Past Events

Physical vs. Data-Driven Approaches in the Era of Multi-Wavelength Astronomical Surveys

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Abstract: We are entering the golden age of multi-wavelength astronomical surveys. In the 2020s, a plethora of multi-band surveys (such as Rubin-LSST, DESI, Simons Observatory, CMB-S4, and eROSITA, to name a few) are underway or planned to provide unprecedented insights into the cosmic structure formation and the fundamental physics of the cosmos. One of the key challenges of this cosmic frontier lies in understanding the halo-galaxy-gas connection and the roles of still poorly understood galaxy formation physics and its impact on cosmology.

Read Between the Spectral Lines: Characterizing Substellar Atmospheres

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Abstract: Brown dwarfs and directly imaged self-luminous exoplanets are interesting and complex worlds that form a critical stepping stone along the path to imaging Earth-like planets. By examining their atmospheres in detail we can better understand their thermal profiles, chemical composition, and cloud properties that are tightly coupled with their formation and evolution. In this talk, I will explain how I use atmospheric retrievals, a powerful inverse modeling technique, to examine the atmospheres of brown dwarfs.

Fragility of life or what would happen if the speed of light were smaller

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Abstract: The anthropic principle implies that life can emerge and be sustained only in a narrow range of values of fundamental constants. We show that anthropic arguments can set powerful constraints on transient variations of the fine-structure constant alpha (or, colloquially, speed of light) over the past 4 billion years since the appearance of lifeforms on Earth.

Towards new circuit elements for protected superconducting qubits

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Abstract: Quantum-based electronics is a rapidly accelerating technology, where information is encoded in the quantum mechanical states of coupled natural or artificial atoms. To unlock the exceptional potential of quantum computers, one of the key challenges that the field has to overcome is to preserve the coherence of a quantum superposition over extended times.

Introduction to Computational Imaging

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Abstract: This tutorial will introduce computational imaging as a broad range of techniques in which algorithms play a major role in the final image formation process. The basic recipe for computational imaging involves coming up with a forward model that can simulate/predict what your imaging system measures. This model is computationally inverted to reconstruct the object under investigation. We will also discuss how to incorporate prior knowledge and constructs from machine learning into the computational reconstruction algorithms to improve the image reconstruction fidelity.