Past events
I will provide a brief update on the SKA Observatory as a whole, the fundamental science drivers, and the expected design and scope for the SKA-Low telescope in Australia. I will then provide an update on the progress of the growing SKAO entity in Australia, including the Science and Engineering Operations Centres, and the roll out plan of the SKA-Low telescope. I'll outline the plan for the science operations team, the breakdown between commissioning, verification and operations, and highlight pathways for involvement (from students through science engagement to employment opportunities).
Hydrogen deficient carbon (HdC) stars are a rare class of supergiant variable star with less than 1% hydrogen by mass. They exhibit a wealth of exotic characteristics such as production of dust, carbon-rich atmospheres, anomalous isotopic ratios, and very low metallicities. The most likely explanation for their formation is via a low-mass white dwarf merger, namely a CO-WD + He-WD merger. In this talk I will present the evidence that we see for this exotic formation mechanism, such as the oxygen isotopic ratio, our efforts in stellar modelling, and population synthesis modelling. I will also provide an overview of their unique characteristics and pathways for current work on them, especially regarding dust production, variability, and our current understanding of their kinematics using Gaia data.
NFW would have us believe that dark matter dominates the centres of galaxies, but this has never been observed in massive galaxies, and certainly not in the Milky Way and M31 where baryons dominate out to at least 10 kpc in radius. So what about early galaxies? Can we find NFW cusps here that were subsequently wiped out? This is looking increasingly unlikely as well -- baryons may have always dominated the inner parts of galaxies. I will examine implications of baryon domination that will be testable with JWST deep fields (e.g. JADES) in the coming months.
"Unraveling close binary supermassive black holes: Interplay of time-domain observations and simulations"
Details provided shortly.