Title: Beyond LCDM: New constraints on new components Abstract: Are dark matter and dark energy the only cosmological constituents that lie beyond the Standard Model?  It has been suggested that dark matter and dark energy are parts of a more extensive hidden sector that includes additional particles and fields. Since there are no direct observational […]

Title: Stars under Einstein’s microscope: strong gravitational lensing near caustics Abstract: Rich clusters of galaxies are the largest gravitational magnifiers in the Universe. One of the most interesting gravitational lensing phenomena arises when background galaxies overlap with the lensing caustics cast by the galaxy cluster lens such that a portion of it is tremendously magnified […]

Title: The hyperbolic tale of GW190521 Abstract: I will discuss the most enigmatic signal observed by the LIGO-Virgo-Kagra collaboration to date, GW190521, and the possibility that it was generated by the merger of two massive black holes in non-circular orbits. A critical comparison with the standard hypothesis of a quasi-circular binary will be presented, together […]

High Energy Physics Theory Seminar: Monica Kang Bloomberg 447 April 26, 2024 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Title: “Higgs-Confinement Transitions in QCD from Symmetry Protected Topological Phases” Abstract: In gauge theories with fundamental matter, such as QCD, there is typically no sharp way to distinguish confining and Higgs regimes because there are no suitable order parameters.  It is standard lore that these two regimes are continuously connected. In this talk I will […]