Colloquia Schedule Spring 2016

"Spirals, Gaps, and Cavities: Signposts of Planets in Protoplanetary Disks?"

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Robin (Ruobing) Dong

LBNL/Berkeley

host: Adam Kraus

"The Key Influence of AGB Stars on the Evolution and Global Properties of Galaxies"

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Martha L. Boyer

NASA Goddard

host: Kristen McQuinn

"CAMPARE and Cal-Bridge: Two Synergistic Programs Forming a Successful New Model for Promoting Participation of Women and Underrepresented Minority Students in Astronomy"

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Alexander L. Rudolph

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

host: William Cochran

"Exoplanet Atmospheres in High Resolution"

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Jayne L. Birkby

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

host: Daniel Jaffe

"The Dynamical Evolution of Young Stellar Complexes in the Milky Way"

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Alison I. Sills

McMaster University, Hamilton, ON

host: Natalie Gosnell

"The Evolution of Galaxy Structural Properties"

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Rachel Somerville

Rutgers University, Downsbrough Chair in Astrophysics

host: Shardha Jogee

"A PHAT New Measurement of the High-Mass Stellar IMF"

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Daniel Weisz

UC Berkeley/University of Washington

host: Michael Boylan-Kolchin

"The Role of Dwarf-Dwarf Galaxy Interactions in Galaxy Assembly"

Massive galaxy mergers are an important mode of galaxy evolution and are observed to inspire intense starbursts, the growth of AGN, and significant rearranging of the galaxies' gas and dust. However, despite the fact that the majority of mergers at all epochs occur among low mass galaxies, whether these effects occur in the shallow gravitational potential wells of dwarf galaxies remains mostly uncharted territory. Mergers at low redshift in particular offer a high resolution look at a process that set the stage for galaxy assembly at earlier epochs when such low metallicity mergers were more frequent. I will present initial results and future plans for TiNy Titans, the first systematic study of a sample of interacting dwarf galaxies and the mechanisms governing their star formation and subsequent processing of the ISM. We find multi-wavelength evidence based on star formation rates, gas and dust content that mergers proceed substantially differently at low masses. Our survey further uncovers galaxy groups with only low-mass members, a discovery that appears to contradict predictions of structure formation from hydrodynamic cosmological simulations.

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Sabrina Stierwalt

NRAO/University of Virginia

host: Kristen McQuinn

No colloquium scheduled. (Spring Break)

"Exploring the z~2.3 Cosmic Web with 3D Lyman-Alpha Forest Tomography"

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Khee-Gan Lee

UC Berkeley/LBNL

host: Caitlin Casey

"Understanding Galaxy Evolution with Massive Starburst Galaxies"

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Hai Fu

University of Iowa

host: Caitlin Casey

"Implications from the Detection of the Binary Black Hole Inspiral GW150914"

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Matthew Benacquista

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

host: J. Craig Wheeler

Stellar Seminar talk Date/Time: Wed., 12 Noon: "Title: TBA"

David Yong (Stellar Tinsley Scholar)

Mt. Stromlo Observatory, Australia

host: Fritz Benedict

"The Calm Before the Storm: Exploring the Post Accretionary Doldrums Prior to the Late Heavy Bombardment"

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William F. Bottke (Planetary Tinsley Scholar)

Southwest Research Instutite, Boulder, Colorado

host: Mike Endl/Judit Ries

"Disk Galaxy Assembly Across Cosmic Time: Combining Magnitude-limited Survey with Gravitational Lensing"

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Tiantian Yuan (Exgal Tinsley Scholar)

Australia National University

host: Chao-Ling Hung

"The Discovery and Characterization of the Y Dwarfs"

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Michael Cushing

University of Toledo

host: Brendan Bowler

"What can Binaries tell us about Planet Formation?"

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Kaitlin M. Kratter (ISM Tinsley Scholar)

Steward Observatory, University of Arizona

host: Adam Kraus