In this seminar talk, the speaker will begin with a brief overview of how quantum computation has led to an exciting new set of features for designing generative models, emphasizing that these features should be utilized with intention to help researchers obtain a better understanding of how quantum is useful and for what specific learning tasks.
Abstract: The recent launch of JWST is revolutionizing our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres by providing observations at an unprecedented level of detail. In this talk, I will discuss two methods for studying the atmospheres of exoplanets with JWST. First, I will discuss the potential for spectroscopic eclipse mapping with JWST. Spectroscopic eclipse mapping is the only observational technique which allows for simultaneous resolution of the atmosphere in three spatial dimensions: latitude, longitude, and altitude.
What happens if a main-sequence star orbits very close to a supermassive black hole in a galactic center? If the star approaches within tens of times the event horizon of the black hole, the black holes's intense tidal forces would tear the star apart in a matter of hours. This dramatic event, also known as a tidal disruption event, may sound like a Sci-Fi movie.
Stellar astrophysics underpins all areas of astronomy - the explosive deaths of massive stars as supernovae enrich their local environments with processed materials, driving subsequent chemical and galactic evolution, while the compact remnants they leave behind determine the rates of gravitational wave events in the Universe. As such, linking massive stars to their cosmic endpoints is a fundamental aim of stellar astronomy.
Despite the remarkable success of the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) cosmological model, several challenges have recently emerged. One of the most prominent is the "Hubble tension": the Hubble expansion rate (H_0) measured using the Cepheid-calibrated distance ladder of type Ia supernovae and the value extrapolated from the cosmic microwave background using LCDM disagree by 5 standard deviations.
Abstract: Galaxies are a lot like people. If you pay attention to someone’s accent, mannerism, music taste, and cuisine preference — you can infer something about their culture, their heritage, their ancestry. On the same vein, by inspecting a galaxy’s morphology, kinematics and chemical composition — one can infer information about its assembly history, its interaction history. The first part of this talk will focus on extreme galactic collisions, where a small satellite crashes onto the baryonic body of a massive neighbor and survives.
