Description:

The last two years of JWST have revealed many surprises in the first billion years of the universe: overly bright and/or massive and/or old galaxies, luminous and numerous black holes, and a range of complex photoionization conditions. The surprising new populations in the early universe and the (potential) for new emergent physics create both challenges and opportunities for modeling and learning from these exciting data. I will provide an overview of some of the modeling efforts ongoing in the latest JWST surveys of the early Universe, highlighting the known and unknown physics of these early systems, and the exciting new data-intensive methods developed to extract useful information from the available data. I will focus particularly on the putative early assembly of massive galaxies and key outstanding uncertainties in this story.

Speaker: Joel Leja, Penn State

Host: Wen-fair Fong

Description:

Speaker: Elisabeth Krause, The University of Arizona

Title: Large-Scale Structure Cosmology: Opportunities in the Systematics-Limited Regime

Abstract: Over the next decade, large galaxy surveys will map billions of galaxies and probe cosmic structure formation with high statistical precision. This talk will outline opportunities and challenges of cosmological analyses in the presence of complex systematic effects using recent results from the Dark Energy Survey as pathfinder examples. In particular, I will describe different cosmological probes measured from photometric data and summarize the recent progress on combining galaxy clustering, weak lensing, cluster clustering and cluster abundances, as well as constraints on baryons and galaxy biasing from small scales. I will conclude with an outlook on cosmology analysis plans and challenges for future, much larger experiments such as Rubin Observatory’s LSST, Roman Space Telescope and overlapping Cosmic Microwave Background surveys.

Host: Lena Murchikova

Description:

The entry of interplanetary dust particles into Earth’s atmosphere deposits heavy elements at high altitudes, and may be observed in both gas phase and as a cloud layer. In this talk I will discuss a model for dust accretion onto close-in exoplanets, the stopping of the dust in the upper atmosphere, and the possible signatures of the heavy elements in transmission spectra.

Speaker: Phil Arras, University of Virginia

Host: Meng Sun

Description:

TBA

Speaker: Erin Kara, MIT

Host: Sasha Tchekhovskoy

Description:

 Protoplanetary disks surround many pre-main-sequence stars, but the process by which these systems evolve into planetary systems remains a fundamental question in astronomy. By studying these variable young stars across multiple wavelengths, we can gain valuable insights into the environments where plants form. In this talk, I will highlight key observations of protoplanetary disks and their young host stars, focusing on recent findings from JWST. I will discuss changes in the high-energy stellar radiation fields reaching the disk surface, as well as fluctuations in disk structure.  To conclude, I will outline future directions for advancing our understanding of these dynamic systems using JWST.

Speaker: Catherine Espaillat, Boston University

Host: Yoram Lithwick