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Kavli Institute for Cosmology, Cambridge

 
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Tue 07 Oct 13:00: Clouds across exoplanetary regimes: from hot gas giants to habitable rocky exoplanets

Thu, 02/10/2025 - 12:01
Clouds across exoplanetary regimes: from hot gas giants to habitable rocky exoplanets

The study of exoplanets has moved from an era of detection to an era of atmospheric characterisation, driven by the launch and commissioning of JWST as well as improvements in ground-based observational facilities. This era of characterisation will involve both deep studies of individual high signal-to-noise exoplanet atmospheres as well as shallow and broad studies of exoplanet atmospheric demographics. In this talk, I will describe how we can leverage both of these characterisation methods alongside 3D models to study exoplanet atmospheres. I will specifically describe the application of detailed 3D GCMs including the impact of clouds on the circulation and emergent properties of hot gas giant and potentially habitable rocky exoplanets. I will describe how the climate dynamics of temperate rocky exoplanets determine how planetary, atmospheric, and host star properties impact their potential for habitability. I will finish by describing the extent to which habitable conditions on rocky exoplanets may be discerned with future observations.

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Mon 03 Nov 13:00: Title to be confirmed

Wed, 01/10/2025 - 20:34
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Mon 06 Oct 13:00: Hunting for Cosmic Stasis Within the Cosmological Timeline

Wed, 01/10/2025 - 16:00
Hunting for Cosmic Stasis Within the Cosmological Timeline

Cosmic Stasis is an intriguing phenomenon that may arise in a large class of beyond-the-standard-model theories of the early universe, in which the universe is made of a peculiarly stable admixture of co-existing perfect fluids on long cosmological time scales. In this talk, I will review the theoretical foundation of this new paradigm and discuss how it may manifest itself in a variety of cosmological observables, spreading from the primordial spectrum of scalar perturbations, the evolution of large-scale structures in the post-inflationary universe, the dynamics of big-bang nucleosynthesis, or even the varying equation of state of dark energy today.

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Tue 14 Oct 11:30: Title to be confirmed

Mon, 29/09/2025 - 21:40
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Mon 27 Oct 11:30: Title to be confirmed

Sun, 28/09/2025 - 11:55
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Thu 23 Oct 16:00: The Beautiful Confusion: Super-Early Galaxies Seen By JWST

Fri, 26/09/2025 - 13:51
The Beautiful Confusion: Super-Early Galaxies Seen By JWST

One of the major surprises provided by the first three years of early Universe observations by JWST has been the detection of a stunning overabundance of luminous, and likely massive, galaxies at redshift z10. As the first spectroscopic confirmations are accumulating, it is crucial and timely to investigate these important and yet unknown aspects of early galaxy formation and evolution. At a time at which ALMA has laid the foundations of our understanding, Webb seems to hint at a possibly conflicting scenario. These (apparent?) contradictions need to be solved in the framework of studies that combine theory, cosmological simulations and the most advanced IR/sub-mm observations. I will analyze possible new scenarios and propose preliminary answers to the above questions.

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Mon 10 Nov 13:00: Title to be confirmed

Thu, 25/09/2025 - 21:38
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Tue 18 Nov 11:15: Title TBC

Thu, 25/09/2025 - 17:22
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Tue 02 Dec 11:15: Title TBC

Thu, 25/09/2025 - 17:17
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Tue 11 Nov 11:15: Title TBC

Thu, 25/09/2025 - 17:08
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Thu 23 Oct 16:00: The Beautiful Confusion: Super-Early Galaxies Seen By JWST

Thu, 25/09/2025 - 15:34
The Beautiful Confusion: Super-Early Galaxies Seen By JWST

One of the major surprises provided by the first three years of early Universe observations by JWST has been the detection of a stunning overabundance of luminous, and likely massive, galaxies at redshift z10. As the first spectroscopic confirmations are accumulating, it is crucial and timely to investigate these important and yet unknown aspects of early galaxy formation and evolution. At a time at which ALMA has laid the foundations of our understanding, Webb seems to hint at a possibly conflicting scenario. These (apparent?) contradictions need to be solved in the framework of studies that combine theory, cosmological simulations and the most advanced IR/sub-mm observations. I will analyze possible new scenarios and propose preliminary answers to the above questions.

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Fri 05 Dec 11:30: Exploring the Cosmos with Hydrogen Observation

Thu, 25/09/2025 - 07:34
Exploring the Cosmos with Hydrogen Observation

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Tue 14 Oct 13:00: The Nature of Rocky Exoplanets Via Study of White Dwarf Stars

Wed, 24/09/2025 - 18:15
The Nature of Rocky Exoplanets Via Study of White Dwarf Stars

Venerable Exoplanetary Systems, a brief history: Revelations from 100 years ago to some new discoveries via an unusual, entirely unanticipated, observational technique. The discussion will include the first ever observational evidence for the existence of an extrasolar planetary system, the first observational evidence for the existence of a differentiated extrasolar planet (i.e., one with a crust and mantle), and the remarkable discovery of objects with 100s of times larger abundances of the light elements Be and B than previously seen in any astronomical object.

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Tue 14 Oct 13:00: The Nature of Rocky Exoplanets Via Study of White Dwarf Stars

Wed, 24/09/2025 - 09:39
The Nature of Rocky Exoplanets Via Study of White Dwarf Stars

Venerable Exoplanetary Systems, a brief history: Revelations from 100 years ago to some new discoveries via an unusual, entirely unanticipated, observational technique.

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Thu 09 Oct 16:00: Looking into the faintest with MUSE: Integral-field spectroscopy of ultradiffuse galaxies in a cluster environment

Wed, 24/09/2025 - 09:35
Looking into the faintest with MUSE: Integral-field spectroscopy of ultradiffuse galaxies in a cluster environment

In this talk I would like to present the LEWIS project. Looking into the faintEst WIth MUSE (LEWIS) is an ESO large program, granted with 133.5hrs with MUSE @ESO-VLT., is the first homogeneous integral-field spectroscopic survey of 30 extremely low-surface-brightness (LSB) galaxies in the Hydra I cluster of galaxies, where the majority of LSB galaxies in the sample (22 in total) are ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs). Because of their LSB nature, getting spectroscopic data for UDGs is a challenging task. To date, as opposed to the availability of deep images, we still lack a statistically significant sample of UDGs with spectroscopy, which strongly limits our constraints and conclusions on their stellar populations and DM content. Doubling the number of spectroscopically studied UDGs, with the LEWIS project we will make a decisive impact in this field. With LEWIS we will map, for the first time, i) the 2D stellar kinematics, ii) the stellar population and iii) established the GC population and their specific frequency of a complete sample of UDGs in a galaxy cluster with IF spectroscopic data. The structural properties together with the baryonic versus DM fraction are used in comparison with hydrodynamical models of UDGs to establish their formation channels as a function of their location in the cluster. With LEWIS we are probing the MUSE capabilities to map the galaxy structure down to the faintest surface brightness levels.

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Thu 16 Oct 16:00: Star Formation at the Epoch of Reionisation under the Cosmic Microscope

Mon, 22/09/2025 - 15:08
Star Formation at the Epoch of Reionisation under the Cosmic Microscope

How did galaxies start forming stars? What are the conditions in typical low-mass, star-forming galaxies at z8 and above? Recent observations with JWST indicate several critical puzzles in studies that address these questions. Chief among these, galaxies started forming stars early and possibly at an extraordinary rate and in more compact clumps than previously thought. I will present the latest results from the JWST Bullet Cluster observations, which we will use to measure the properties of dark matter. I will also show the discovery of a highly magnified z=11 lensed arc. The intrinsic luminosity of the galaxy is 0.05L*, making it the lowest luminosity spectroscopically confirmed galaxy at z>10 discovered to date. The galaxy contains three star-forming components with sizes of 10 remarkably compact globular-cluster-like clumps and spectroscopically confirmed Little Red Dots with strong AGN signatures. All these results allow the detailed studies of star formation at sub-10pc scales at the epoch of reionisation.

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Fri 30 Jan 11:30: Title to be confirmed

Wed, 17/09/2025 - 16:41
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