Department-wide colloquium Speaker: Alex Lupsasca (Vanderbilt) Title: "The Black Hole Photon Ring" Abstract: What does a black hole look like? The first images of the supermassive black hole M87* display a bright ring encircling the event horizon, which appears as a dark patch in its surrounding emission. But Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that within this […]

Planets form from disks of dust and gas surrounding young stars.  As they grow, these new planets inherit their chemical composition from the surrounding material and then sculpt it through gravitational interactions to form gaps and other asymmetric structures.  In the last decade, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has revolutionized our ability to study planet formation, allowing us to examine this process in high spatial and spectral resolution.  I will present highlights from ongoing work using ALMA and other […]