Pizza lunch talks
The API pizza lunch talks are informal, weekly meetings where people give a half hour overview of their work (or perhaps a totally different topic), in an informal atmosphere. Pizza meeting is not a colloquium, but is intended to inform and stimulate discussion about the topic.
More information (including tips for speakers, contact points and the latest API articles & circulars).
Upcoming lunch talks
How to apply for stuff
Sera Markoff
Thursday 20 June 2013, 12:00. Location: C4.174
Past lunch talks
II: Revealing the Nature of the Ultraluminous X-ray sources in NGC 4861
Yi-Jung Yang
ULXs are defined as off-nuclear X-ray sources with isotropic luminosities much higher than the Eddington limit for a solar mass black hole. The physical nature of ULXs has been an enigma because of their high energy output. I will present our new results of ULXs in the metal-deficit blue compact dwarf galaxy NGC 4861.
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Thursday 13 June 2013, 12:30. Location: A1.04
I: A double Damped Lyman-alpha Absorber towards a z=5 gamma-ray burst
Olga Hartoog
The spectrum of the afterglow of gamma-ray burst 111008A reveals not only the host galaxy of this GRB, but also another foreground absorber. This system is classified as a Damped Ly-alpha system: because of the high neutral hydrogen column density, Lyman-alpha is detected as a very strong line with characteristic damping wings.
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Thursday 13 June 2013, 12:00. Location: A1.04
II: The Golden Ratio
Yuri Cavecchi
In this talk I am going to discuss about the mathematical and artistic origin of the Golden Ratio. According to classical standards that is the most beautiful proportion you can find and it has a mathematical definition!
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Thursday 6 June 2013, 12:30. Location: C4.174
I: New constraints on the giant lobe physics and turbulence-driven UHECR acceleration in Centaurus A
Sarka Wykes
Giant lobes of radio galaxies are potential sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays detected by large cosmic-ray experiments. Knowledge of the physical conditions -- the energetics, particle content and turbulent state -- in the lobes is vital for understanding high-energy particle acceleration in full.
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Thursday 6 June 2013, 12:00. Location: C4.174
R144 and DR1 - two extraordinary Wolf-Rayet stars
Frank Tramper
I will present recent results on two Wolf-Rayet stars, R144 in the LMC, and DR1 in IC1613. The first is the brightest Wolf-Rayet star in the LMC, and for that reason has long be suspected to be a binary, although radial velocity variations have not been observed in earlier research. Using multi-epoch X-Shooter observations, we have now identified R144 as a double-lined spectroscopic binary.
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Short talk given by Martin Heemskerk
Thursday 30 May 2013, 12:00. Location: C4.174
Run!!
Thijs van Putten
I will answer the three major questions that I have heard asked many times regarding distance running: 'Why would anyone want to run in the first place?', 'Why do the East-Africans always win?' and last but not least, 'How do I become faster than Martin in 5 easy steps?'.
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Short talk given by Gijs Molenaar
Thursday 23 May 2013, 12:00. Location: C4.174
Stars above the waterline? NL astronomy until 2020
Ralph Wijers
NL astronomy has recently produced its decadal plan for the period until 2020, and presented it to the government. I will discuss some main points of this plan, and where it will take us in the future.
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Short talk given by Danai Antonopoulou
Thursday 2 May 2013, 12:00. Location: C4.174
Power Colours: Power Spectral Classification without Fitting
Lucy Heil
I will present a model independent method of characterising the variability properties throughout an outburst, by comparing ratios of temporal power over different frequency ranges. We can use this to demonstrate not only the similarities between all of the the LMXBs, but also the persistent High Mass X-ray binary Cygnus X-1.
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Short talk given by Hugues Sana
Thursday 25 April 2013, 12:00. Location: C4.174
Blasts from the past and their future
Alexander van der Horst
Radio observations of gamma-ray bursts provide a unique way to probe the fastest ejecta in stellar explosions and their direct environment. I will discuss how the radio regime compliments the coverage of the broadband gamma-ray burst spectrum.
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Short talk given by Antonia Rowlinson
Thursday 11 April 2013, 12:00. Location: C4.174