On Monday, April 17, 2023, at 12:00 p.m. c.t., the next meeting of our Physics Colloquium will take place.
The speaker will be Dr. Dominik Elsässer (Technical University of Dortmund) on the topic: "The Very High Energy Gamma-Ray Window to the Cosmos.".
The atmosphere of our earth permits direct ground-based observations of photons from the cosmos only through two "windows" of transparency, one in the radio band, and one in the optical regime. During the last decades, we have however opened up an indirect third window, at energies of tens of GeV and beyond, which enables us to perform sensitive ground-based observations of the extreme universe using imaging air Cherenkov telescopes. These telescope systems have matured from purely experimental facilities to an integral part of multi-wavelength astronomy. In this colloquium talk, recent key scientific findings from the MAGIC and LST-1 telescopes located on La Palma (Canary Islands) will be presented. A focus will be on observations of transient energetic phenomena like thermonuclear novae in our Milky Way, rapid outbursts of the active nuclei of distant galaxies, and gamma-ray bursts. In addition, sensitive searches for the dark matter in the Universe will be discussed.
Abstract of the presentation by Dr. Dominik Elsässer.
The introduction will be made by Prof. Dr. Ralf-Jürgen Dettmar.
The faculty cordially invites all interested parties. The event will take place in lecture hall HNC 10 and hybrid via Zoom. Before the colloquium we offer coffee and cookies. This link will take you to the Zoom event (meetingID: 632 5520 9938, password: 526977). All dates of the Physics Colloquium can be found here.