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• 21.03.2025 - Francisco Aros (Uni. Vienna) & Sebastian Hutschenreuter (Uni. Vienna)

  Francisco Aros (Uni. Vienna)

  Insights from the degree of energy equipartition in globular clusters.

  Two-body relaxation drives the dynamical evolution of Globular Clusters (GCs). As stars interact inside GCs, they exchange kinetic energy, making the clusters develop different degrees of energy equipartition. As new observations with HST and JWST bring high-quality kinematic and photometric data of stars in GCs down the faint end of the main sequence and out to multiple half-light radii, studying the degree of energy equipartition in GCs has become a new window into understanding their dynamical processes and evolution. In this talk, I will discuss how the observed degree of energy equipartition in GCs could provide insight into the presence of stellar-mass black holes and the mixing process in clusters with multiple populations.

  Sebastian Hutschenreuter (Uni. Vienna)

  Inferring the structure of the Galactic Magnetic Field

  The Galactic Magnetic Field (GMF) plays an important role in shaping the structure of the Milky Way by regulating fundamental processes such as star formation and the transport of charged particles in the interstellar medium (ISM). The GMF is shaped by the dynamic interplay of plasma and gravity, as well as stellar feedback. Understanding the GMF is not only fascinating in its own right but also essential for explaining extragalactic phenomena, particularly the Cosmic Microwave Background. Despite its significance, the three-dimensional structure of the GMF remains elusive. In my talk, I will showcase how we can map the GMF by employing modern statistical frameworks. Specifically, I will demonstrate the use of Faraday rotation to obtain direct estimates of the average GMF strength across the full sky, I will present a three-dimensional reconstruction of dust polarization source fields tracking the local GMF, and I will emphasize connections of these maps to the recent history of the local ISM.
• 14.03.2025 - Quentin Changeat (Uni. Groningen) & Oleg Savchenko (GRAPPA Institute)

  Quentin Changeat (Uni. Groningen)
  
  Interpretation of exoplanet atmospheres with space observatories.
  
  The characterization of exoplanets relies on precise observations from space-based telescopes, which provide crucial data on planetary atmospheres and their composition. Missions such as Hubble and JWST have already delivered high-quality spectroscopic data for hundreds of transiting and directly imaged exoplanets. In 2029, these observatories will be joined by Ariel, a dedicated ESA mission designed to study thousands of exoplanet atmospheres. Together, these missions will revolutionize the field, generating an unprecedented volume of high-quality data essential for identifying trends in exoplanet populations. In this talk, I will discuss how these observatories contribute to our understanding of exoplanetary systems, highlighting key discoveries as well as modern challenges in data reduction and atmospheric interpretation.
  
  Oleg Savchenko (GRAPPA Institute)
  
  Sequential simulation-based inference for cosmological initial conditions
  
  Knowledge of the primordial matter density field from which the present non-linear large-scale structure emerged is of fundamental importance for cosmology, as it contains an immense wealth of information about the physics, evolution, and initial conditions of the universe. Reconstructing this density field from galaxy survey data is a notoriously difficult task requiring advanced cosmological simulators and sophisticated statistical methods to explore a multi-million-dimensional parameter space. In this talk, I will discuss how simulation-based inference allows us to tackle this problem and obtain data-constrained realisations of the primordial dark matter density field in a simulation-efficient way for general non-differentiable simulators. In addition, I will describe how our method allows us to turn any initial conditions point estimator into a fast sampler, and our novel adaptive learning training strategy to simultaneously infer the initial conditions together with the cosmological parameters. (Mostly based on arxiv.org/abs/2502.03139)
• 21.02.2025 - Laura Scholz-Díaz (INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri) & Graham Smith (Uni. Birmingham/Uni. Vienna)

  Laura Scholz-Díaz (INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri)

  The impact of dark matter halos on the baryonic content of galaxies: Dynamical evidence from the CALIFA survey

  The interplay between the baryonic physics of galaxies and the assembly of dark matter halos is essential for understanding galaxy formation, but remains elusive to observations, which typically rely on indirect halo characterizations. In this talk, I will report direct observational evidence from the CALIFA survey showing that the baryonic properties of nearby galaxies -such as age, metallicity, star formation rate, morphology, stellar angular momentum- as well as the radial profiles and gradients of their stellar populations, are influenced by their host halos. Through detailed dynamical modeling of optical integral-field spectroscopic data, we found that for galaxies with similar stellar masses, these baryonic properties vary depending on their total enclosed mass (stars + dark matter). We demonstrate that total mass correlates with halo mass inferred from indirect methods, as well as in numerical simulations. Our findings indicate that dark matter halos play a key role in shaping the baryonic content of galaxies and suggest that the timing of halo formation could significantly impact observed galaxy properties.

  Graham Smith (Uni. Birmingham/Uni. Vienna)

  Adventures of a gravitational lenser in Vienna

  I will summarise some scientific highlights from my Winter Semester in Vienna. Of course gravitational lensing and Rubin/LSST will feature, but so too will hunting for extragalactic planets, and probing quantum physics with gravitational lensing in the Solar system. I will also summarise recent progress in Rubin/LSST on-sky commissioning, but sadly am not allowed to show any data.