Research
-
2022.10.20
Multi-faceted Views of Planetary Systems
Over the past couple decades, thousands of extra-solar planets have been discovered orbiting other stars. The exoplanets discovered to date exhibit a wide variety of orbital and compositional properties; most are dramatically different from the planets in our own Solar System. Our classical theories for the origins of planetary systems fail to account for the diversity of planets now known. In ...
More -
2022.10.13
Cosmology with Massive Neutrinos
Ghostly neutrino particles continue to bring surprises to fundamental physics, from their existence to the phenomenon of neutrino oscillation, which implies their nonzero masses. Their exact masses, among the most curious unknowns beyond the Standard Model of particle physics, can soon be probed by the joint analysis of upcoming cosmological surveys including the CSST, Rubin Observatory LSST, P...
More -
2022.09.29
Computational Imaging for Astronomy: from Exoplanets to Black Holes
Recent development in computational imaging has led to a series of great discoveries in astronomy. Integrated with advanced computational tools, modern telescopes continue pushing the boundaries of astronomical imaging, making it possible to observe many scientific phenomena in extreme conditions. In this talk, I will introduce a series of innovative computational imaging tools we have develope...
More -
2022.09.22
Black Hole and Magnetar Studies with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer
The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission was launched on December 9, 2021 and has observed a number of galactic and extragalactic X-ray sources. I report here on the IXPE observations of the High Mass X-Ray Binary Cyg X-1. IXPE detected a strong 2-8 keV polarization signal constraining the origin of the X-ray emission and the configuration of matter close to the Cyg X-1 black hole....
More -
2022.09.15
The Age of Discovery with JWST: Excavating the First Massive Black Holes and First Galaxies
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is opening a new window of the most distant universe and will unveil the early growth of supermassive black holes (BHs) in the first galaxies.The existence of supermassive massive BHs observed when the universe was younger than one billion years strongly constrains their formation pathway and provides a crucial hint to understand the coevolution between BHs...
More