Description:

There's More than One Way to Simulate a Galaxy (or, There Will Be Lots of Movies in this Talk)

Dr. Sarah Wellons, Postdoctoral Researcher, CIERA

Galaxy formation is a highly complex process which is affected by physics over a huge dynamic range, from the collapse of dark matter halos on >Mpc scales to star formation and supernovae on sub-pc scales. Any complete theory of galaxy formation must explain not only spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way, but also large elliptical galaxies, irregular dwarf galaxies, and everything in between. I will give a broad overview of the physics important to galaxy formation and the major simulation-based approaches that theorists use to address this complexity, including idealized simulations, large-volume cosmological simulations, and zoom-in simulations. I will then briefly discuss a few recent/ongoing studies by myself and collaborators which utilize each of these approaches to address questions of relevance to galaxies which formed in the first few Gyr after the Big Bang.

On the prospects of private communication using remote synchronization

Alex Mercanti, Applied Mathematics, Motter Group

There has been increasing interest in developing communication systems that have security guaranteed at the physical layer rather than media layer due to increasing computational power. One of the leading candidates for such a physical layer system has been synchronization between chaotic oscillators in the user-to-user setting. In this talk, I will discuss remote synchronization between chaotic oscillators in the network setting and consider its potential applications to private communication.