Events
Astronomy Colloquium (15.02/2023)：Precision astronomy with gravitational lensing
Description
Title: Precision astronomy with gravitational lensing
Speaker：Alessandro Sonnenfeld
Abstract: We are living in a golden age of extragalactic astronomy: observations over broad wavelength ranges, wide fields and unprecedented depth are allowing us to uncover important details on the formation and evolution of galaxies. Yet, key quantitative aspects on the properties of galaxies remain not well constrained. The most important such aspects are the stellar mass, the star formation efficiency (how much of the initial reservoir of gass is turned into stars), and the dark matter distribution of galaxies. Lack of precise knowledge on these quantities is limiting our progress in both galaxy evolution and cosmology. Gravitational lensing is one of the most reliable tools to measure galaxy masses at cosmological distances, and therefore offers a solution to this problem. I will describe the state of the art of gravitational lensing observations, both in the strong and weak regime, present ongoing projects, and discuss future prospects with data from upcoming surveys.
Bio: I did my undergraduate and master studies at the University of Pisa. In 2015 I obtained my PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I was a postdoc at Kavli IPMU (Japan) from three years, then I was a Marie Curie fellow and a NOVA fellow at Leiden Observatory, until last summer. Since last December I’m a faculty member at SJTU. My research interests are the structure and evolution of massive galaxies and the nature of dark matter. I’ve been awarded an NSFC Excellent Young Scholars Fund (Overseas) grant and a Shanghai Talents Program (Overseas) grant.
Time: 14:00-15:00PM, 15/Feb, Wednesday
Venue: Room 508 (large seminar room), Department of Astronomy
