linear perturbation theory into account, inflation can explain how large-scale structures form. In recent years, the field theory of inflation has been challenged by some conjectures motivated by string theory. As part of this talk, I will discuss a special scenario of inflation where the inflaton is coupled with light fields in a thermal bath. I will demonstrate how this model can be out of swampland.
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ohio University
Reconstructing the primordial universe from galaxy surveys
Abstract: The observable Universe today contains ample information on the underlying, fundamental physics behind the formation and the evolution of our Universe. Some challenges are faced in extracting the cosmological information due to the nonlinear structure growth and the observational systematics, particularly for upcoming surveys that will conduct cosmological tests at an unprecedented precision. In my talk, I will present the ongoing work of my group that focuses on two aspects of reconstructing primordial cosmological information from the late time galaxy clustering. One is reconstructing the primordial clustering information from the nonlinear structure growth and the other is reconstructing the primordial information from observational systematics, by better mitigating the systematic effects using a Deep-Learning based method.
Department of Physics, Sharif University of Technology
Constraining temperature fluctuations in IGM using XQ-100 legacy survey
Abstract: Arriving at the peak of Quasar activities, the UV background emitted by the Quasars forced the IGM to experience another re-ionization phase after the hydrogen re-ionization, namely the Helium re-ionization epoch. Investigating this epoch is a crucial step toward understanding the relationship between quasars and their environment as one of the most active cosmological mediums. The XQ-100 legacy survey by VLT X-shooter had provided us with one of the highest resolution Quasar surveys at high redshifts. Armed with this spectroscopic Quasar data and newly developed PCA methods, we can recover the Quasar’s un-absorbed spectrum knowing all the error’s sources and quantify IGM’s thermodynamical quantities around the Helium-reionization epoch. Knowing the IGM absorptions and our error model, for the first time, we are able to constrain temperature fluctuations resulting from the Helium re-ionization observationally that can be used to rule out some of the known re-ionization models.
Department of Physics & Astronomy University of Pennsylvania
Dynamical Tests of Dark Matter in the Milky Way
Abstract: The results of the Gaia astrometric mission have ushered in a new era of “precision Galactic dynamics”. Using this new phase-space map of Galactic stars with unprecedented volume and accuracy, we are beginning to obtain new insights into the dark matter distribution in our Galaxy as well as its formation history. Thanks to significant advances on the computational front, meanwhile, we can now compare these insights directly with, and test our modeling strategies on, simulations of Milky-Way-mass galaxies where the influence of baryons and the cosmological context on the dark matter structure are realistically taken into account. I will demonstrate how this convergence of new data and better models improve our understanding of the Milky Way’s dark matter distribution, leading to better constraints on the nature of dark matter.
