Colloquia Schedule Summer 2015

Colloquia are on Tuesdays (unless otherwise indicated) at 3:30 pm in RLM 15.216B


Tue. 10 AM May 19	Qualifying Exam/2nd-Year Defense "Revealing the Brightest Galaxies at Cosmic Brunch" abstract Matthew Stevans University of Texas at Austin
Mon. 11:00 AM June 22	PhD Defense "Photon Budget for Ionizing Intergalactic Gas During Cosmic Reionization and Imprint of the Ionized Gas in the Cosmic Microwave Background" abstract Hyunbae Park University of Texas at Austin
Tue. 10 AM July 7	PhD Defense "The Development of Replicated Optical Integral Field Spectrographs and their Application to the Study of Lyman-alpha Emission at Moderate Redshifts" abstract Taylor Chonis University of Texas at Austin
Mon. 10 AM Aug 10	PhD Defense "Star Formation in Molecular Clouds" There have been many recent observations in the area of star formation. High-resolution observations of other galaxies have enabled a study of extragalactic star formation in more detail, while large-scale surveys of the Milky Way have enabled a more comprehensive study of Galactic star formation. We used multiwavelength, large-scale observations of the Milky Way to connect Galactic to Extragalactic star formation, and to study star-formation regulation in molecular clouds. We tested the use of extragalactic star-formation rate tracers on nearby molecular cloud,s and found that the total infrared and 24 micron luminosity underestimate star formation rates of nearby molecular clouds by a large factor, indicating a problem in using extragalactic tracers of star formation on small regions, and regions with low-mass or low star-formation rates. We studied the relation between star formation and molecular gas distribution in the Galactic Plane on various spatial scales. The star formation relation that is seen on disk-averaged scales in other galaxies shows a large scatter on the small scales, suggesting that the underlying reason behind the star formation relation on the large scale does not hold on the scale of clumps or clouds. We built a catalog of Galactic molecular clouds with measured star formation rates, and studied the relations between properties of molecular clouds and star formation, and have tested several models of star formation. close Nalin Vutisalchavakul University of Texas at Austin
Mon. 11 AM Aug 17	PhD Defense "Formation of the First Galaxies under Stellar Feedback" abstract Myoungwon Jeon University of Texas at Austin
Wed. 2 PM Aug 19	PhD Defense "GRB Photospheric and the X-ray Flare Radiation Mechanism" Rodolfo Santana University of Texas at Austin