High Energy Theory seminar: "Axion couplings and implications for cosmology and astrophysics"

JiJi Fan, Brown University

Many cosmological models rely on large couplings of axions (pseudo-scalar fields) to gauge fields. Examples include theories of magnetogenesis, inflation on a steep potential, chiral gravitational waves, and…

Department Colloquium: "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. XIAOXING XI: Why It Matters"

Xiaoxing Xi, Temple University

As Interim Chair of Temple University’s Physics Department, I was busy on May 20, 2015 with my class, research, promotion of colleagues, and a university task force I was chairing. I gave a dinner-time lecture for…

Penn Science Cafe: "The Physics of Foam"

Douglas Durian, University of Pennsylvania

It's easy to foam up soapy water but not to understand the surprising properties of foam. How can it be white and solid when it's made mostly of gas and a little liquid, neither of which is white or solid? Douglas…

High Energy Theory Seminar: "SYK, harmonic analysis, and multipoint conformal blocks"

Vladimir Rosenhaus, IAS, Princeton University

Condensed Matter Seminar: "Soft complexity in gels: network connectivity, viscoelasticity and failure"

Emanuela Del Gado, Georgetown University

Soft matter (colloids, polymers, proteins…) often self-assembles into gels with diverse structure and mechanics, ubiquitous in nature and extensively used to improve diverse industrial products, where they…

Astronomy seminar: "Using the environment to infer supernova progenitor properties"

Lluis Galbany, University of Pittsburgh

Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS) applied to supernova (SN) environmental studies have shown the potential of this technique to directly characterize the galactic environmental parameters at SN locations, compare…

High Energy Theory Seminar: "Gauge-field inflation and the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry"

Peter Adshead, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign

In this talk, I  describe a new class of inflationary scenarios which utilize gauge fields to generate inflationary dynamics in the early universe. Beyond simply providing yet another model for…

Dissertation Defense: "Measuring Photometric Properties of SDSS and MaNGA Galaxies

Johanna-Laina Fischer

Experimental Partical Physics Seminar: "First results from the PROSPECT reactor neutrino experiment"

Danielle Norcini, Yale University

Experiments at nuclear reactors have played a key role in determining the properties of the weakly-interacting neutrinos. Results from recent reactor experiments suggest a disagreement between the observed…

Rittenhouse Lecture: "The Planck Legacy: Inflation and the Origin of Structure in the Universe"

George P. Efstathiou, University of Cambridge and Kavli Institute for Cosmology

I will review the latest results on cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies measured by the Planck satellite. These measurements agree extremely well with a spatially flat, cosmological constant dominated…