Events

Ananth Tenneti - I completed my PhD in Physics at Carnegie Mellon University in December 2016. I have studied intrinsic alignments of galaxies using cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. Intrinsic alignments are an important astrophysical systematic in the weak lensing analysis for upcoming surveys such as the LSST (Rubin) and Euclid.

Nicole Nesvadba, directrice de recherche at the CNRS, is an expert in galaxy evolution based at the Laboratoire Lagrange at the Observatoire de la  Côte d’Azur in Nice, France. Her main research interest are the rapid, vigorous, and transformative phases of galaxy evolution where large amounts of energy are rapidly being injected into the interstellar gas of galaxies, like starburst or sites of strong AGN feedback.

Quantum Perspectives: A Panel Series celebrates 20 years of quantum at the Institute for Quantum Computing. Over the past two decades, IQC’s leading quantum research has powered the development of transformative technologies, from ideas to commercialization, through research in theory, experiment and quantum applications.

Ryley Hill - Resolving galaxy protoclusters from the cosmic infrared background

Bio: I just finished my Phd at University of British Columbia with Douglas Scott, and will be starting an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship in September (location TBD).

Dr. Katie Mack, Physics at the End of the Universe

The Big Bang theory tells the story of the beginning of the Universe, our cosmic home for the last 13.8 billion years. But how does the story end? I’ll share what modern astrophysics tells us about the ultimate fate of the cosmos, and what the catastrophic destruction of all reality would look like to anyone still around to see it.

Astronomy At Home Lecture Series: Perseid Meteor Shower

Yun Wang has led Galaxy Clustering science on the Roman Space Telescope, and is the deputy lead for Euclid Galaxy Clustering SWG. She is the PI for the proposed NASA space mission concepts, ISCEA (Infrared Satellite for Cosmic Evolution Astrophysics) and ATLAS (Astrophysics Telescope for Large Area Spectroscopy). She is a Senior Research Scientist at IPAC at California Institute of Technology.

Mohamad Shalaby is a senior postdoctoral researcher at the Leibniz institute for astrophysics Potsdam (Germany).  His research focuses on studying acceleration, transport and non-thermal radiation processes from plasmas that permeate our visible universe, i.e., from stellar to intergalactic environments and thus their implied complex feedback on various observables. Mohamad attended AIMS (South Africa) and PSI programs before finishing his PhD under the supervision of Avery Broderick in 2017 at University of Waterloo and perimeter institute for theoretical physics.

Talk Title and Abstract

The mechanism of efficient electron acceleration at parallel non-relativistic electron-ion shocks

Cosmic-ray-driven instabilities play a crucial role during particle acceleration at shocks and during the propagation of the accelerated cosmic rays (CR) in galaxies and galaxy clusters. The instabilities amplify magnetic fields and modulate CR transport so that the intrinsically collisionless CR population is coupled to the thermal plasma and provides important dynamical feedback. In this talk, I will discuss a new CR driven instability we recently found (called intermediate-scale instability; Shalaby et al. 2021 [ApJ 908 206]). The new instability excites comoving ion-cyclotron electromagnetic waves at sub-ion skin-depth scale, and operates when the ratio of drift speed with respect to the ion Alfvénic speed is less than sqrt(mi/me)/2, where mi (me) is the ion (electron) mass. Its linear growth rate is typically about 10-20 times faster in comparison to that at the ion gyro-scale making it a crucial player in both acceleration and transport of charged particles in galactic and stellar environments. After a brief discussion of various potential implications of the new instability, I will discuss how we showed using Particle-in-cell simulations that the new instability provides the only known mechanism to date for efficient electron acceleration at parallel electron-ion shocks, and thus solving the long-standing electron-injection problem at these shocks (Shalaby et al. 2022 [ApJ 932 86]). This suggested that common practice of performing plasma simulations with a reduced ion-to-electron mass ratio (where the intermediate instability is suppressed) not only artificially precludes electron acceleration but also results in erroneous electron and ion heating in the downstream and shock transition regions.

Scarlata received her PhD from Padova University, in 2004. After holding postdoctoral positions at ETH-Zurich (CH) and Caltech, in 2011 she moved to the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, where she is currently a Distinguished McKnight professor. Her research focus on problems related to the formation and evolution of galaxies.

Felipe Andrade-Oliveira is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan. His research is focused on the investigation of the Large Scale Structure and the Dark Energy nature through Cosmological Surveys. He works as a Pipeline Scientist for Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) where he is also the co-leader of the covariance topic team.