Events

Homotransfer FRET Sensors for Biological Exploration

"All That Glitters is Not Necessarily Gold: the accurate identification of metals in metalloproteins and post X-ray diffraction structural remediation"

The Local Black Hole Occupation Fraction

"Atomic Scale Imaging of Molecular Dynamics" Martin Centurion, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Department of Physics Understanding and controlling conversion of light into mechanical and chemical energy at the molecular level can have an impact across many fields, from biology to solar …

"Cosmology, Cell Phones & Video Games: Mapping Dark Energy with CHIME"
Keith Vanderlinde, University of Toronto
Among the great surprises of modern cosmology was the discovery of Dark Energy, which dominates the energy budget of the Universe and is driving the acceleration of its expansion rate . . .

"Scaling Down the Laws of Thermodynamics"
Christopher Jarzynski, University of Maryland - College Park
Thermodynamics provides a robust conceptual framework and set of laws that govern the exchange of energy and matter. Although these laws were originally articulated for macroscopic objects, it is hard to deny that nanoscale systems, as well, often exhibit “thermodynamic-like” behavior. To what extent can the venerable laws of thermodynamics be scaled down to apply to individual microscopic systems, and what new features emerge at the nanoscale?

"Topologically Protected Fermi Surfaces"
Daniel Agterberg, UW-Milawukee Department of Physics
The recent rapid development in understanding quantum materials has been shaped by the concept of topological stability: topology ensures robustness of physical properties even when the underlying interactions change substantially

"Detectable Changes in Astronomy"
Federica Bianco, Center for Cosmology & Particle Physics, Center for Urban Science & Progress, NYU
The way we do science in general, and astronomy in particular, is changing rapidly. I will talk about the future of astronomy at the verge of the LSST survey. As the (newly elected) LSST Science Collaborations Coordinator, I will discuss how the whole science community is preparing for this revolution: the largest astronomical survey ever planned, which starting in 2022 will image the entire southern hemisphere sky once every 3 nights to depth and spatial resolution that approach that of the Hubble Space Telescope.

"The Cosmological Context of Star Formation"
Tom Quinn, University of Washington
On the molecular cloud scale, star formation is a very complicated process that involves gravitational collapse, radiative transfer and magnetic fields on sub-parsec scales. On the other hand, there are a number of observed relationships between star formation and galactic and cosmic environment such as star formation rate - molecular surface density relationship in disk galaxies, the stellar mass - halo mass relationship, and the evolution of the star formation rate over time.

"Velocity Gradients as a New Way of Studying Galactic Magnetic Fields"
Alex Lazarian, UW-Madison
I shall introduce three new techniques of magnetic field tracing. The first two use Doppler-shifted emission lines and employs the gradients of velocity in order to trace magnetic fields in the diffuse interstellar media as well as to trace regions of star formation associated with the gravitational collapse. The differences between these techniques is that they use different observationally available measures, i.e. the first one uses the velocity centroids and the other uses velocity channel maps.