Prof.
Thanu Padmanabhan
(ICAA Pune)
12/14/15, 9:35 AM
Talk
General Relativity revolutionized the way we we thought about gravity. After describing briefly the key successes of GR and their impact, I will discuss the major conceptual challenges it faces today. I will conclude by outlining the prospective future directions of development, which hold the promise for deepening our understanding of the nature of gravity further.
Camille Bonvin
(CERN)
12/14/15, 10:10 AM
Talk
The distribution of galaxies provides a powerful way to probe the properties of our universe. In order to exploit this observable properly it is necessary to understand what we are really measuring when we look at the large-scale structure. Since our universe is not completely homogeneous and isotropic, we only see a distorted picture of our sky. In this talk, I will discuss the various...
Nabila Aghanim
(Universite Paris Sud)
12/14/15, 11:20 AM
Talk
Over the last two decades cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies have revolutionised our view of cosmology. Generations of experiments have successively uncovered the amplitude of the temperature fluctuations at large scales, the existence of acoustic peaks in both temperature and polarisation and the small scale damping. These observations have now established a minimal cosmological...
David LANGLOIS
(CNRS)
12/15/15, 9:00 AM
Talk
I will present an effective description of dark energy/modified gravity models involving a single scalar field. It is based on a 3+1 splitting of space-time with respect to uniform scalar field hypersurfaces. The advantage of this approach is that it can describe in the same language a vast number of existing models, including quintessence, F(R) gravity, Horndeski theories, as well as...
Prof.
Laura Baudis
(University of Zurich)
12/15/15, 9:35 AM
Talk
A major challenge of modern physics is to decipher the nature of dark matter. Astrophysical observations provide ample evidence for the existence of an invisible and dominant mass component in the observable universe, from the scales of galaxies up to the largest cosmological scales. The dark matter could be made of new, yet undiscovered elementary particles, with allowed masses and...
Prof.
Hiranya Peiris
(University College London)
12/15/15, 10:10 AM
Talk
Surveys of the cosmic microwave background and large galaxy surveys of the next decade carry immense promise for measurements of new physics beyond the Standard Models of cosmology and particle physics. However, these observations are complicated by multiple sources of systematics, either intrinsic, observational, or instrumental, which must be carefully controlled in order to make reliable...
Prof.
Anna Watts
(University of Amsterdam)
12/15/15, 11:20 AM
Talk
With an average density higher than the nuclear density, neutron stars provide a unique test bed for nuclear physics, quantum chromodynamics, and nuclear superfluidity. Determination of the fundamental interactions that govern matter under such extreme conditions is one of the major unsolved problems of modern physics and - since it is impossible to replicate these conditions on Earth - a...
Prof.
Fulvio Ricci
(University of Rome La Sapienza and INFN Sez. Roma)
12/15/15, 11:55 AM
Talk
The european detector Advanced Virgo is ending the installation phase and the plan is to run during 2016 joining the LIGO detectors installed in USA. Its improved sensitivity will increase the detection probability of GW events.
In this talk we summarize the scientific outcome of the old network of advanced detectors in the past configuration. Then, we emphasize the potentialities of the new...
Prof.
Alessandra Buonanno
(Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics)
12/16/15, 9:00 AM
Talk
Gravitational waves were first predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916 on the
basis of his theory of general relativity. In the next five years ground-based
interferometers, such as advanced LIGO, advanced Virgo and KAGRA, are likely
to provide the first direct detections of gravitational waves from binary systems composed
of black holes and/or neutron stars. In this talk, we review the...
Prof.
Luis Lehner
(Perimeter Institute)
12/16/15, 9:35 AM
Talk
Compact binary systems are copious producers of gravitational waves and
are also expected to radiate strongly electromagnetically. This talk will
describe several processes --intrinsically requiring the strongly gravitating/highly
dynamical behaviour of the system-- that can yield observable signals in a variety
of frequencies. Moreover, we will discuss how such radiation might prove...
Prof.
Michael KRAMER
(Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie)
12/16/15, 10:10 AM
Talk
The radio sky is a fascinating laboratory for a very wide range
of physics. The laws of nature can be probed at a fundamental
level, in particular when observing the most extreme matter in
the observable universe - neutron stars. When they are visible
as radio pulsars they can act as cosmic clocks that become
especially interesting if they have a binary companion. Indeed,
binary pulsars...
Prof.
Carlo Rovelli
(Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille)
12/16/15, 11:20 AM
Talk
Black holes are well understood in their classical dynamics or as background geometry for quantum fields. But their quantum gravitational properties remain elusive. These are crucial to understand what happens to the matter falling inside, and to know the holes' long term stability. There are a number of recent results and ideas on this issue, including the firewall theorem, Planck stars,...
Prof.
Francis Halzen
(IceCube/WIPAC)
12/17/15, 9:00 AM
Talk
The IceCube project has transformed one cubic kilometer of natural Antarctic ice into a neutrino detector. The instrument detects more than 100,000 neutrinos per year in the GeV to PeV energy range. Among those, we have recently isolated a flux of high-energy cosmic neutrinos. I will discuss the instrument, the analysis of the data, and the significance of the discovery of cosmic neutrinos....
Prof.
Jim Hinton
(Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics)
12/17/15, 9:35 AM
Talk
The last decade has marked a renaissance in the field of gamma-ray
astronomy. Results from space and ground-based instruments, in
particular Fermi and the big three of ground-based gamma-ray
astronomy: HESS, VERITAS and MAGIC, have transformed our view of the
gamma-ray sky. The current datasets allow the very detailed study of
archetypal particle accelerators across a very wide energy...
Prof.
Pasquale Blasi
(INAF)
12/17/15, 10:10 AM
Talk
I will summarize the current understanding of the physical processes responsible for cosmic ray acceleration, mainly in supernova remnant shocks, and their transport in the interstellar medium. Special attention will be devoted to the comparison with most recent data of both multifrequency emission from astrophysical sources and spectra of CRs measured locally.
Prof.
Stefano Vitale
(University of Trento)
12/18/15, 9:00 AM
Talk
The talk will likely take place during the cruise of LISA Pathfinder to its final interplanetary orbit. LISA Pathfinder is the technology precursor of the Gravitational Wave (GW) observatory that ESA intends to launch as their 3rd large size mission within the current planning.
The talk will review the status and the scientific objectives of the GW observatory, and of its reference mission...
Prof.
Mustapha Ishak
(The University of Texas at Dallas)
12/18/15, 9:35 AM
Talk
There are over 1300 known exact solutions to Einstein’s equations. Part of these solutions found applications in astrophysics including the solar system, compact objects, and cosmology. These have offered some physical or mathematical insights into the systems under consideration. In this review talk, some characterizing notions about exact solutions will be outlined along with some examples....
Prof.
Luigi Stella
(INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma)
12/18/15, 10:10 AM
Talk
High-time-resolution and spectroscopic observations of accreting collapsed objects in the X-ray range provide access to strong-field gravity, through measurements of the motions of matter orbiting a few gravitational radii away from black holes. Key predictions of strong field general relativity, such as relativistic epicyclic motions, precession, light bending and the presence and radius of...
Prof.
Andrew Fabian
(University of Cambridge)
12/18/15, 11:20 AM
Talk
The innermost region of the accretion flow around X-ray bright, unobscured, Active Galactic and Black Hole Binaries (AGN and BHB) is being routinely mapped by X-ray spectral-timing of the reflection spectrum produced by irradiation of the accretion disc. The spin of the black hole can be determined by identifying the inner edge of the reflection region with the ISCO. The black hole in many of...
Alexander Tchekhovskoy
(Uiversity of California Berkeley)
12/18/15, 11:55 AM
Talk
After reviewing the physics of jet formation by accreting black holes, I will present the results of recent 3D general relativistic magnetized fluid dynamics simulations and discuss the insights they give us into the disk-jet connection. I will finish by presenting the simulated spectra and images and the constraints on the near event horizon physics coming from the comparison to the...
