Astronomy 381S - Spring 2017

Seminar in Theoretical Astrophysics

M 3:30 · RLM 15.316B · Not for credit Spring 2017

J. Craig Wheeler · RLM 17.230 · (512) 471-6407 · email

Schedule

Jan. 23	J. Craig Wheeler University of Texas at Austin	Organizational Meeting

Jan 30	No talk scheduled

Feb 6	No talk scheduled

Feb 13 3:00 p.m. RLM 5.104	SPECIAL COLLOQUIUM L. Ilsedore Cleeves Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics	From Disks to Planets Through the Astrochemical Lens abstract

Feb 20 3:00 p.m. RLM 5.104	SPECIAL COLLOQUIUM Sanchayeeta Borthakur Johns Hopkins University	Role of Baryon Flows in Galaxy Evolution: Hidden Pathways Connecting Galaxies to the Cosmic Web abstract

Feb 27 3:00 p.m. RLM 5.104	SPECIAL COLLOQUIUM Kristen McQuinn The University of Texas at Austin	Low-Mass Galaxies: Windows into Galaxy Formation and Evolution abstract

Mar 6 3:00 p.m. RLM 5.104	SPECIAL COLLOQUIUM Adam Ginsburg NRAO	High-mass star and cluster formation in the Galaxy abstract

Mar 13	Spring Break

Mar 20	External Review	No talk scheduled

Mar 27	Sera Markoff University of Amsterdam	A combined approach to understanding black hole energy release: from micro- to macrophysics

Apr 3	Ken Chen National Astronomical Observatory of Japan	Lighting up the Universe with Extreme Supernovae Recent all-sky transient searches have discovered new and unexpected explosion types that fall outside traditional SN classification schemes. These exotic outliers in many cases are due to the deaths of massive stars and therefore may have been prevalent in the primordial universe because the Pop III IMF is thought to be top-heavy. Depending on the mass of the progenitor, these outliers may be faint, magnetar-powered, pair-instability, or general relativistic instability SNe, all of which have unique observational signatures. Some of these events are superluminous, 10-100 times brighter than normal supernovae, and may produce energetic UV, X-ray, or gamma-ray bursts. Their extreme luminosities enable their detection at z > 10 and they are ideal probes of the primordial universe at cosmic dawn, prior to the advent of the first galaxies. Here, we examine these exotic explosions with state of the art 3D radiation-hydro simulations that bridge all spatial scales from the central engine to breakout into the IGM, where observational signatures can be computed. We discuss the coevolution of radiation and turbulent mixing in SN ejecta and present realistic light curves for these explosions for JWST and the coming generation of extremely large telescopes (ELTs). Detection rates for Pop III SNe can place useful constraints on the primordial IMF, and their nucleosynthetic yields can be used to study the chemical compositions of extreme metal poor stars. close

Apr 10	Wenbin Lu The University of Texas at Austin	A more complete story of the jetted tidal disruption event Swift J1644+57

Apr 17	Mei-Yu Wang Texas A&M	Effects of Tides on Milky Way Dwarf Satellite Galaxies abstract

Apr 24	No talk scheduled

May 1	No talk scheduled