[Astro] [CAPT] CAPT Weekly Bulletin (w/c 06-06-25)

[Ella Batchelor]

Monday 9th June at 3pm, A113 CAPT – Theoretical Physics Student Seminar

Kieran Wood

Phase Space Formulation of Quantum Mechanics - Part II
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Tuesdays at 11am, CAPT Foyer – Astro Coffee



Tuesday 10th June at 11.30am, A113 CAPT – Astronomy Journal Club



Tuesday 10th June at 1pm, A113 CAPT – Particle Cosmology and Gravity Seminar
Isobel Romero-Shaw

Leveraging eccentricity in gravitational-wave transients



The fourth observing run of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA detector network is ongoing, and the number of detections of gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers is rapidly reaching into the hundreds. Yet despite this wealth of detections, it is still unclear how black holes become bound into tight binaries that merge within the age of the Universe.



Binaries that form and merge in isolation may have different parameters than those that form under via dynamical interactions.  The masses and spins of binaries have typically been touted as keys to deciphering formation channels; however, these parameters have significant drawbacks as formation-channel indicators.



The most robust indication of dynamical evolution is orbital eccentricity: isolated binaries will have essentially circular orbits at detection, while a fraction of dynamically-formed binaries will have measurable eccentricity. Gravitational waves from eccentric binaries are challenging to detect and analyse, yet in the last few years, a handful gravitational-wave events have been shown to contain tantalising hints of orbital eccentricity.



Additionally, future gravitational-wave detectors will be sensitive to smaller binary eccentricities and earlier binary evolutionary epochs, enabling us to dive deeper into their formation stories.



In this talk, I will demonstrate how eccentricity may be detected and leveraged to reveal details of a binary’s history. I will show how signals from eccentric binaries enable us to uncover external influences to their evolution, including perturbing tertiaries and circumbinary disks, with current and future detectors.  I will review what we can learn about our population of binary black holes when we combine observations of their masses, spins, and eccentricity. I will also demonstrate how studying these parameters simultaneously reveals the formation scenarios of compact binaries.


Link to join: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_OGM3OTk5NzQtZWEwZS00ZmUyLTk3MGUtZjFhY2M5OTU2MjI1%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2267bda7ee-fd80-41ef-ac91-358418290a1e%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22f3250584-4b5f-48fa-a897-08e77f2246b7%22%7d
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Wednesday 11th June at 2.45pm, C4 Physics – Astronomy Weekly Seminar

Seoyoung Lyla Jung (Oxford)

The alignment of galaxies and AGN jets in the cosmic web environment


Active galactic nuclei (AGN) play a crucial role in the evolution of massive galaxies, and their fueling and feedback efficiency depend on the environment. In this talk, I will present a study of the orientations of AGN jets and their optical counterpart in relation to the cosmic web environment. Using LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS), DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys, and the SDSS cosmic filament catalogue, we find that galaxy optical major axes tend to align with cosmic filaments, suggesting the growth of galaxies through mergers along filaments. On the other hand, AGN jets, typically perpendicular to the host galaxy’s major axis, show more randomized orientations in cosmic filament environments. This supports a scenario where black holes in filaments experience chaotic accretion as a result of numerous galaxy mergers. I will discuss the implications of these results in terms of the large-scale alignment of radio jets, intrinsic alignment of galaxies, and anisotropic quenching of satellite galaxies. Our results highlight the role of cosmic filaments in shaping AGN feedback and galaxy evolution.
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Thursday 12th June at 1pm, A113 CAPT – Astronomy Lunch Talk

Adela Fernandez

Measuring the Shape of ICL and Dark Matter Halos in Hydrangea and Horizon-AGN Simulations


Intracluster light (ICL) has been proposed as a luminous tracer of dark matter (DM) in galaxy clusters, as these stars are not bound to any particular galaxy but are instead governed by the cluster’s gravitational potential. It has been found that the isophotal contours closely follow the mass distribution of clusters out to ~200kpc observationally and in simulations (Montes and Trujillo 2019, Alonso Asensio et al. 2020). In this talk, I will present a shape analysis of ICL and DM from the Hydrangea and Horizon-AGN simulations. The elliptical shapes and orientations of these components are calculated using the moment of inertia tensor, extending to radii of ~1Mpc, both in 2D projections and 3D. I will also explore how cluster properties, specifically halo mass and formation redshift, affect the shapes of ICL and DM.


Thursday 12th June at 3pm, A113 CAPT – Particle Cosmology Journal Club

Fridays at 4pm, CAPT Foyer – CAPT Cakes
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If you have any events/visitors you would like included in next week’s bulletin, please let me know.


Best wishes

Ella

Ella Batchelor (she/her)
Administrator

School of Physics & Astronomy

University of Nottingham
A112a Centre for Astronomy & Particle Theory
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

+44 (0) 115 74 86778 |  nottingham.ac.uk<http://nottingham.ac.uk/>

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