Astrophysics seminars

Summer Term (2022-2023)

25 April                Vardan Elbakyan (Leicester) – Dust dynamics in protoplanetary discs, accretion outbursts on protostars

2 May                  Niall Jeffrey (UCL) – Cosmology, Statistical models

9 May                  Paola Pinilla (MSSL) – Observations of protoplanetary discs

16 May                 Jim Dunlop (Edinburgh) – Extra-galactic astronomy, Cosmology

23 May                 Danielle Leonard (Newcastle) – Weak gravitational lensing & Galaxy clustering

30 May                  TBD

6 June                  Sebastian Marino (Exeter) – Debris discs, Protoplanetary discs

13 June                Sebastiaan Krijt (Exeter) – Early formation of planets, Dust in discs

20 June                Duncan Farrah (Hawaii) – Quasars & Cosmology

27 June                 Matthew Colless (Canberra) – Observational cosmology & Galaxy dynamics

Spring Term (2022-23)

10 January          Kevin Heng (Munich) – Planetary atmospheres

17 January          Matthew Colless (Canberra) – Observational cosmology & galaxy dynamics

24 January          Richard Parker (Sheffield) – Formation & evolution of star clusters

31 January          Heather Cegla (Warwick) – Exoplanets

7 February          Shirley Ho – Machine learning, Dark energy, CMB

14 February       Rescheduled

21 February       Rescheduled

28 February       Rescheduled

14 March            Harry Desmond (Portsmouth) – Cosmology, Statistical methods

21 March            Rescheduled

28 March            Charlie Hoy (Portsmouth) – Gravitational waves

Autumn term (2022-23) 

Oct 11: James Kirk (Imperial) - What can we learn from exoplanet atmospheres and how can we study them?
Oct 18: Marcos Pellejero-Ibanez (DIPC) -Hybrid approaches for structure formation
Oct 25: Oscar Barragan (Oxford) - Detection of planetary signals in cases of extreme stellar activity
Nov 1: Sheona Urquhart (Open University)
Nov 8: Kate Pattle (UCL) - Interstellar Magnetic Fields: From Star Formation to Galaxy Evolution
Nov 15: TBC Nov 22: Hilke Schlichting (UCLA)
Nov 29: TBC
Dec 6: Amy Bonsor (Cambridge)
Dec 13: TBC

Autumn term (2021-22) 

Oct 13: Rachael Beaton (Princeton University, USA)

Engineering the Cosmological Measurements with Old Stellar Populations

Oct 20: James Owen (Imperial College London)

UV-SCOPE: A NASA MiDEX mission concept to explore exoplanets inthe UV

Oct 27: Matthias Rempel (University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, USA)

Flare simulations with the MURaM radiative MHD code

Nov 3: Trent Dupuy (University of Edinburgh) 

Beneath the Surface: Testing Evolutionary Models of Giant Planets and Brown Dwarfs

Nov 10: Rebecca Bowler (University of Oxford)

What bright galaxies can tell us about the first billion years

Nov 17: Amy Steele (McGill University)

Constraining the composition of exo-planetary material around white dwarf stars

Nov 24: Florent Leclercq (Imperial College London)

Bayesian analyses of galaxy surveys

Dec 1: Michael Rowan-Robinson (Imperial College London)

A Search for Planet 9 in the IRAS Data

Dec 8: Daniel Holz (University of Chicago)

Some recent results in gravitational-wave science

Dec 15: Tim Cunningham (University of Warwick)

Convective overshoot in white dwarf stars: insights from 3D radiation hydrodynamics

Winter term (2021-22) 

Jan 26: Glenn Starkman (Case Western Reserve University, USA; visitor at Imperial College London)

Gravitational glint: Detectable gravitational wave tails from stars and compact objects

Feb 2: Claudio Dalla Vecchia (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Spain)

Eagles and Canaries

Feb 9: John Tobin (National Radio Astronomy Obervatory (NRAO), USA)

(General topic: Star formation)

Feb 16: Elisabeth Krause (Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, USA) 

Large-Scale Structure Cosmology in the Systematics-Limited Regime

Feb 23: TBD

Mar 2: Manda Banerji-Wright (University of Southampton)

(General topic: Co-evolution of galaxies and super-massive black holes)

Mar 9: Charlotte Mason (Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark) 

(General topic: Formation and evolution of galaxies in the early universe)

[NOTE special earlier time: 2:45-4:15 pm (2:45-3:15 pm: Speaker/student discussion; 3:15-4:00 pm: Seminar; 4:00-4:15 pm: Coffee)]

Mar 16: Will Hartley (Université de Genève)

(General topic: Dark Energy Survey)

Mar 23: TBD

 Summer term (2021-22) 

May 18: Steve Choi (Cornell University, USA)

Next Generation Cosmology from the Atacama Desert

May 25: Amelie Saintonge (University College London)

From cosmic web to molecular clouds: the multiple scales of galaxy evolution

June 1: Claudia Scoccola (University of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina)

(General topic: Cosmology)

June 8: Suvodip Mukherjee (Flatiron Institute / Simons Foundation, USA)

(General topic: Cosmology)

June 8: Suvodip Mukherjee (Flatiron Institute / Simons Foundation, USA)

(General topic: Cosmology)

SPECIAL SEMINAR:

June 9, 11am – 12 pm: Stefano Anselmi (University of Padova, Italy)

Are Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations a Dark Energy Probe?

Baryon Acoustic Oscillations are considered one of the most powerful Dark Energy cosmological probes. They are assumed to provide distance measures independent of a specific cosmological model. However, in current measurements, the inference is done assuming parameter values of a fiducial LCDM model and employing prescriptions tested to be unbiased only within some LCDM fiducial cosmologies. Moreover the procedure is plagued by the ambiguity of choosing a specific correlation function model-template to measure cosmological distances. Does this comply with the requirement of model-independent distances useful, for instance, to select cosmological models or characterize tensions? In this talk I will review the subject, answer to compelling questions and explore new promising research directions.

June 15: Giovanni Rosotti (University of Leicester)

(General topic: Protoplanetary Disks)

June 22: NO SEMINAR (1st year ESA talks)

June 29: TBD

Autumn term (2020-21) 

Oct 14: Richard Booth (Imperial College London)

Dust and gas evolution in protoplanetary discs

Oct 21: Matthaus Schulik (Imperial College London) 

Forming gas giant planets in 3D – Current progress and future challanges

Oct 28: Karina Voggel (Strasbourg Observatory)

The Hidden Black Holes in Surviving Nuclear Star Clusters of Accreted Galaxies 

Nov 4: Boris Leistedt (Imperial College London)

Cosmology with galaxy surveys

Nov 11: Ashley Spindler (Univ. of Hertfordshire)

AstroVaDEr – An Unsupervised Approach to Galaxy Classification and Image Synthesis

Nov 18: Selim Hotinli (Imperial College London)

New directions in cosmology: utilising the small-scale signatures in the Universe 

Nov 25: Ansgar Reiners (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)

 M dwarfs, planets, and their atmospheres - results from the CARMENES project

Dec 2: Tana Joseph (University of Amsterdam)

Multi-messenger studies of binary stellar systems with the SKA

Dec 9: Rebecca Nealon (University of Warwick)

Misalignments and shadows in protoplanetary discs

Winter term (2020-21) 

Jan 27: Adélie Gorce (McGill University, Canada)

Cosmological signatures of the Epoch of Reionisation: A statistical approach

Feb 3: Sarah Bosman (Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Germany) 

Beyond the Lyman-α forest: Understanding the end stages of Reionisation

Feb 10: Cynthia Chiang (McGill University, Canada)

Illuminating the Dark Universe with Radio Observations 

Feb 17: Marija Jankovic (University of Cambridge)

The inner protoplanetary disc and the formation of super-Earths

Feb 24: Giovanna Tinetti (UCL)

Ariel: enabling planetary science across light-years

Mar 3: NO SEMINAR

Mar 10: Jane Greaves (Cardiff University)

Updates on phosphine on Venus: any prospect for extant life in the clouds?

Mar 17: Jayne Birkby (University of Oxford)

Exoplanet Atmospheres in High Resolution

Mar 24: Barbara Ercolano (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet, University Observatory Munich, Germany)

Thermal disc winds and their role in the formation and evolution of planets

Spring term (2020-21) 

NOTE: Seminars this term will start at 16:00, and will continue being held remotely via Zoom. 

May 5: Rebecca Smethurst (University of Oxford)

The growth of supermassive black holes in the absence of mergers and the effect on their host galaxies

May 12: Cathie Clarke (University of Cambridge)

Using simulations and observations of protoplanetary discs to understand planetary system formation

May 19: Steven Murray (Arizona State University, USA)

Building Confidence in Next-Generation 21cm Cosmology: A Forward-Model Approach

May 26: Neal Turner (NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, USA)

(Hyperion: exploring the evolution of star-forming clouds and planet-forming disks with far-UV spectroscopy from space)

Jun 2: Evgenya Shkolnik (Arizona State University, USA)

(A Holistic View of Exoplanets, their Environments, and their Potential to Host Life)

Jun 9: Jinyi Yang (University of Arizona, USA)

(General topic: High-z quasar searches)

Jun 16: NO SEMINAR (PG 1st year talks)

Jun 23: Marius Millea (UC Berkeley, USA)

(General topic: CMB lensing)

Jun 30: NO SEMINAR (PG late review talks)

Autumn term (2019-20)

Oct 2: Daniel Bayliss (Univ. of Warwick)

Exoplanet Science with NGTS and TESS

Oct 9: ICIC seminar: Daniel Mortlock (Imperial College London) 

Hubble Trouble

Oct 16: ICIC seminar: Natalia Porqueres (Imperial College London)

Inferring the Dynamical Growth of Structures at High Redshift

Oct 23: ICIC seminar: Fabian Schmidt (Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Garching)

New Approaches to Galaxy Clustering

Oct 30: Jonathan Tan (Chalmers Univ. of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden)

A Light in the Dark: Massive Star Birth Through Cosmic Time

Nov 6: Cora Uhlemann (DAMTP, Univ. of Cambridge)

Cosmology and fundamental physics with counts-in-cells

Nov 13: Sarah Casewell (Univ. of Leicester)

Irradiated brown dwarfs: Providing insights into exoplanet atmospheres

Nov 20: Ian Parry (Univ. of Cambridge)

Searching for the 763nm oxygen "bio-signature" with large space telescopes

Nov 27: Anastasia Fialkov (Kavli Institute for Cosmology, Univ. of Cambridge)

Unveiling cosmic dawn 

Dec 4: Mark Wyatt (Univ. of Cambridge)

(General topic: Debris disks and planet formation)

Dec 11: Anne Hutter (Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, Groningen, Netherlands)

(General topic: Reionisation and galaxy formation)

Autumn term (2018-19)

Oct 3: Rebecca Canning (Stanford Univ., USA)

The Cluster AGN Topography Survey: Disentangling AGN and Large-Scale Structure

Oct 10: Kate Rowlands (Johns Hopkins Univ., USA) (note: 2:30 start)

Caught in the Act: Charting Galaxy Transformation over Cosmic Time

Oct 17: TBD

TBD

Oct 23 (Tuesday): Yamila Miguel (Univ. of Leiden) (note: 3-4 pm, Blackett 741. Special seminar replacing Wed Oct 24) 

The Interior of Jupiter Revealed by Juno

Oct 24: CANCELLED, replaced by above

Oct 31: Colin McNally (Queen Mary Univ. London)

Towards a new understanding of planet migration in modern models of protoplanetary discs

Nov 7: Julian Adamek (Queen Mary Univ. London)

Relativistic Effects in Cosmic Large-scale Structure

Nov 14: Annelies Mortier (Univ. of Cambridge)

Stellar Spectroscopy in Exoplanet Research

Nov 21: Brooke Simmons (Lancaster Univ.)

Illuminating the Growth of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes

Nov 28: Paul Rimmer (Univ. of Cambridge)

Abiogenesis Zones around M-Dwarfs

Dec 5: Nate Bastian (Liverpool John Moores Univ.)

The E-MOSAICS Project: Simulating the Formation and Evolution of Galaxies and their Globular Cluster Systems across Cosmic History

Dec 12: Jason McEwan (UCL) (note: ICIC seminar)

High-dimensional uncertainty quantification in astrophysics

Dec 19: Chiaki Hikage (Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, Univ. of Tokyo, Japan)

Cosmology from cosmic shear power spectra with Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam data

Winter term (2018-19) 

Jan 16: Tom Theuns (Durham Univ.)

An analytical model of galaxy formation

Jan 23: NO SEMINAR (Astro Open Day)

Jan 30: Grant Kennedy (Univ. of Warwick) 

Disks and their interactions with (sub-)stellar companions

Feb 6: Catherine Walsh (Univ. of Leeds)

The chemistry of planet-forming disks in the era of ALMA

Feb 13: Matthew Genge (Imperial College, Dept. of Earth Science & Engineering) 

Interplanetary dust and the origins of life on Earth

Feb 20: Giulio Fabbian (Univ. of Sussex)

Challenges for Cosmology and Astrophysics with CMB lensing and galaxy surveys cross-correlations

Feb 27: CANCELLED

Mar 6: Roman Rafikov (DAMTP, Univ. of Cambridge)

Nature and Origin of 'Oumuamua - First Interstellar Visitor to the Solar System

Mar 13: Cassandra Hall (Univ. of Leicester)

Gravitational instability and substructure in protoplanetary discs 

Mar 20: Bill Chaplin (Univ. of Birmingham)

Asteroseismology and Exoplanets

Spring term (2018-19) 

May 1: Harry Desmond (Univ. of Oxford)

Fifth force searches in galaxies

May 8: Clare Dobbs (Univ. of Exeter)

Simulations of the galaxy M33 - determining the spiral structure and properties of GMCs

May 15: Shirley Ho (Flatiron Institute, Simons Foundation, New York, USA)

Machine Learning the Universe: Opening the Pandora Box

May 22: CANCELLED

May 29: Keir Rogers (Stockholm Univ.) (note: ICIC seminar)

Bayesian emulator optimisation: optimised interpolation of astrophysical simulations

Jun 5: Tassia Ferreira (Federal Univ. of Esprito Santo, Brazil / Carnegie Mellon Univ., USA)

The tale of two projects: covariance matrices and interaction in the dark sector

Jun 12: Emre Isik (MPS, Göttingen; Turkish-German Univ., Istanbul)

Forward modelling of magnetic activity diagnostics in Sun-like stars

Jun 19: Suzanne Aigrain (Univ. of Oxford)

Getting the most out of radial velocity planet searches by embracing the stellar noise

Jun 26: Ed Gillen (Univ. of Cambridge)

(General topic: Early evolution of stellar and planetary systems)

Autumn term (2017-18)

Oct 4: David Valls-Gabaud (Observatoire de Paris)

The MESSIER Surveyor: Lifting the Veil on the Ultra-Low Surface Brightness Universe

Oct 11: Ali Dariush (Univ. of Cambridge)

A Multi-Dsciplinary Approach Towards Analysing Medical Images

Oct 18: Pierre Sikivie (University of Florida, Gainesville)

The Search for Axions

Oct 25: Nikku Madhusudhan (Univ. of Cambridge)

Chemical Characterisation of Exoplanetary Atmospheres

Nov 1: Amaury Triaud (Univ. of Birmingham)

The Plurality of Worlds

Nov 6: Special Seminar: Adam Burgasser (Univ. of California San Diego)

Spectral Binaries: A Novel Approach for Measuring the Binary Fraction of Very Low Mass Stars and Brown Dwarfs

Nov 8: Richard Alexander (Univ. of Leicester)

Building Planetary Systems

Nov 15: Prof. Joseph Conlon (Univ. of Oxford )

Search for Axions and Dark Matter from Active Galactic Nuclei

Nov 22: Alkistis Pourtsidou (Queen Mary Univ. of London)

Synergies between 21-cm Intensitity Mapping, Optical, and CMB Surveys 

Nov 29: Rachael Ainsworth (Univ. of Manchester)

Young Sun-Like Stars at Metre Wavelengths & Open Science in Astronomy

Dec 6: Nina Hatch (Univ. of Nottingham)

Dec 13: Guillem Anglada (Queen Mary Univ. of London)

Winter term (2017-18)

Jan 10: cancelled

Jan 17: no seminar (PG Open Day)

Jan 24: Tamara Rogers (Univ. of Newcastle)

Magnetism in Hot Jupiters

Jan 31: Florent Leclercq (Imperial)

Bayesian large-scale structure inference, likelihood-based and likelihood-free approaches

Feb 7: Fabio Antonini (Univ. of Surrey)

Nuclear clusters and (supermassive) black holes

Feb 14: Daan Meerburg (Univ. of Cambridge) 

Cosmological challenges: neutrino mass

Feb 21: Ben Farmer (Imperial)

Global fits and Bayesian naturalness

Feb 28: Cancelled

Mar 7: Cancelled

Mar 14: Min-Kai Lin (ASIAA Sinica, Taiwan)

Mar 21: Michael Rowan-Robinson (Imperial)

Spring term (2017-18)

May 2: Jay Farihi (UCL)

Exoplanetary Archaeology: The Fossil Record of Rocky Planetary Systems

May 9: Will Handley (Univ. of Cambridge)

Nested Sampling: an efficient and robust Bayesian inference tool for 
astrophysics and cosmology

May 16: Jack Line (Univ. of Melbourne, Australia)

A rundown of the MWA EoR experiment

May 23: Duncan Farrah (Virginia Tech, USA)

Insights into galaxy assembly from luminous AGN in the distant Universe

May 30: Caroline Dorn (Univ. of Zurich, Switzerland)

Interior characterization for multiplanetary systems: Trappist-1

June 6: Samantha Penny (Univ. of Portsmouth)

Examining low mass galaxy evolution through SDSS-IV MaNGA spatially resolved spectroscopy

June 13: Helen Russell (Univ. of Cambridge)

Massive molecular gas flows and AGN feedback in galaxy clusters

June 20: Jessica Spake (Univ. of Exeter)

Helium in the upper atmospheres of exoplanets

June 27: Richard Nelson (Queen Mary Univ. of London)

Migration and growth of planets in non-turbulent protoplanetary discs

AUTUMN TERM 2016

Oct 5

Eric Feigelson (Penn State)

Astrostatistics: The role of statistics in astronomical research

Oct 12

Michael Burgess (KTH Stockholm)

Exploring Gamma-ray Bursts via the Bayesian Paradigm

Oct 19

Nick Kaiser (IfA, University of Hawaii)

Gravitational Redshifts in Clusters of Galaxies

Oct 26

Heather Campbell (University of Surrey)

How SNe Ia host galaxy properties affect cosmological parameters and Gaia Science Alerts

Nov 2

Sarah Rugheimer (University of St. Andrews)

Impact of UV on Characterizing Pale Blue Dots around Other Stars

Nov 9

Anne Green (University of Nottingham)

Probing the astrophysics and particle physics of WIMPs with direct detection experiments

Nov 16

Matthew Auger (IoA, University of Cambridge)

The Evolution of Dark and Stellar Mass in Massive Stellar Galaxies

Nov 23

Mark Sullivan (University of Southampton)

The transient universe: Cosmic explosions and dark energy 

Nov 30

Steve Longmore (Liverpool John Moores University)

The Galactic Centre: A template for understanding star formation and feedback in a high-pressure environment

Dec 7

Piero Madau (University of California Santa Cruz)

The Dark and Light Side of Galaxy Formation

Dec 14

Matt Browning (University of Exeter)

Magnetism, Buoyancy and Dissipation in Convective Stars and Planets

SPRING TERM 2017

Jan 18

Thomas Bisbas (MPE Garching)

The Effect of Cosmic Rays on the Observability of H2 Gas in the Universe

Jan 25

Tom Haworth (Imperial College London)

Multiphysics Modelling in Astronomy

Feb 1

cancelled

Feb 8

Suman Majumdar (Imperial College London)

Various Estimators of the Redshifted 21-cm Signal from the Epoch of Reionisation

Feb 15

Julie Wardlow (University of Durham)

Unveiling Extreme Dusty Star Formation at z > 2

Feb 22

cancelled

Mar 1

Jan Forbrich (University of Hertfordshire)

The Orion Radio All-Stars: New Perspectives in Stellar Radio Astronomy

Mar 8

Stephen Wilkins (University of Sussex)

Observations and Simulations of the Epoch of Reionisation 

Mar 15

Aaron Vincent (Imperial College London)

Dark Matter in the Sun

Mar 22

Carole Mundell (University of Bath)

Black Hole Driven Explosions and the Dynamic Universe

SPRING TERM 2016

20 January

Gerry Gilmore (IoA Cambridge)

Gaia - Galactic, Extragalactic, Solar System and Cosmology Science

27 January

Tom Kitching (MSSL UCL)

Doing physics with weak lensing surveys

3 February

Sarah Kendrew (Oxford)

High-redshift galaxy kinematics in the E-ELT era

10 February

Michelle Collins (Surrey)

The Faintest Galaxies as probes of cosmology and galactic evolution

17 February

Miguel Quartin (Rio)

The Cosmic Supernova Recycling Program

24 February

Sean Matt (Exeter)

Rotation, Magnetic Activity, and Mass Loss of Sun-Like Stars

2 March

No seminar

9 March

Rubina Kotax (Queen's Belfast)

Eruptions and explosions of massive stars: current enigmas and future prospects

16 March

David van Dyk (Imperial)

Science-Driven Image Analysis in Astronomy and Solar Physics (ICIC seminar)

23 March

Hiranya Peiris (UCL)

Towards fundamental physics with cosmological surveys

SUMMER TERM 2016

27 April

Haley Gomez (Cardiff)

Dusty Galaxies and smoking supernovae

4 May

Xiaohui Fan (Arizona)

The most massive Black Holes in the Early Universe

11 May

Olja Panic (IoA Cambridge)

Warm and cold cradles of giant planets

18 May

Andy Taylor (Edinburgh)

No go for cosmic self-acceleration

25 May

Nick Kaiser (IfA Hawaii)

Biases in the cosmological distance-redshift relation

1 June

Yvonne Unruh (Imperial)

Modelling solar magnetic variability

8 June

Manda Banerji (IoA Cambridge)

Dusty quasars in the high-redshift Universe: supermassive Black Holes in formation?

15 June

Mark Wilkinson (Leicester)

Dwarf spheroidal galaxies: cosmological probes on our doorstep

22 June

Mark Hannam (Cardiff)

When black holes collide: the dawn of gravitational-wave astronomy

SPRING TERM 2015

Wednesday 21 January 2015

Chris Blake (Swinburne)

Testing gravitational physics with cosmological observations

Wednesday 4 February 2015 (ICIC seminar)

Daniel Mortlock (Imperial)

Bayesian model comparison in astronomy and cosmology

Wednesday 11 February 2015

Beth Biller (Edinburgh)

Detecting and Characterising Planets with Direct Imaging

Wednesday 18 February 2015

Amelie Saintonge (UCL)

Gas accretion and star formation: drivers of galaxy evolution

Wednesday 4 March 2015

Monica Grady (Open University)

Rosetta and Philae

Wednesday 18 March 2015 (ICIC seminar)

Iain Murray (Edinburgh)

Machine learning methods for density estimation, as tools for astronomy

SUMMER TERM 2015

29 Apr 2015

Serena Viti (UCL)

Determining the physical and chemical conditions of AGN and starburst galaxies        

6 May 2015

Jonathan Tan (Florida)

Inside-out Planet Formation

13 May 2015

Natasha Karpenko (Southampton)

Bayesian numerical recipes for supernova data analysis: cosmology and photometric classification

(ICIC seminar)

20 May 2015

George Efstathiou (KICC Cambridge)

Cosmology with Planck 2015

27 May 2015

Andrei Mesinger (Pisa)

What can we learn from observations of reionisation? 

(ICIC seminar)

3 June 2015

John Peacock (Edinburgh)

Gravitational lensing and the cosmic photosphere

17 June 2015

Sergey Koposov (IoA Cambridge)

Streams and satellites: Galactic Archaeology with large surveys

24 June 2015

Rita Tojeiro (St Andrews)

The case for fully-resolved star-formation histories: difficult, but worth it 

AUTUMN TERM 2015

7 October

Marcel Agüeros (Columbia)

Setting Stellar Chronometers: The PTF Open Cluster Survey

14 October

Bruce Bassett (Cape Town)

Trying to break cosmology

21 October

Baojiu Li (Durham)

Following light through cosmological simulations

28 October

Rennan Barkana (Tel Aviv)

Observing the First Stars with 21-cm Cosmology

4 November

Anze Slosar (Brookhaven)

Cosmology with the Lyman-alpha forest

18 November

Franz Elsner (UCL)

Parameter estimation in cosmology - the Planck likelihood

25 November

Tara Murphy (Sydney)

Exploring the dynamic radio sky with the Murchison Widefield Array

2 December

Boris Leistedt (NYU)

From precision to accuracy: cosmology with large imaging surveys

16 December

Amy Bonsor (IoA Cambridge)

Dust, Comets and Planets

ASTROPHYSICS SEMINARS

SPRING TERM

Tuesday 7 January 2014

Nick Kaiser (University of Hawaii)

Gravitational Redshifts in Clusters of Galaxies

Tuesday 21 January 2014

Ray Jayawardhana (University of Toronto)

Characterizing exoplanets

 
Wednesday 29 January 2014  (ICIC Seminar)

Roberto Trotta (Imperial College)

Bayesian model selection of inflationary models:The best inflationary models after Planck

PLEASE NOTE THE EARLIER TIME, AND CHANGED LOCATION.

 
Wednesday 5 February 2014

John Ellis (King's College)

Planck-Compatible Inflationary Models

Wednesday 19 February 2014 

Paul O'Brien (University of Leicester)

Gamma-Ray Bursts

Wednesday 26 February 2014

Jaiyul Yoo (Heidelberg)

New Perspective on Galaxy Clustering and Cosmology

 
Wednesday 5 March 2014

Cristina Popescu (University of Lancaster)

Radiative transfer modelling of galaxies

Wednesday 19 March 2014
Didier Queloz (University of Cambridge)

Exoplanets and the nature of other worlds

Wednesday 26 March 2014
Matt Browning (University of Exeter)

Simulations of Convection and Magnetism in Stars

SUMMER TERM

Wednesday 7 May 2014

Lucia Marchetti (Open University)

The HerMES FIR/SMM Luminosity function evolution,

charting the Obscured Star Formation History of the Universe

SEMINAR POSTPONED TO A LATER DATE 

Wednesday 14 May 2014

Karen Masters (Portsmouth)

Galaxy Zoo

Wednesday 21 May 2014

Andrew Pontzen (UCL)

Astrophysical effects that might irritate cosmologists

Wednesday 28 May 2014 (Note location)

Fiona Harrison (CalTech)

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR)

Location: Huxley 308

Wednesday 4 June 2014

Isobel Hook (Oxford/Rome)

The European Extremely Large Telescope

Wednesday 11 June 2014

Jenni Adams (Canterbury, NZ)

IceCube Neutrino Physics

Wednesday 18 June 2014

Don Pollacco (Warwick)

The Hunt for Earth-2

AUTUMN TERM 2014

Wednesday 8 October 2014

Lyndsay Fletcher (Glasgow)

Energy transport and particle acceleration in solar (and stellar) flares

Wednesday 15 October 2014

Celine Boehm (Durham)

Dark Matter interactions and their impact on cosmological probes

Wednesday 22 October 2014

No seminar

Wednesday 29 October 2014

Ewan Cameron (Oxford)

Three faces of weak convergence with astronomical relevance! (ICIC seminar)

Wednesday 5 November 2014

Andy Connolly (Washington)

Astronomy in the era of the LSST: understanding our universe a bit at a time

Wednesday 12 November 2014

Stuart Sim (Belfast)

Explosion modelling for Type Ia supernovae

Wednesday 19 November 2014

Lucia Marchetti (Open University)

The HerMES FIR/SMM Luminosity function evolution,

charting the Obscured Star Formation History of the Universe

Wednesday 26 November 2014

Department Colloquium

Wednesday 3 December 2014

Francesco Shankar (Southampton)

Empirically constraining the Evolution of Super-massive Black Holes

Wednesday 10 December 2014

Steve Balbus (Oxford)

Convection and rotation in the Sun

Wednesday 17 December 2014

Mario Santos (Cape Town)

Cosmology with the Square Kilometre Array (SKA)

See also 3-PAC Seminars

COSMOLOGY SEMINARS

SUMMER TERM:

Friday 9th May

Stefano Orani (University of Basel)

Hilltop inflation with preinflation from coupling to matter field

Friday 16th May

Chris Clarkson (UCT Astrophysics, Cosmology & Gravity Centre)

Relativistic corrections in cosmological modelling

Friday 6th June

Levon Pogosian (SFU Canada)
CMB B-modes - the quest for other smoking guns

Friday 13th June

Evaluating the evidence for dark matter annihilation in the Galactic Center

Friday 20th June

Kepa Sousa (UPV/EHU Bilbao)

CMB Anisotropies by Collapsing Textures

Friday 27th June

Pawel Bielewicz (SISSA Italy)
Constraining the topology of the Universe using temperature and polarisation CMB maps

Relativistic corrections in cosmological modelling

SPRING TERM

23  January 2013

Clare Dobbs (University of Exeter)

The formation and evolution of giant molecular clouds

30 January  

Lingyu Wang (University of Durham)

The nature of star-forming galaxies

6 February

Rachael Livermore (University of Durham)

Clumpy star formation at high redshift revealed with gravitational lensing

20 February

Sebastiano Cantalupo (UC Santa Cruz)

Dark galaxies and circum-galactic filaments illuminated by high-redshift quasars

27 February

Vivienne Wild (University of St Andrews)

The evolution of star-burst galaxies

6 March

Pratika Dayal (University of Edinburgh)

Galaxies in the first billion years tracing reionization and the cosmic dawn

13 March

Joe Hilbe (Arizona State University)

The use of statistical count models in astrostatistics

20 March Tim Naylor (University of Exeter)

How fast do planets and stars form?  A radical revision to the pre-main-sequence age scale

17 April

Anna Feltre  (ESO, Garching)

Modelling IR SEDs of AGN with Spitzer and Herschel data

SUMMER TERM

 
1 May

David Sing (University of Exeter)

A large HST transmission spectral survey of hot-Jupiter exoplanetary atmospheres

8 May

Nick Wright (University of Hertfordshire)

The Dynamics of young star clusters

22 May

Matthew Ruffoni (Imperial College London)

Laboratory studies of atomic spectra for astrophysical applications

29 May

Anna Scaife (University of Southampton)

Magnetic fields in heavenly bridges

5 June

Clare Dobbs (University of Exeter)

The formation and evolution of giant molecular clouds

12 June

Jamie Bolton (University of Nottingham)

Reionisation via the Lyman-alpha line

19 June

Michael Brown (University of Manchester)

Prospects for weak lensing studies with new radio telescopes

20 June

Michelle Knights (University of Cape Town)

Improving stacking techniques with Bayesian statistics

ASTROPHYSICS SEMINARS (2012)

All seminars begin at 2.30pm in room 1004, Blackett Laboratory, unless otherwise indicated below, and are followed by refreshments and discussion. Seminar organiser: Dr Daniel Mortlock (d.mortlock AT imperial.ac.uk)

Wednesday, May 2

Rhodri Evans (Cardiff University)

"Astonomy from a Boeing 747: why and how"

Wednesday, May 9

Luca Fossati (Open University)

"HST observations of the transiting exoplanet WASP-12b: deepening into a complex system"

Wednesday, May 23

Chiara Arina (Aachen University)

"Dark Matter direct detection and Bayesian statistics"

Wednesday, May 30

Chris Carilli (National Radio Astronomy Observatory)

"A molecular deep field"

Wednesday, June 6

Michael Rowan-Robinson (Imperial College)

"Interstellar dust in the inner solar system" 

Wednesday, June 20 

Elisabetta Valianted (University of Cardiff)

"Submillimetre observations of galaxy evolution"

Wednesday, June 27

Roberto Maiolino (University of Cambridge)

"The evolution of the metals and dust content in galaxies throughout the cosmic epochs"

COSMOLOGY SEMINARS (2012)

All seminars begin at 12 noon in the Theoretical Physics seminar room, Room 503, Huxey Building, unless otherwise indicated below. Seminar organisers: Laura Watson (l.watson09 AT imperial.ac.uk) and Caroline Clark (caroline.clark05 AT imperial.ac.uk) 

4th May

Anne Green (Nottingham)

"The Search for Dark Matter"

18th May

Dipak Munshi (Cardiff)

"Statistical Properties of Thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Maps"

25th May

Michelle Knights (Cape Town)

"Towards the Future of Supernova Cosmology"

8th June

Robert Crittenden (Portsmouth)

"Fables of Reconstruction: Controlling Bias in the Dark Energy Equation of State"

15th June

Lloyd Knox (UC Davis, California)

Title TBA

JOURNAL CLUB (2010)

Journal club begins at 12 pm and takes place in room 1004, Blackett Laboratory. Please feel free to bring along your lunch. Hot beverages and biscuits will be available (please bring your own mug). Journal club organiser: Dr Markos Trichas

JOURNAL CLUB (2009)

Journal club begins at 12 pm and takes place in room 1004, Blackett Laboratory. Please feel free to bring along your lunch. Hot beverages and biscuits will be available (please bring your own mug). Journal club organiser: Dr Markos Trichas.