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2025.09.25

Observational Planet Formation

It is hard to see a plane cruising at 10 km, as the plane is tiny and faint in the sky. But, if we can see the contrail trailing behind the plane, we know where the plane is. Now, astronomers are applying the same principle to study how planets form by detecting and characterizing the structures that baby planets produce in their birth cradles — protoplanetary disks. This is a new field largel...

2025.09.18

From cosmic web to molecular clouds: the multiple scales of galaxy evolution

The interstellar medium plays a central role in the galaxy evolution process; it is the reservoir that fuels galaxy growth via star formation, the repository of material formed by these stars, and a sensitive tracer of internal and external processes that affect entire galaxies (e.g. accretion and feedback). This overview talk will discuss how observations of the interstellar medium are sheddin...

2025.06.05

Ultra-hot Jupiter's atmosphere unveiled by high-resolution spectroscopy

<p>Ultra-hot Jupiter is a class of giant exoplanets with extremely high temperatures. Due to their unique chemical and physical properties, this class of exoplanet have become a popular research subject in recent years. In this talk, I will present observed results of ultra-hot Jupiters using both transmission and emission spectroscopy. We conducted a survey of a dozen ultra-hot Jupiters using gro...</p>

2025.05.29

Exploring Compact Object Binaries via Optical Observations and Surveys

<p>Compact objects, including white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes, serve as exceptional laboratories for probing fundamental physical processes under extreme conditions in the universe. Binary systems hosting these compact objects represent a crucial pathway for characterizing their properties and advancing our understanding of accretion physics and stellar evolution. While compact object...</p>

2025.05.22

The Restless (the birth of the periodic table)

<p>Following the Big Bang the Universe was homogeneous in matter, energy and barren of chemistry. It is the stars which, through their life and death, built up the periodic table. Astronomers have now identified several classes of cosmic explosions of which supernovae constitute the largest group. The Palomar Transient Factory was an innovative 2-telescope, and its successor, the Zwicky Transient ...</p>

2025.05.15

A Possible Metal-dominated Atmosphere below the Thick Aerosols of GJ 1214 b Suggested by Its JWST Panchromatic Transmission Spectrum

<p>GJ1214b is the archetype low-density sub-Neptune orbiting around a M-dwarf. The bulk composition of GJ1214b is of great interest to explore its origin; however, previous studies suffered from a degeneracy between a rocky core with a hydrogen-rich envelope or an icy core with a water-rich envelope. To break the degeneracy, atmospheric observations had been conducted for over a decade; however, t...</p>

2025.05.08

New Insights into Exoplanets: Connecting Theory with Measurements from Space and Lab

<p>The discovery of thousands of exoplanets in our galaxy has unveiled an extraordinary diversity in planetary compositions and properties, challenging conventional theories of planet formation and evolution. These observations have spurred the development of new theoretical models that incorporate additional physical processes to bridge the gap between theory and data. Informed by recent high-pre...</p>

2025.04.24

Active galactic nuclei and mergers in IR-bright galaxies

<p>The interaction of galaxies is known to regulate the star-formation activities in the merging systems, or galaxy pairs, however, whether and how such interactions affect the central supermassive black hole, often manifested as active galactic nuclei---AGNs, is still under debate. Controversies exist as to whether AGN activities are enhanced or suppressed during the different merging phases. The...</p>

2025.04.17

Wave dark matter

<p>We will discuss the possibility that dark matter is composed of sufficiently light particles (such as axions) that it effectively behaves as a collection of waves. We will review the particle physics motivations and the&nbsp;rich wave phenomenology, and discuss the implications for astronomical observations and experimental detection.BIOHui Lam got his PhD from&nbsp;Massachusetts Institute of Technology....</p>

2025.04.10

拉索发现黑洞是PeV宇宙线加速器

<p>拉索在银河系内发现了许多“拍电子伏加速器(PaVetron)”，其中的一部分以第一个黑洞PaVetron源表的形式发表，清楚显示出一个新的宇宙线源的“类”。最引人瞩目的是存在一个“超级-PaVetron”。还发现了一个近乎完美的黑洞+喷流的系统，让人类能够细致的研究黑洞吸积盘、喷流的产生等基本的物理问题。更重要的是我们发现，大约10个左右的源，将足以提供宇宙线“膝”及其以上的宇宙线的流量。拉索刚刚发表了质子在膝附近的能谱，...</p>