Kavli Affiliate: Nergis Mavalvala | First 5 Authors: Hudson A. Loughlin, Hudson A. Loughlin, , , | Summary: Continuous-wave (CW) interferometry has stood at the frontier of precision measurement science since its inception, where it was used to search for the luminiferous ether, to the present day, where it forms the basis of interferometric gravitational-wave […]
Kavli Affiliate: Risa H. Wechsler | First 5 Authors: Yasmeen Asali, Yasmeen Asali, , , | Summary: We investigate how Milky Way-like environments influence the sizes and structural properties of low-mass galaxies by comparing satellites of Milky Way analogs from the Satellites Around Galactic Analogs (SAGA) Survey with two control samples: an environmentally agnostic population […]
Kavli Affiliate: Sara Seager | First 5 Authors: Julien de Wit, Julien de Wit, , , | Summary: Today’s most detailed characterization of exoplanet atmospheres is accessible via transit spectroscopy (TS). Detecting transiting exoplanets only yields their size, and it is thus standard to measure a planet’s mass before moving towards their atmospheric characterization, or […]
Kavli Affiliate: Erin Kara | First 5 Authors: Scott Hagen, Scott Hagen, , , | Summary: The accretion flow in AGN is not well understood, motivating intensive monitoring campaigns of multiwavelength variability to probe its structure. One of the best of these is the 3 year optical/UV/X-ray approximately daily monitoring campaign on Fairall,9, a fairly […]
Kavli Affiliate: Erin Kara | First 5 Authors: Collin Lewin, Collin Lewin, , , | Summary: In the past decade, Swift has performed several AGN high-cadence reverberation mapping campaigns, and generally found that the UV/optical interband lags are $sim$3 times longer than predicted for a standard thin disk, thus coined "the accretion disk size problem". […]
Kavli Affiliate: Lile Wang | First 5 Authors: Xiaolong Yang, Xiaolong Yang, , , | Summary: Molecular hydrogen (H$_2$) is one of the key chemical species that controls and shapes a wide spectrum of astrophysical processes ranging from galaxy evolution to planet formation. Although the catalyzation on dust grain surfaces is considered as the dominant […]
Kavli Affiliate: Misao Sasaki | First 5 Authors: Stephon Alexander, Stephon Alexander, , , | Summary: We investigate how inflation can emerge from four-fermion interactions generated by spacetime torsion, eliminating the need for additional scalar fields beyond the Standard Model. We partition fermions in two sectors and introduce two bound fields. In the effective theory […]
Kavli Affiliate: Claudio Ricci | First 5 Authors: Marco Troncoso, Marco Troncoso, , , | Summary: Galaxy mergers are believed to play an important role in triggering rapid supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth. As merging nuclei approach each other, the physical properties of the participating galaxies and the associated SMBH growth are expected to evolve […]