May 9: Detecting Exoplanets 101, by Nicholas Law, Dunlap Institute

The pace of extrasolar planet discovery has reached exhilarating levels, enabled by new technology, new telescopes, and new methods of finding planets. I will describe the wide range of cutting-edge techniques being used to find and characterize planetary systems, the new instruments being built for the next generation of planet searches, and take a brief look at the far future of exoplanet science.

View presentation (PDF) here.

May 16: Star Formation 101, by Nguyen Luong Quang, Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA)

Stars are the building blocks of galaxies and the hosts of planets. Understanding their formation is crucial to understanding the formation and lives of planets. However, star formation is such a complex process, involving multiple physical ingredients, that we are far from having a complete picture. But with advancements in observational techniques, and in theory and numerical simulations, we are answering parts of the puzzle.

In this lecture, I will summarize the main principles of this process starting with the roles of gravity and pressure in building up dense cores necessary to form stars. Subsequently, I will describe the evolution of these dense cores through different stages until they reach the main sequence phase and become true stars.

We will also look at the unique opportunity that the Herschel Space Observatory, launched two years ago, is offering us in investigating the formation of stars and the connections to the molecular clouds from which they formed.

View presentation (PDF) here.

May 23: Instrumentation 101, by Suresh Sivanandam, Dunlap Institute

New developments in astronomical instrumentation open entirely new discovery spaces in astronomy. In fact, new instrumentation has often been the driver of very important discoveries. Novel concepts and engineering techniques are employed to answer previously unaddressable scientific problems.

I will give a brief overview of the types of instrumentation commonly used in astronomy today, including imagers, spectrographs and the telescopes they are coupled to. I will also discuss some of the challenges of designing and constructing instrumentation. Finally, I will review a select few future ambitious instrumentation projects (e.g. JWST, TMT) that will shape the scientific landscape over the next 10 years.

May 30: Forming Exoplanets 101, by Mariangela Bonavita, Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics (DAA)

For decades, all our knowledge of planet formation has been based on observations of the only planets we knew: those in our solar system. But the discovery of a large variety of planetary systems around other stars, most of them very different from our own, give rise to many questions about how these planet formed.

In this talk, I will give an overview of the current knowledge on planet formation, of the challenges coming from the most recent discoveries, and of some of the current and planned research on the topic, ultimately aiming at answering the following questions:

• Is there a theory able to explain both the characteristics of the planets in our solar system and the ones around other stars?
• Are all the planetary systems created in the same way or is there more than one mechanism for forming planets?
• How big is the impact of the characteristics of the host star (mass, presence of stellar/sub-stellar companions, etc.) on the planet-formation process?

June 6: Galactic Centre 101, by María Montero-Castaño, Dunlap Institute

Galactic evolution is intimately related to the processes taking place in the nuclear regions of the galaxies. However, nuclear galactic environments are extremely chaotic regions, not at all well understood.

The Galactic Centre is the only galactic nucleus that we can observe with excellent resolution. Therefore, getting to know the Galactic Centre is not only important in terms of learning about our neighbourhood, it also provides us with a stepping stone to understanding the processes that we observe in other galaxies. The extraordinary improvements in technology during recent years have allowed us to penetrate further and further inside this fascinating region of our galaxy.

I will review what we know about the structure, composition and kinematics of the Galactic Centre, the open questions yet to be answered, and the efforts taking place to build a unified theory of the undergoing processes in the nucleus of the Milky Way Galaxy.

View presentation (PDF) here.

Note special date – Tuesday, June 12: Dark Matter 101, by Anne-Marie Weijmans, Dunlap Institute

Dark matter plays an important role in our Universe. Without it, galaxies and stars could not have formed. Through gravitational instabilities, the initially smooth distribution of dark matter in the early Universe started to form clumps in which gas could cool and form stars. Galaxy formation theories give us an idea how this process has taken place, and predict the existence and properties of dark matter haloes in which galaxies nowadays should still reside.

But how do we know that these dark haloes are really there? In this lecture I will take you through the observational evidence for dark matter, and discuss the techniques that astronomers use to find and map dark matter in galaxies and galaxy clusters. We will take a brief look at alternatives to dark matter–and find out how one day, when our Sun has turned into a white dwarf, dark matter can save our lives.

View presentation (PDF) here.

June 20: Galaxy Evolution 101, by Lei Bai, DAA

Galaxies are the fundamental building blocks of the Universe. They are the hosts of stars and planets, gas and dust, black holes and dark matter. Our own Milky Way is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies. To understand the formation and evolution of galaxies is of ultimate importance to our understanding of the Universe. In this lecture, I will give a brief overview of the current knowledge of galaxies, including how their morphology, colour, and star-formation properties correlate with each other and how these properties change with time and environment. I will also touch on some exciting hot topics of current extragalactic research.

June 27: Gravitational Waves 101, by Kipp Cannon, CITA

The theory of general relativity predicts that the movement of mass can cause a wave of spacetime curvature to be radiated away from mass. This form of radiation is conceptually similar to electromagnetic radiation produced by the movement of charges. The existence of gravitational waves has been inferred by observing the decay of the orbits of binary neutron stars in tight systems—observations for which the Nobel prize in physics was awarded in 1993. But after a half century of attempts, the direct observation of gravitational radiation continues to elude us.

In this lecture, I will introduce you to some of the jargon of the field, and we’ll learn about some of the physics we hope to investigate through gravitational wave observations. I will also describe some of the techniques being pursued for their direct observation, including pulsar timing, spacecraft ranging, resonant bars, and—my own field—laser interferometers. Finally, we are human, and the history of the search for gravitational waves provides a reminder of the importance of objectivity and statistical rigour in science, and I’ll take this opportunity to squeeze in some examples for you to ponder.

July 4: Exoplanet Atmospheres 101, by Ernst de Mooij, DAA

Since the discovery of the first exoplanet, 51 Peg b, more than 16 years ago, remarkable progress has been made in the search for planets beyond our Solar System. Not only have hundreds of additional exoplanets been discovered, but it has also become possible to study their atmospheres.

In this talk I will explain the different techniques that can be used to characterize the atmospheres of exoplanets, what we have learned so far, and how future facilities will allow us to study the exoplanet atmospheres in even more detail.

July 11: Catastrophic Transients 101, by Rongfeng Shen, DAA

Many stars end their lives catastrophically, violently destroying themselves. The transients associated with the demise of these stars are primary targets of time-domain astronomy and have become tools for mapping the Universe. I will talk about three representations of those transients: supernovae, gamma-ray bursts and stellar tidal disruptions by massive black holes. I will concentrate on the most recent advances in our understanding of these events and on the unanswered questions that remain.

View presentation (PDF) here.

RESCHEDULED: Adaptive Optics 101, by Jérome Maire, Dunlap Institute

THIS LECTURE WILL BE RESCHEDULED TO A LATER DATE

Adaptive optics systems (AO) on large telescopes have become an extraordinarily productive technology for astronomers. Because of AO, astronomical objects can now be observed at an unprecedented resolution over much of the sky, and the full potential of the world’s most powerful, ground-based optical telescopes and instrumentation suites can be realized. In this lecture, I will discuss the capabilities and limitations of these systems, along with the science made possible by current and next-generation adaptive optics systems.

July 25: Cosmology 101, by Adrienne Erickcek, CITA

Nearly 400,000 years after the Big Bang, electrons and protons formed the first hydrogen atoms, and the Universe became transparent. The photons that were released at that time form the cosmic microwave background that we observe today.

The cosmic microwave background reveals three surprising features of our Universe: 1. In its infancy, the Universe was remarkably homogeneous, but there were tiny fluctuations already in place. 2. The spatial geometry of the Universe is flat, even though this is an unstable state and there is not enough matter in the Universe to make it flat. 3. Most of the matter in the Universe is composed of unknown particles.

These observations lay the foundation for the current standard model of cosmology, in which the Universe initially underwent a growth spurt called inflation and is now filled with dark matter and dark energy.

I present a brief history of the Universe, focusing on the evidence for inflation, dark matter, and dark energy in the cosmic microwave background. I then address the unanswered questions inherent in the standard cosmological model.  What caused inflation?  What is dark matter?  And what is the dark energy that will dominate the Universe’s future?

August 9: Being a Scientist 101, by Bob Abraham, DAA

In this talk, I will point out a few basic things that might be helpful to those considering becoming a scientist. I’ll start off by pontificating on the sorts of things we do and what the job fundamentally entails. I’ll offer some advice on various styles of working and tell you what to read to find out more.

Then the plan is for things to quickly devolve into a crazy Q&A session, which I expect will cover some of the many questions that cause prospective proto-scientists the most angst. These seem to include:

• Am I cut out for this as a career?
• Where should I go to grad school?
• How do I get into grad school?
• Why did my friend who is a genius suddenly seem to suck in grad school?
• How likely is it I’ll get a job as a scientist if I go to grad school?
• How much will I earn?
• What are the huge upsides to being a scientist?
• What are the downsides?