High Energy Theory Seminar: Making massive spin-2 particles from gravity during and after inflation

Andrew Long (Rice University)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, 3W2

The phenomenon of cosmological gravitational particle production (CGPP) occurs during and after inflation as quantum fields “feel” the cosmological expansion are excited out of their ground state.  CGPP is a…



2024 Penn Grad Talks

- Widener Lecture Hall, Penn Museum (3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104)

NATURAL SCIENCES PRESENTATIONS

Doing Physics with Doodles
Steven Gassner, Physics and Astronomy

Planet X: Can Gravity Solve a Mystery of the Deep Solar…



Astrophysics Seminar: SPHEREx: An all-sky near-infrared spectral survey

Howard Hui (Caltech)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, Center for Particle Cosmology Lounge

SPHEREx, an upcoming NASA medium-class Explorer Mission, will perform the first all-sky near infrared spectral survey. With a targeted launch date in early 2025, SPHEREx will map the entire sky at 6.2 arcsec from 0.…



High Energy Theory Seminar: Black Holes as the 21st century laboratory: New Tools and Prospects

Alfredo Guevara González (Harvard)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, 4N12

Recent breakthrough observations of black holes call for a new conceptual framework that unifies their analysis, from gravitational wave production to VLBI imaging of the photon ring. I will show how this is achieved…



Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: Orientational Order in Biological Development - Superfluid Shrimp

Mark Bowick (Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, UC Santa Barbara)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, A8

Morphogenesis, the process through which genes generate form, establishes tissue scale order as a template for constructing the complex shapes of the body plan. The extensive growth required to build…



Astrophysics Seminar: Synergies Between Imaging and Spectroscopic Surveys for Cosmology

- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, 4E19

Current and forthcoming sky surveys promise to deliver
datasets orders of magnitude better in quality and size than their
predecessors, but our ability to take advantage of these datasets is



Special Condensed & Living Matter Seminar: Mechanobiology in vivo and in 3D

Keng-hui Lin (Academia Sinica, Taiwan)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, 2N3

This talk will have two parts. The first part concerns the mechanical wave observed in the wound healing of zebrafish tailfin. Highly regenerative animals can regrow lost appendages and the rate of regrowth is…



Colloquium: Change Physics Culture Now

Jessica Esquivel (Fermilab)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, A8

This presentation will overview initiatives created to overcome inequity in physics. We will discuss grassroots efforts like Black in Physics, institution-adjacent efforts like Change-Now at Fermilab, and APS-funded…



High Energy Theory Seminar: Cornering axion(s) with direct detection and stellar probes

Edoardo Vitagliano (Hebrew U.)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, 3W2

Feebly interacting particles (FIPs), such as axions, scalars, dark photons, and majorons, are often theoretically well motivated, and a dark sector including one or more of them can both have the…