The Physics department colloquia are usually on Friday afternoons at 3:30 pm in Lapham Hall Room 160. Coffee and cookies are served at 3:15 pm in the same room. Anyone is welcome.

Magnetic Toys in the Sky
Dr. Yuri Levin, Assoc. Professor & ARC Future Fellow, School of Physics & Astronomy, Monash University (Melbourne, Australia)

In terrestrial conditions, magnetic fields usually play second fiddle to matter. However, in space, magnetic fields can play a decisive role in dynamics of many astrophysical objects.
In my talk, I will describe several interesting magnetic structures that do not have counterparts in terrestrial conditions: 1. Accretion discs around supermassive black holes that are in a state of magnetic levitation, 2. Magnetically driven hurricane-like deflagration fronts that are explosively consuming oceans on rapidly spinning neutron stars, and 3. Avalanches of magnetically-induced thermoplastic failures in magnetar crusts that may be connected to the observed activity of magnetars.