Category: Education

Multimessenger physics, gravitational waves and quantum gravity

Lecturer:  Antonia Micol Frassino (University of Alcalá & ICC University of Barcelona)

Abstract: Potential experimental signatures of the quantum nature of gravity are becoming a thriving field with a multitude of approaches in different directions. In this talk I will first overview the contribution of gravitational waves to multimessenger physics, their connection to black holes, and then focus on quantum signatures at gravitational wave detectors.

Lunes 15 de abril 2024, 12:10 horas, seminario de Física Nuclear (on line)

Soundscape of gravitational waves: a new tool to access the fundamental blocks of the Universe

Diego Blas is a researcher at UAB (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona) and IFAE (Instituto de Física de Altas Energías). His research interests are in theoretical physics, gravitation and cosmology.
Abstract: In this talk, current and future efforts to detect gravitational waves from Earth and space observatories will be reviewed. Diego will also emphasise the physical consequences of these searchers, in particular regarding fundamental physics (primordial cosmology, dark matter, modified gravity…)

Jueves 22 febrero, 12 horas online(GoogleMeet) y en el Seminario de Física Nuclear

 SKA: the mother of all radio telescopes

Miguel Á. Pérez Torres is a  research scientist at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC, Granada, Spain) and collaborator of the DFTUZ

 Abstract : The Square Kilometre Array (SKtA) project is an international effort to build the world’s largest radio telescope. The SKA is expected to conduct transformational science to improve our undersanding of the Universe and the laws of fundamental physics, monitoring the sky in unprecedented detail and mapping it many times faster than any current facility. The SKA  will not be a single telescope, but a collection of telescopes spread over long distances in the Southern Hemisphere. In this talk, I will give an overview of the SKA project and its science goals, which range from the cradle of life in exoplanets up to shedding light on the Epoch of Reionization and the Dark Ages of the Universe.

Jueves 19 de octubre , 12 horas, seminario de Física Nuclear

On-line

QCD axions as dark matter and their potential detection by gravitational microlensing

Jordi Miralda Escudé es ICREA Professor of Astrophysics Institut de Ciències del Cosmos

Abstract:The most distant single stars we have observed are in cases of extreme gravitational lensing magnification, when the source star crosses a lensing caustic of a cluster of galaxies that is affected by microlensing. This has enabled detections of stars at redshifts above unity with HST, and now with JWST to even fainter levels. If dark matter is smoothly distributed, microlensing should be caused only by intracluster stars, with rates and lightcurves of caustic crossings that have precise statistical predictions. Deviations from the shapes and other characteristics of these lightcurves are then a powerful probe to small-scale granularity in the dark matter, which is unavailable through other astronomical observations. In particular, if the QCD axion is present in the dark matter, minihalos predicted to have formed around the epoch of equalization can affect the lightcurves of stars that are supermagnified when crossing microlensing caustics.

Viernes 29 de septiembre, 12 horas, seminario de Física Nuclear . Online