High Energy Theory Seminar: Averaged null energy and the renormalization group
Tom Hartman (Cornell University)
The averaged null energy condition, or ANEC, is a fundamental bound on negative energy in quantum field theory. It has applications ranging from black holes to quantum information to the 3D Ising model,…
Astrophysics Seminar: Beyond the first wave: where we stand in understanding binary neutron star and black hole formation channels.
Lieke van Son (Flatiron Institute)
After the first waves of gravitational-wave detections, it often seems as though we are left with more questions than answers. The hope of finding "one formation channel to rule them all" has given way to "one…
Experimental Particle Physics: The Future of Thermal Relic Dark Matter
Matthew Baumgart (ASU)
The idea that dark matter is nothing more than a “heavy neutrino” that froze out after reheating has long been a seductive one. Indirect detection experiments are just now entering an era where the simplest candidate…
High Energy Theory Seminar: Milky Way satellite galaxies as probe for dark matter
Ariane Dekker (University of Chicago)
Small-scale dark matter structures provide an important window into primordial density fluctuations and the microphysical properties of dark matter. Deviations from the standard LCDM model can significantly alter the…
Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: Active phases and phase transitions drive pattern formation in motile populations of bacteria.
Josh Shaevitz (Princeton)
The soil dwelling bacterium Myxococcus xanthus is an amazing organism that uses collective motility to hunt in giant packs when near prey and to form beautiful and protective…
Astrophysics Seminar: The present and the future in modeling eclipsing binary stars
Andrej Prsa (Villanova University)
The number of eclipsing binary and multiple systems observed by large, high quality photometric surveys is downright staggering: with OGLE setting the standard, Kepler and TESS leading the way in photometric…
High Energy Theory Seminar: Black Holes as Probes for Ultralight Dark Matter
Bruno Bucciotti (Scuola Normale Superiore)
I will discuss the possibility that dark matter is made of weakly interacting, very light scalar particles, briefly reviewing the strong theoretical motivations of this proposal. In a scenario where non-gravitational…
Center for Soft and Living Matter Special Seminar: Medium-range order and local structure fluctuations in metallic glass
Professor Xun-Li Wang, City University of Hong Kong
Amorphous materials have no long-range order, but there are ordered structures at short-range (2-5 Å), medium-range (5-20 Å), and even longer-length scales. While regular and semiregular polyhedra are…
Colloquium: Global Famine after Nuclear War
Alan Robock (Rutgers University)
The world as we know it could end any day as a result of an accidental nuclear war between the United States and Russia. The fires produced by attacks on cities and industrial areas would generate smoke that would…
High Energy Theory Seminar: MIT and Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University
Thomas Steingasser (MIT)
The SM Higgs sector is subject to two fine-tunings, manifesting in the hierarchy problem and the metastability of the electroweak vacuum. I will explain why these tunings, which were long believed to be independent,…