Date/Time
Date(s) - 12/09/2018
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

Dr. James Wadsley – McMaster University

Title: Understanding Galaxies

Description: Since Hubble’s discoveries nearly 100 years ago, astronomers have been aware that the universe is filled with billions of Island Universes (now called galaxies) comparable to the Milky Way Galaxy that we live in. Stars form in galaxies and nowhere else. They do so inefficiently, in fits and starts, with complex feedback and side-effects that affect all of astrophysics. Our modern understanding puts galaxies in dark matter halos, rare peaks in the matter distribution. This is our current framework to understand the formation of galaxies. Since the 1990’s analytical theory has been largely superseded by simulations as a means to study galaxies, with more than a few false starts. I outline major improvements in our understanding driven by both observations and simulations. Upcoming observations offer the prospect of understanding how galaxies work in detail down to the level of the individual gas clouds that make the stars. I give a computational astrophysicist’s view of where this will take the field next.

Location: ABB-102

Website – http://physwww.mcmaster.ca/~wadsley/

Host: Kari Dalnoki-Veress